Tractor

Tractor was Originally Posted on May 14, 2010 by lavarock

Twice now I have put on the defensive because of my farm; once by a friend and once by a family member.

“Why did you need to spend $20,000 on a tractor and mower?” they ask. “Ahhh, to cut the grass and weeds?” I reply. They still don’t get it.

I own almost 9 acres of land, with an acre or two of woods and the rest cleared for coffee and other plantings. The coffee trees are spaced 5 feet apart in rows and the rows are spaced 10 feet from each other. These 10 feet allows you to drive a truck or tractor and mower between each row.

Many people here on the island grow their coffee in rock, while many of us have a ground cover between the trees and rows. Coffee grows fine in rock, but the grass and other vegetative material between trees and rows helps hold moisture and adds organic material to the ground. Thus it helps to have grasses or cover crop growing between the rows at least. We often throw clipping or cuttings there, to be broken up by a flail mower. This helps create soil rather than rock.

I used to own a $1500 riding mower that lasted a few months before it needed repair. Very soon it was obvious that it was just not up to the task and had no traction at all. My rows were too rocky to have a blade within inches of the ground. Some of these rocks are the size of a football!

Along comes a real tractor and a flail mower. The flail mower is a drum with hammers on the end. Imagine a letter “J” where the flat top is a hammer that whooshes through the weeds and grass. They are heavy enough not to nick like a blade would when they hit rocks. The mower is chosen to reasonably fit between the rows, however in my case I still need to make 2 passes per row to get all the material cut. Some of the tall grasses I am cutting are 6 to 10 feet tall and look like bamboo at the bottom. A regular mower can’t cut that. Of course, the hope is that as I get it cut often, the stuff won’t grow that tall. Still, lately we have had a LOT of rain and regular wild grasses are a foot long in just a week or so!

Besides cutting weeds and grass with the mower, the tractor itself comes in quite handy. I have knocked down trees with the front end loader, carried equipment to the top of the property. I moved considerable dirt and soil around with it and also loaded the truck bed from the ground without needing to manually shovel it.

When I had to move a 700 pound item out of the back of my truck, I used a chain and the front loader to lift the item, then drove the truck out from under the load and dropped the item on the ground.

To press the point a bit, I can also drive a tractor in a local parade; which I could not, if I didn’t own one