Tractor Sizing B2320 FEL

[varmint]

Reading this is interesting... I didn't have the luxury of shopping around for my tractor- I had 800' of lane with 40+ of snow on it that didn't seem to be going anywhere, and a budget of $7-8 thousand. I'd cleared a path so we could walk out with a borrowed snow blower, and we'd anticipated the blizzard and parked a car out, but being able to drive to the house seemed like a good idea. I had plans to be able to plow and grade the lane, and put in scores of wooden fence posts. Didn't need a mower. I guess I got lucky in that I found a really clean used, but older, B8200 gear tractor, from a guy who seemed knowledgable and who had obviously taken great care of his equipment. He'd used the tractor for putting in his own property's fencing, and gravel lanes. It came with a 4' loader, a serious quality 5' JD rear blade, and a post hole digger with a 9" auger. Turf tires, so I could drive over the lawn without tearing it up. Just what I needed. It had only 490 hours, and careful inspection by an novice, me, told me everything was as he said. I've had it about 9 years, and other than adding power steering and some guages, and changing fluids, it has performed perfectly whenever I needed it. It has only 19 HP, which would be a limit if I were to add a snowblower, but by gearing down, it can do whatever I need, like pulling logs or pushing snow. With chains and the 4WD, I can plow as needed. Sure, I'd love a cab on those wet cold nights with blowing snow, but since I only use it about 20 hours a year, I gotta tough it out. I should add I learned how to use a tractor (my only previous experience was with riding garden tractors- I'm not a farm boy) when the guy delivered it out where the road was plowed, and I cleared my way home.
I think a bigger tractor would be wrong for my needs, to hard to manuever around, but a little more power/ hydraulic capacity would be nice. One benefit of a smaller diesel is fuel consumption- I can run it plowing all day for a few gallons of diesel. At $4 a gal, and homeowner use, that's good.