Perhaps you should sit down and think about your plans for this property. Here are some questions to ask yourself. 1. Will we be doing all this work in one year or will this be stretched out over several years? 2. Once all of the landscaping work has been completed, what tasks do we expect our tractor to perform every year from that point on? 3. What sort of access do we currently have to our backyard and will that change as the landscaping work comes to completion? If you hired a Pro landscaper to perform this work, he would stake out the various areas, shoot grades and then bring in either a small, tracked excavator or skid-steer loader to quickly take care of all the initial dirt work. Any excess fill would be removed from the property immediately and trucked away unless it could be placed in a low spot or used to create a berm. Once the heavy work was done, then he'd use the same skid steer to bring in top soil, stone and any other materials that were labour intensive to move by hand. Hopefully, he could place those materials immmediately but if they were placed next to the area in a pile, then shifting them with a shovel and wheelbarrow would be simple. All of this work could likely be carried out with a single weekend rental of a medium size skid-steer loader and there would be no need to agonize over what tractor with a Johnny Bucket would be best. If your husband does not feel confident that he could operate a skid-steer proficiently, then hire someone. An experienced operator can dig out, carry away spoil and shift tons of new material so fast you'll be amazed. Even if this process was to drag into a second year, all of the above could be done this year. Piles of dirt and stone don't go bad. At least all of that stuff would be sitting right there waiting for the weather to break and your ambition to return. Pretty much any entry-level Lawn Tractor (LT) is adequate to cut the grass, blow some snow and pull a garden cart around a property that is 2 acres in size or less. If you foresee doing more than those tasks once the landscaping has been completed, then perhaps a true garden tractor is what you need, but I don't think that it should be predicated on these short-term projects.

If you are like most of us, you have a beer budget. A new machine that is truly capable of doing all the things on your wish list will cost you ten to twenty grand. Deere only makes one garden tractor series and that's the X-700's. Go to Deere.com and look at the MRSP's for the BASIC models and then add on the cost for a loader, hitch and all the implements you desire. The top Sears tractor is over seven grand and the costs to fit it out will mount equally as fast. According to you, the property is ONE ACRE TOTAL in size. Subtract the foot print for the driveways and buildings plus any planted areas and you likely have a half acre of grass to cut. To use a garden tractor in your garden effectively, you need lots of open area on all four sides of the garden so that the tractor can leave the garden area on each pass and turn around on the lawn for the next pass. Most of the experienced gardeners cross-till the soil and some take it further by finishing on the bias. I think that your needs would be better served in the garden by way of a quality walk-behind, rear-tine tiller from Honda or BCS from the used market. After all, most people only conduct a full-till once or twice per growing season and then spot-till during the season for weed control and re-seeding of fast growing crops such as radishes, onions, lettuce etc. You already own a Mantis and those are perfect for spot-tilling. I think that your other needs would be well-served by way of a quality, used garden tractor that is simple for you to maintain. A Case 444 would fit that bill. As good as Deere and Simplicity tractors are, they are also a royal PITA to work on. Do some research by visiting the site below and learning more about what a Case can do for you. Here is a link that might be useful: link

The PTO on my Kubota lawn tractor is operated by moving a lever which pulls a cable which moves an idler pulley to put tension on the belt. Very simple, very reliable and cheap to fix if something goes wrong. I prefer the manual PTO's over the electric. Just my opinion, and others will most likely disagree.

Model 917.288563. 41 hours of use since new (on built-in hour meter). Mower runs normal for about 5 minutes from cold start at which time it starts to run rough, as if running on one cylinder. Ignition switch has 4 positions. OFF - REVERSE - RUN - START. When the problem started, I observed that the mower would operate in reverse even though the ignition switch was in the NORMAL (forward only) position. Normally the ignition switch has to be in the REVERSE position in order to operate in reverse. I removed the ignition switch a blew away grass clippings between the contacts as well as the connector thinking that there might be a current leakage path causing the problem Not so. On ONE occasion, I lifted myself briefly off the seat kill switch and the engine started to run normal once again but not for long. Since the schematic shows IGNITION SWITCH, REVERSE SWITCH, SEAT SWITCH, IGNITION UNIT and SHORTING CONNECTOR (whatever that is) as components that could possibly be the cause of the problem, I'd like to narrow it down to the culprit so as not to buy all of them to fix the problem. Any advice from someone who has had this experience is welcomed. Thanks for your response(s). Dean