Sunday, February 6, 2011

Need to make some farmy type purchases

Well it is farmy type purchases to us. Perhaps just acreage type purchases.
  1. Trailer - for clearing bush and general maintenance on 4 acres.
  2. A ride-on mower that can deal with long wiry grass.
  3. Slasher to keep the weeds down.
  4. Chain saw (this make me a little nervous as my husband needs his hands to work :))
  5. Big axe, and wood splitter
  6.  A whole lot of wire and posts to make some fenced yards for the chookens.
Then the children have their own list - which will mostly go unfulfilled



  1. threehorses
  2. some cows
  3. A stable
  4. an elephant
  5. lambs/goats
  6. some ducks.
Sadly the for them the ducks and lambs/goats were the only concession. We are considering two muschovy ducks. Apparently they eat mainly flies (tick) they don't quack (tick) they hatch chickens eggs and duck eggs well (tick). So we plan on a pair and hopefully ending up with some ducklings in the near future.
The lambs or goats we haven't decided on a breed yet. I was hoping if we have goats we could milk them so apparently we need to get them young.

p.s. as an aside Yasi has been so devastating to an area we left behind just over 12 months ago. I thought I'd pop some holiday snaps as I am sure Mission Beach and Tully will need your tourism after the clean-up.



It wasa gorgeous place to visit 18 months ago ( a great winter holiday 28 degrees most days) it will be again.
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5 comments:

  1. JennyFebruary 6, 2011 at 12:53 PM

    Sounds a little like our list when we first moved. Still need a trailer but one great thing we recently acquired was a weed sprayer thingy which hold 55 litres and sits in the trailer of the ride on. It has made life so much easier for Hubby to manage the fence lines etc. He just sits on the ride on and cruises around spraying the weeds. Let me know if you want more info on it. ;-)

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  2. TimberandtinFebruary 6, 2011 at 1:06 PM

    Oh yes please Jenny!! We have very little idea of what we are doing, but hopefully will learn as we go.

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  3. VicFebruary 6, 2011 at 11:20 PM

    OK so here's my two cents (after our whole 6 months experience of acreage living and maintaining!)
    *I'd be considering a small tractor with a slasher attachment, especially cause the block is hilly
    *if you go the ride on route, get the biggest cutting deck you can afford, makes the job so much quicker. Ours is 42inch. Next door have 30-something and they're always mowing!
    *get ramps straightaway to get the mower up on the trailer for servicing/repairs. Ours broke over Xmas and nowhere was open to buy ramps but the repair place was and they don't have a pick-up service so we had to wait ages to get it to the shop.
    *buy it from somewhere local that can service it. Makes life much easier
    *by slasher, do you mean whipper snipper? We got a 4 stroke Honda that came with slasher blades and it is fabulous for getting through long grass and overgrown weeds.
    *with the fencing I'd be doing star pickets and wire until you definitely know where you want things to be. They're cheaper and easier to move than timber posts and you'll probably want to move things around until you've lived in the place for a while. They don't look as pretty as timber posts though.

    One thing that is not on your list and is on our to-buy list is a big chipper/mulcher. We lost a tree in a big storm and it's just waiting to be turned into a bonfire but it'd be so much more productive to turn it into mulch for the gardens.

    Hope that essay helps! xx

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  4. TimberandtinFebruary 6, 2011 at 11:43 PM

    Ok cool chipper/mulcher on list.
    Ramps now on list too. Love that more expenses keep popping up! 42inch is good to know too.
    Yeah I think we will only have about 1.5 acres to mow so are hoping that we might be able to make do with a ride-on at least in the short term.

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  5. JennyFebruary 8, 2011 at 1:12 AM

    Hello,

    Jens hubby here. Apparently in blog would I don't have an identity other than "Hubby". Jen asked me to put in my two bobs worth so here goes.

    1. The biggest lesson we have both learned is don't skimp on tools. Pay for the good equipment upfront so it lasts. It hurts the budget but trust me it save a lot of time and money in the long run. Maintaining 4 acres uses very different tools to what you would use in your backyard. Buy Quality!
    2. Must have tools would include Chainsaw, Whipper Snipper and Ride-on. These need to be powerful enough for the job. Under powered tools will drive you mad. My choice of brand after trying different models is Sthil. If you want more detail on this let me know and I will email you more detail.
    3. Ride-on Mowers can be complicated. It all depends on terrain and the type of property. If you have flat ground with trees, I would go a zero turn ride-on. If hilly then the zero-turn is no good. I would buy at least a 22 HP mower. If hilly then I would go 26HP with a 42 Inch deck. We bought a Husqvarna and we are very impressed with it. Easy to fix and service and tough as old nails.
    4. A trailer for the ride on is fantastic. Approx $250 and we use it all the time for taking tools around the property, rocks, mulch etc. You can also use them as a wheel barrow.
    5. We bought a mulcher for $1200 and never use it. You are allowed to burn off on acreage without a permit. The fire can be a maximum of 2 cubic meters. Thats big! All I do is call the local fire station and let them know we are burning off. Most garden waster you can use as mulch anyway and burn off the big stuff. A mulcher that can chip/mulch the big stuff is very expensive.
    6. A weed sprayer is very useful. You can tow one behind the mower in the trailer. You can buy them on Ebay and have it delivered in 2 days. Search EBay for "RAPID SPRAY NATIONAL DISTRIBUTOR". Highly recommend them

    Thats it. If you want more detail on brands and reasons, feel free to email us.

    Cheers
    Jens Hubby

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