The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Coffee Lounge => Topic started by: john and helen on April 26, 2013, 08:08:03 pm
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as above..who has what..being of the male species..big boys toys are a must.... :innocent:
i have told helen without any doubts, we will need a quad ..she thinks a small tractor would be better..i think both would be the best option..not new ones...
what do you use around the SH ?
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My feet !
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We have an elderly 75hp tractor, very useful, but in winter without doubt the most useful thing is the equally ancient and much despised by proper farm workers, ancient diesel 6 wheeled polaris quad (or should that be hex? :-)) it has a truck back and so I can carry out bales of hay, water and feed to all the animals. Only the deepest snow defeats it. It is slow, no good for rounding up beasts but we can run it on our red diesel so no need to fill up with jerry cans.
In truth with 40 acres and several species and an exposed location, we need both the tractor and the quad.
Whether we need the JCB OH has his eye on I'm not sure..... :thinking:
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same as Russ :) oh and a wheelbarrow for plum harvesting...several journeys but keeps us fit....
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Not got a small holding but who knows :innocent: anyway, what I really really want is one of those little carts to pull, then I can pull logs, veg, tools etc around all day and steve can pull me when I get tired :innocent:
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We have a compact tractor & trailer. No need for a quad although if we had bigger livestock we might - probably quicker than having to hook up the trailer. We mostly use ours for mowing - virtually all of our eight acres is mown grassland - not quite lawn like but we do our best. We have the option for a front loader and the three point connection at the back for ploughs etc. if we need them (have considered both already). Certainly don't need anything to get around on and personally I tend to just use the wheel barrow except when mowing but husband likes towing stuff around in the trailer.
H
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I have a two wheel barrow for horse sh-t transport could never afford or want so called boys toys, I did all that when I was a boy. The plain reality of life no frills or fancy stuff for me. :sheep: :chook: :horse: :farmer:
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An ancient David Brown for heavy work such as the baler, mowing, tedding, lifting stumps etc, a Siromer for light tractor work, ploughing, rotavating, trailer etc, a Land Rover Series 1 80" and a Series 3 LWB for fetching timber and supplies, carrying sheep in emergencies, towing trailers on baling day, carrying logs, taking grandchildren on safari etc (the Series 1 also towed a friend's Hi-Lux the other day when it conked out :thumbsup: )
We don't have a quad and don't want one.
But mostly we use wheel barrows for shifting stuff - hay bales, rocks, logs, tools, soil, dogs, straw, strainers and stobs (precarious).
We have one tractor and one Land Rover each :roflanim: Ridiculous :eyelashes:
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A couple of wheelbarrows , and one of those 4 wheeled mesh sided trolleys with drop-down sides ( best tool ) powered by Gabi (even better :hug: ) Subaru forester with an old cut down rice box trailer for the heavy work , takes 2 hestons of hay or straw.
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We've got an old Ford tractor (used for carting whole trailers of timber and pig poo or connecting to the log splitter) and a quad (handy when it's going ::)) but by far the most used and adaptable vehicle is an old beat-up Toyota Hilux - it pulls trailers, carries piglets/weaners/straw & feed in the back and runs on recycled veggie oil :thumbsup:
I think it depends on what you'll be doing, as to what toys you'll need ;)
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My feet !
the same, tho I use my feet not rusty's.
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Wheelburrow and a wide hay burrow that I haul up the hill to run back with 2 meter logs ( keeps the weight down). We have a 20 year Citroen for collecting feed but otherwise FEET. It is rare to see a large 4x4 in rural France - cattle and sheep farmers use small vans or their tractors despite the severe winters and our local topography.
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We have a quad and a trailor and the best buy ever! Moving hay, straw, poo, fence posts or just anything really. Makes life much easier and would not want to be without it now :thumbsup: Oh and loads of wheelbarrows too....
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I have a 69 horse power Case tractor for bailing, turning, topping and harrowing and an old Escort van with grass track tyres on it to carry stuff around such as my fencing tools, saws and in winter used as a feed store for sheep cake.
Cheap second hand van would be about £300 (mot failer) but brilliant as a run around.
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in france i had a 64hp SAME tractor..that thing was awesome... it had a back box which was great for lugging the rubbish from the roofs out and the front bucket was so handy
i guess a lot of it depends on what ground you have , i would love some woodland as well as a paddock..
i am so looking forward to changing my lifestyle... i know it will be hard work...but i don't mind that..
and its something i have wanted to do for years ...
i love laying floors and creating things..but i just hate the flooring world..building sites are just rush rush rush..there is no time to take pride in what your doing
to be able to grow things, rear animals for the table, do up a barn..thats right up my street..and the best bit will be having helen to share it all
one other thing i want to do is... invite units who have children with disabilities to come over and muck in one way or another..even if its just to stroke a pig... ile never forget when i was young and dad took us to a farm.. my little sister annie got to stroke a lamb... she is 55 now and has never forgot that..she has a mental age of 5.... funny how the small things to us can be so massive to others
of coarse..a quad bike is going to be massive for me :roflanim: :roflanim: I know..i am a big kid too :roflanim:
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Cool John ( as my kids would say). I hope that things turn out as you would like them too. To give like that you would mean the world to recipients and will enrich your life so much. Which I could come up with a way to to those less fortunate than us. You may have even inspired me. what part of France did you live in?
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We are on the list for visits from children of Chernobyl. They come to Evesham for 'fresh air holidays' each year and look for places to visit. There might be something similar near where you are or where you end up living :)
Last year I found several local businesses willing to sponsor and provide craft activities, finger buffet food and we had friends offer to do facepainting etc. The children are then able to meet the animals, collect eggs from the chickens and so on :)
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We have a quad bike and trailer but the most useful is my muck truck, little 1/4 ton dumper, great for mucking out and poo picking the fields as it pulls me up the hills. Also have a Mitsubishi pickup, a livestock trailer and a horse trailer.
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I have a landrover Defender 90 300TD.
One of the farms I graze has a Massey 135 that I use sometimes for topping, harrowing etc.
That is all.
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First 2 years feet and a brilliant wheely 'bin' thing. but 8 tons of logs up a hill (and getting the scudo van stuck a couple of times) has finally convinced us to shell out £400 for a quad. Ah the joy! We only have 12 aces so couldnt justify a tractor :-[
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a question we are still trying to answer ..... 16acres of slope ..... even a few hedging tools in a wheelbarrow is a real trek back up the hill.... very wet so no old vans for us. with a further 12 acres a possibility a tractor seems to have moved up from second place. needs a cab (its Wales afterall!) and think a loader could be an advantage. Still think the quad probably just as useful on wet land to just move stuff A to B .... so maybe both? ..... If I agree to both then he can't argue about a few more legs .. can he??? :innocent:
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Cool John ( as my kids would say). I hope that things turn out as you would like them too. To give like that you would mean the world to recipients and will enrich your life so much. Which I could come up with a way to to those less fortunate than us. You may have even inspired me. what part of France did you live in?
just give it a go... see what happens
our place is in gipcy ..allier 03... we loved it out there,
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A JCB. :excited:
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Wheel barrow and sack trolley.
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in france i had a 64hp SAME tractor..that thing was awesome... it had a back box which was great for lugging the rubbish from the roofs out and the front bucket was so handy
i guess a lot of it depends on what ground you have , i would love some woodland as well as a paddock..
i am so looking forward to changing my lifestyle... i know it will be hard work...but i don't mind that..
and its something i have wanted to do for years ...
i love laying floors and creating things..but i just hate the flooring world..building sites are just rush rush rush..there is no time to take pride in what your doing
to be able to grow things, rear animals for the table, do up a barn..thats right up my street..and the best bit will be having helen to share it all
one other thing i want to do is... invite units who have children with disabilities to come over and muck in one way or another..even if its just to stroke a pig... ile never forget when i was young and dad took us to a farm.. my little sister annie got to stroke a lamb... she is 55 now and has never forgot that..she has a mental age of 5.... funny how the small things to us can be so massive to others
of coarse..a quad bike is going to be massive for me :roflanim: :roflanim: I know..i am a big kid too :roflanim:
John, look up care farms - we are trying to do same ;D ;D
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Nice one FiB :thumbsup:
let me know how you get on... :thumbsup:
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Our best vehicle is the 8wheel 25hp Argo cat, goes all but anywhere< even accross rivers and ponds! though it's sh**e in any form of deep snow
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My dad bought an old knackered grey gold ferguson 35 for our small holding, that was when I was 11 when I learned to drive on it. I'm now 44 and its still going strong and I love it. When I eventually bought my own run down small holding 6 years ago, I bought a job 3cx to help with renovations. I could not have anticipated how useful it would be, if you need stress relief after a day at work just get on your jcb and go bulldoze something. Definitely the most fun you can have with your clothes on !
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Our best piece of kit is a JCB Loadall 526 Farm Special which was originally bought JUST to build the house and then to be sold on but 9yrs down the line we've still got it as its so useful. Clears the drive & roads in winter, bangs in fence posts, relocates pig arks, flattens lumpy ground, shifts humungous pig poo heaps and pallets of pig feed, lifts me up to the top of hedges to get those hard to get sloes and clean windows, wouldn't be without it.
mandy :pig:
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why have you got windows on the top of hedges?
:innocent:
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No smallholding yet but we have, Discovery 2 & a 1972 Series 3 lwb landy's.
Both excellent in bad weather to get to the allotment's to sort the animal's.
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80hp 4wd Renault tractor
Suzuki King quad 400
53 plate disco
w reg berlingo van.
Bicycles in varying states of disrepair.
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One night last summer my mate Dave Hawkeye and I rescued this. We towed it home with Daves Grey Fergi on a fixed towing bar.
(http://i1200.photobucket.com/albums/bb334/kcooper2011/farmyard1445.jpg)
I sat on the non existant seat and was the steersmen. Brought tears to my eyes I can tell you ! ::)
(http://i1200.photobucket.com/albums/bb334/kcooper2011/farmyard1443.jpg)
Half way home, the tyre came off the rusty rim. That was fun, but we just carried on. :innocent:
(http://i1200.photobucket.com/albums/bb334/kcooper2011/farmyard1444.jpg)
Once home, over the next few days, we got all the useful bits off it and the remainder went off to the scrapyard. Like most people, I love a bargain and we got it for nowt. :excited:
The bits that we got from it will help to keep this, my pride and joy going.
(http://i1200.photobucket.com/albums/bb334/kcooper2011/farmyard1169.jpg)
(http://i1200.photobucket.com/albums/bb334/kcooper2011/farmyard1167.jpg)
(http://i1200.photobucket.com/albums/bb334/kcooper2011/farmyard1168.jpg)
Now if I could just get that super deal with a cricket club beginning with 'A' wink.gif