loggin, this dilemma came home to me again today when I went to one of our locations I hadn't been in a couple of months. After a winter ice storm there were many LARGE branches down in a 25 acre pecan orchard. (not part of what we mow) This is the perfect cleanup job for the Mahindra with the grapple, gathering these large branches and carrying them to the brush pile. But none of the guys will run that tractor with the grapple... why would that scare someone??? So, I'll probably run over on the weekend and it will just take me maybe half an hour where otherwise a man would spend an entire day or more dragging these by hand, cutting up the ones too big to drag, loading in a trailer and unloading them on the brush pile.
My employees are very good employees in every regard except that tractor and for some reason it scares them. And getting good, reliable, honest, self-motivated workers these days is not easy! So, I'd rather replace a tractor than try to replace these guys.
Yeah.. I hear ya..