New Landowner, Tractor options

[Cascadian]

I recently purchased 6 acres of forest backed land in the Pacific NW and it's time to decide on a tractor to start shaping it. 80% of the property was left "natural" over the last 10 years so there's lot's of downed trees/branches and thick, out of control blackberries all over. It's slightly sloped with a grade of around 5% with some steeper sections mixed in. Big projects include repairing existing drainage ditches and likely building more, A redesign of the sloped area in front of the house including ripping out the juniper shrubbery and terracing with rock walls. ANother big project is to improve drainage around the barn as the hill slopes down right to the edge of the barn wall creating a natural path for water (and we get alot of it here in the NW). This will also require a retaining wall due to the steepness of the slope which likely requires a backhoe. That covers the big ones for now.. So to get some of the berries and pasture under control I've rented a B21 a couple times for brushogging and clearing and it worked great but with only 21hp, I want more power (especially at PTO) for tilling, drilling, hogging, etc. So here is the basic laundry list of jobs I would be performing:

* Clearing blackberries and downed trees
* pulling sml-med (3"-12") sized alder stumps
* leveling/grading/raking/tilling/seeding pasture
* moving dirt/yard debris
* digging post holes (roughly 300)
* brushhogging pasture (lawn will be cut with present riding mower)
* moving earth, placing rocks for walls - BH required
* drainage digging - BH required

I guess my big question is - should I buy large enough to carry a worthy backhoe or should I hire that out go with a smaller (or at least minus BH) tractor? I would like to keep in $12-15k range, but not sure that's practical for a decent TLB.

Also, Anyone having personal experience with the local Kubota, Cub, JD, and NHC dealers in the Seattle/Everett area please respond.

Thanks for your input!
Timbo

 

[Cascadian]

I recently purchased 6 acres of forest backed land in the Pacific NW and it's time to decide on a tractor to start shaping it. 80% of the property was left "natural" over the last 10 years so there's lot's of downed trees/branches and thick, out of control blackberries all over. It's slightly sloped with a grade of around 5% with some steeper sections mixed in. Big projects include repairing existing drainage ditches and likely building more, A redesign of the sloped area in front of the house including ripping out the juniper shrubbery and terracing with rock walls. ANother big project is to improve drainage around the barn as the hill slopes down right to the edge of the barn wall creating a natural path for water (and we get alot of it here in the NW). This will also require a retaining wall due to the steepness of the slope which likely requires a backhoe. That covers the big ones for now.. So to get some of the berries and pasture under control I've rented a B21 a couple times for brushogging and clearing and it worked great but with only 21hp, I want more power (especially at PTO) for tilling, drilling, hogging, etc. So here is the basic laundry list of jobs I would be performing:

* Clearing blackberries and downed trees
* pulling sml-med (3"-12") sized alder stumps
* leveling/grading/raking/tilling/seeding pasture
* moving dirt/yard debris
* digging post holes (roughly 300)
* brushhogging pasture (lawn will be cut with present riding mower)
* moving earth, placing rocks for walls - BH required
* drainage digging - BH required

I guess my big question is - should I buy large enough to carry a worthy backhoe or should I hire that out go with a smaller (or at least minus BH) tractor? I would like to keep in $12-15k range, but not sure that's practical for a decent TLB.

Also, Anyone having personal experience with the local Kubota, Cub, JD, and NHC dealers in the Seattle/Everett area please respond.

Thanks for your input!
Timbo