This winter was (is) brutal. Being our fourth winter since we had owned our land, we thought we were prepared. We were not.
For the past 3 winters, and the majority of this one, we had been managing our driveway with my dad’s old plow truck. It was his regular truck for many years, and it’s showing its age. It is a 1997 F-350 with a straight blade plow.
The plow truck never really was ideal for our situation. Don’t get me wrong, I am extremely grateful that we had the opportunity to inherit it. That said, a straight blade just isn’t suited for the length of our driveway. A v-plow would have been much more suitable.
The problem is, at some point you’ve reached the apex of the snow banks and you simply cannot lift the snow above it any more. At that point, you’re forced to either a.) painfully push all of the banks back, one blade width at a time or, b.) have a v-plow that can push snow in a straight distance far enough to pile it up.
Since option b didn’t apply to us, we had to resort to option a. This led to the discovery that the old plow truck was beginning to suffer from some transmission problems. Mainly, seal leaks.
We had known that the truck was nearing the end of its service life; every time I look at it something else falls off. We had been researching and preparing to purchase more equipment, but that always seemed like it was in the future.
Comparing the options, we could either invest in a v-plow for dad’s truck, buy a different plow truck altogether, or buy a tractor with the necessary implements to move snow.
A new plow for dad’s truck didn’t make a whole lot of sense as we’d still have to invest more to repair the truck itself. A whole new truck didn’t make a lot of sense as that would just be more equipment to maintain (we’d still need a tractor for other purposes). Obviously, buying a tractor was our best option.
The tractor that we had been researching was a John Deere 3033R. We had it outfitted with a front mount snowblower, a back blade, and a factory heated cab. Yeah, the bees knees. Only bummer was the price tag. At around $35,000 used we knew we’d have to save up for it.
And then the proverbial sh!t hit the fan
We got buried. Stranded. For lack of a better term, we were screwed. In three hours of 30mph wind across the field, our entire driveway was buried in three feet of snowdrifts. There was no way that we could plow ourselves out, and no way for someone to plow their way in.
Our only recourse was to hire a loader to come in and dig our way out – to the tune of $600. That was the catalyst that forced us to accept alternative options.
Long preamble aside, we ended up finding a tractor. This John Deere 2320 was situated about three hours away from us, but it had a soft sided cab to keep us dry from blowing snow, a front mount snowblower, a loader, and bolt on pallet forks. It was a little smaller than what I had originally wanted, but it met our basic requirements.
Oh, and we saved over $20,000 by not buying the other one. Not that we can’t some day if we find this one to be too small. We can always trade this one in and upgrade if our needs grow or we find this one to be unsuitable.
Having owned the tractor now for a couple of weeks, we are both relieved and excited for the opportunities. Relieved knowing that we (hopefully) won’t have to feel helplessly stranded again, and excited for all of the projects we can now accomplish. All of the backbreaking, laborious things we had been putting off we can now actually set out to do.
Oh, and since we bought the tractor I have blown snow exactly twice. That’s right, almost instantly after purchasing it spring decided to arrive and melt everything. So you’re welcome – we ended winter.