Looking at Tractors

We wanted a tractor, we needed a tractor, my husband did a lot of research on tractors...all kinds of tractors.  We have a pond, we new we wanted to be able to expand it or make it deeper, so we looked at attachments for that.  We wanted to fence the property so we looked at a post hole digging attachment too.  The ground is soft in a lot of areas and when it rains it causes it to wash out in spots and makes the ground very uneven, we wanted a way to be able to smooth it out or level it.  When they constructed the pond, they pushed dirt into piles and covered the bases of a lot of the trees around the perimeter of the pond and shooting range, we wanted a way to move the dirt away from the trees.  A lot of the trees they removed were piled up and we wanted a tractor large enough to drag them out or put them on a trailor.  When we went shopping for a tractor, we kept all these things in mind...oh, and I wanted to be able to till a garden plot too!  You might be surprised how expensive a tractor big enough to do all that is, how much the attachments are.  My husband went by a couple of places to look at tractors and priced them out, but he wanted me to be able to use the tractor and change out the attachments by myself if needed.  He though that a John Deer tractor would be the easiest for me to use.

We drove up to Texarkana to a John Deer dealership?  I don't know if that is what it is really called, but they sell tractors like a car dealership does.  We talked with a salesmen and went out and looked at a few models that he thought would do the job. I must say, I talk with a Texas drawl and I know that I don't talk real fast and some people may think I talk really slow.  I met someone who has an even slower speech and more of a drawl than I do!  It seemed like it took him forever to get his words out and there were a few times that even I wanted to grab him by the tongue and pull the words out for him!  After everything was said and done we got a quote on what we thought we would need.  After our heart attacks were over, we decided to leave and discuss if we should even bother trying to qualify for a lone to get a tractor.  We decided that we would have to make do without a $30,000+ tractor, and on the way home went and bought a John Deer lawn tractor instead...at least that way we could mow the yard without killing ourselves.

We have been keeping our eyes open for a good deal on a used tractor though, so far any of the ones we could afford are so old that it has not happened yet.  We do have several neighbors with tractors and one neighbor who is willing to dig a garden for me.

Our little John Deer lawn tractor

Oh my! There Is Something in The Kitchen

I told you before, I am new at living in the country.  Well, there are a lot of animals and bugs out here that I am not use to having around.  We never exterminated when we bought this house, I am not sure how much good it would do anyway.  I don't like using a bunch of chemicals, we have cats and dogs and I am really trying to phase out as much poisonous stuff as possible, for not only the animals sake...but ours too.

When we bought the country house, we had a lot of cleaning to do.  There were signs of a variety of bugs...OK, dead carcasses of bugs all over the place.  There were also mouse droppings.  We thought they may have exterminated before they started showing the house, but then didn't clean afterward.  After out first trip out here I brought bug spray with us, lots of bug spray.  We found big rat traps out in storage, there were traps under the sink...there was a reason for those traps.  I did not like the idea of having rats or mice in the house we were going to move into.  We didn't see them at first, but every once in awhile we would see a flash of something out of the corner of our eye.  We had cats at the other house, but we weren't ready to bring them to the country house.  We could not leave anything out without mice getting into it.  They ate our cereal, they got into the bag of dog food...they stole it and hid it actually.  How do I know?  When we moved the cabinets to rearrange them...there were piles of dog food underneath them.

We made a trip into town and bought mouse traps, I don't like traditional mouse traps...don't like to take dead mice off the nasty things.  We got glue traps and little traps that you can throw away...we caught several mice using both.  I think the mice got wise to us though...we didn't catch any for a long time.  But after we got totally moved in Prada, our Bengal cat, still sits and waits in the kitchen for them to come out.  Prada will stay in the kitchen for hours, I don't know what she hears in there...but my husband heard a commotion one night and went in there and Prada had a hold of a mouse...in her mouth.  I guess she had never caught one before, or she thought she was in trouble...she dropped the mouse when my husband walked into the kitchen and it ran away.

Do we still have mice?  I am pretty sure we do...but I think they pretty much stay in the shed now.  I had some sunflower seeds for the birds stored out there in a bag and went to the shed to get the seed...and the bag was half gone and there ere sunflower seed hulls in a big pile next to the bag.  I guess I am going to have to get some more traps.  

This is Prada, maybe she will get better at being a mouser...but she is really good at catching bugs!