Why I bought a 1025R (and why I should have)

posted on Monday, June 6, 2022 in QE Network

After federal interest rates took a dive in 2020 (and before the housing market went insane), my husband and I decided to purchase a new-to-us home. After a little shopping (again, this was before the market exploded), we settled on a place outside of the city, where we could avoid HOAs and have a larger lot.

I'm an extremely frugal (read: cheap) person. But luckily, my husband doesn't have too many complaints about being a D.I.Y. household. Especially if it means he gets to buy new power tools or machinery.

One of the first problems we had to solve once we started moving, was how we would maintain the 1.5 acre, slightly hilly, landscape. The garden bed in front also needed to be extended, and we wanted to build a new vegetable garden in a side-yard. We had an old, smaller John Deere mower, but we knew we would need more.

I had some hesitation about buying a new John Deere 1025R. Again, I don't like to spend money. But I knew it would be a tough machine, I knew it would last, and I knew we could get some serious use out of the implements. We took advantage of the implement discount (when you buy two) and added a 120R loader and an RT3049 Tiller.

But our garden, to my surprise, wasn't our first chore. We were still moving, and the biggest task was hauling our chicken coop to our new back yard.

If you've never moved a fully assembled chicken coop before, let me assure you that it is not an
easy task. But we strapped the coop to the 1025R and drug it, slowly, over the soft, muddy ground, out of the old back yard, onto the driveway, and up to a trailer, where we used our manpower to get it officially loaded.

It took a couple of hours, but without the 1025R, it might never have happened at all. To me, the 1025R proved its worth that afternoon.

As soon as we got the chickens home, we immediately got started on the chicken run. This was the summer, after all, and I hated the idea of them being stuck in a hot coop all day. Once again, the 1025R proved itself. We used the loader to move and hold up the wood, making the build much faster.

Next, we built the garden, where we regularly grow an excess of seasonal vegetables, and fight the birds for strawberries. We till and rotate out the crops a few times a year, and we've even expanded it a couple of times. We also expanded the garden bed up front, and plan to wrap it around the house, at some point.

Our small mower was no match for our larger yard, so we added the AutoConnect^TM mowing deck. We also got pallet forks to move things around the property easier, and a sprayer for weed control and to fertilize the lawn each spring.

We decided to build a split-rail fence around the whole of our property, and used the 1025R to move the wood, utilize an auger, and pull out the fence posts that we put in wrong.

We moved the chicken coop, again, too. It was a much shorter distance, but still, somehow, just as difficult. Yet, made much easier with our Deere.

I'm told that being a homeowner means the projects will never end. Right now, we're finishing up the fence gates, adding gutters to the house and planning to build a lean-to. Who knows what else. But I know we'll be using our compact tractor each time.

- Kristin McVeigh