Building our house in the woods: Tractor

I realized I needed some equipment to move all this wood, so a tractor seemed like the obvious solution. After looking into it a bit, I settled on a used Kubota L3130 with a front end loader and about 950 hours on the clock that i got from a local seller in March/April 2010. Here it is when I got it (along with the used trailer I got at the same time)

It had the quick-attach feature on the loader, so you can use any normal skid steer/bo9bcat equipment there, so I picked up a set of quick-attach pallet forks to help load brush and haul logs. You can see it peeking out from behind the tractor. The guy I bought it from knew the local Kubota dealer real well, as it turned out he worked for Kubota as the regional rep. They both said the forks would work great for what I needed so I gave it a try. It did work but I would not call it great. The following year (2011) I got what I should have got at the start - a quick-attach grapple for the loader. Here's what that looks like. Now THIS is the right tool for moving brush, logs and general land clearing work!

I had the tractor for about 3 years, and it worked quite well overall, but I was finding that I was power limited as it was the smallest motor in the series. With that, starting construction this year, and a couple other factors, I decided to upgrade to one in the same series but with a much more power (52 vs 32 hp) and higher lift capacity, plus a cab. This one is brand new and is another Kubota L5240. I got the cab because: (1.) I'm not getting any younger, and (2.) snow clearing will be a major use over the long haul and (3.) I will keep it for a lifetime. Here is the new one that arrived around Memorial Day this year (2013).