Wow, thanks for all the response. Let me see if I can answer the questions posed of me.1. I"ve got an Engineering Degree and I"m fairly mechanically inclined. I don"t personally own a welder, mill or lathe but I have friends that do. My tool box does have wheels.... 2. My property is pretty flat, though there are some hills there is nothing too extreme. 3. I"ve talked at length with my "hillbilly" neighbors (their words not mine) and they are great folks. They came over and bushhogged for me and helped me find a $1000 beater truck. I"m getting more county as time goes by in fact, I went in half with the neighbors on the rental of a backhoe which was used to tear down an old house and build a shooting range on my property. The neighbor builds off road trucks and says that there isn"t much that can break on a tractor that can"t be fixed. 4. As far as snow on the driveway. The neighbor has a plow truck and he said he would plow me out for next to nothing. If not I"ve got a Wheelhorse C105 with a 42" snowblower and 42" deck. 5. I"m thinking that around the house the Wheelhorse would still need to be used and the rest of it I could take care of via the bigger tractor. 6. Yes, the wife is set on having a new one and she likes the local farm store that sells the Mihandra"s. We are looking at the 2615, which is 26hp, 4WD and it comes with a loader for $13,500 (+or-). Then some more $$$ for the bushhog, box blade and finishing mower. I guess the big question is if I"m going to be mad a year later if I buy a more expensive new compact tractor and find out that it doesn"t do the work I expected it to be able to do? Is a used smaller utility tractor a much better buy for $8,000? Is a utility tractor going to be too big for my 20 acres? In all truthfulness I think either would work well, I"m more apt to spend $8K (used big tractor) than $13.5K (new little tractor). Scott
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