Since we bought the farm we have been doing pretty much everything manually. That includes my loading our little cart up after every visit to the feed store and dragging it across the backyard and pasture carrying 3-4 fifty pound bags of feed. Not fun.
We finally decided enough was enough and took my dad up on his offer to get his old, currently unused four wheeler.
First we had to figure out a way to get it here. I finally got a trailer hitch for my Element (I was ridiculously excited about this). Big Onion was a real trooper, crawling under my car in the almost hundred degree heat to install it.
Of course the installation did not go smoothly. He fought to make that thing line up with the holes in my car for about an hour before I had the idea of pulling out my car's dinky jack and using the weight of the car to get everything in place. Total worked. (MacGyver with Boobs to the rescue again!)
We drove over to my brother's about an hour and a half away and loaded up the bike. This was my little car's first time pulling anything, so I was a nervous wreak the whole way home. Thank goodness Big Onion drove.
Once again, things went less than smoothly when we got the bike home. No joy rides through the pastures for us. The thing was totally dead. It had been sitting unused for almost a year. Big Onion ended up replacing the battery and the air filter and rebuilding the carburetor. He also had to tighten some things, loosen others, straighten something that was bent....is my lack of mechanical knowledge obvious yet? That man is damn handy to have around.
The bike is finally up and running! It still has it's minor issues, but Big Onion has taken it as a personal challenge to get the thing running smoothly.
Yesterday we used it to 4 fifty pound bags of feed and a bale of hay all at the SAME TIME! It was amazing.
That bike is a beast too. You can get a bushhog and tillers that attach to the back, a much more affordable option for us since a tractor is just way, way out of our price range right now. It has a towing capacity almost as high as my car. It can even tow it's own trailer! It has a winch on the front and rides smoother than any bike I've ever driven. This thing is going to be a life saver when we start fencing the back pasture next month.
That will be very handy to have, you really don't realize just how much you needed something like that until you get one.
ReplyDeleteWe opted for one like this about 15 years ago:
http://www.deere.com/wps/dcom/en_US/products/equipment/gator_utility_vehicles/traditional_utility_vehicles/t_series/ts_4x2/ts4x2.page?
They are great for carrying things around in. Can throw saws in it when needing to go out and clear some fire lanes, throw me a ice chest and fishing tackle in if I want to fish one of the ponds or throw all my target stuff in when I head to my shooting range.