Bringing Home a Tractor

Ken and I have been pondering the need for a tractor on our homestead for some years now.  In the end, getting a tractor was the culmination of a number of events.

As we expanded our homestead and cleared more land, it became obvious to us that trying to beat the salmonberry back from nearly two acres of orchard using a battery powered “weed-wacker” was simply impossible.  At the end of last fall, I had developed tendonitis in my left elbow to the degree that I couldn’t lift the machine anymore.  Thankfully, that recovered over winter!  But it was yet another issue that certainly encouraged our desire for a tractor.

After the passing of my mother, the remainder of my family’s inheritance fell to me.  It didn’t make us rich by any means, but it did provide enough funds to make buying a new tractor feasible.  So started our tractor dreams …

As it turned out, we had over a year in which to dream … even though I was the only inheritor of my family’s “wealth” (there being no other inheritors alive), the “state” firstly had to confirm this, and then they had to take their “share”.  That took a very long time, and necessitated the engagement of both a lawyer and an accountant.

In the meanwhile, we dreamed.  Big dreams at first … I remembered the Kubota tractor that my father had owned when our family lived on an orchard in Keremeos.  It was a great little tractor, and provided my first driving lessons. I wanted a little Kubota tractor just like Dad …

Then we got realistic.  Kubota tractors are expensive, really expensive.  While having a blade and backhoe might have helped us during our road building, most of that work was already done.  Getting the tractor to our site was going to be challenging … it was too big and heavy to haul in our herring skiff, so we would need to arrange transport by sea truck, also expensive.  The tractor was going to have a tough time on some of our steep slopes, and it was a little bit too big to mow around some of our tighter tree plantings.  In the end, as fun as the idea of a Kubota tractor sounded, it wasn’t the right choice for us.

A couple of our friends had some experience with walk-behind tractors, and suggested that they might be just the ticket for our rugged landscape.  This led us to a very interesting web site called Earth Tools.  Everything you could want to know about walk-behind tractors can be found somewhere on that site.  I was sold!  But, and here was the big problem, Earth Tools was located in Owenton, Kentucky, and I didn’t think there would be any hope of shipping a walk-behind tractor from there to Vancouver Island.  For many months, I checked around on the internet, looking for some place relatively local from which I could purchase a walk-behind tractor.

In March of 2023, I had my first break through.  I found an ad in Used.ca for a used Grillo walk-behind tractor in North Saanich.  I phoned the seller, and incredibly, he was the owner of a business called Living Lots, which was a dealer for Earth Tools!  The connection was made.  However, I was still waiting on the money …

The process of sorting out my Mom’s estate, which began on the 24^th of January, 2022, finally came to an end on the 13^th of September, 2023, when the estate funds were transferred to our account.  I’d like to think that my parents would approve of what I intend to do with my inheritance … so the planning for a tractor purchase began in earnest.

In the middle of December, 2023, I contacted Living Lots and expressed my desire to buy a walk-behind tractor.  A flurry of emails followed.  What brand?  How large an engine?  Diesel or gas?  What implements would we need?

In the end, we decided on a gas-powered Grillo 110, one of the larger models manufactured by a company out of Italy.  Our choice was based largely on ease of repair and availability of parts.  Living Lots recommended Grillo, and could service the tractor when required, which meant that we didn’t have to ship it off Island if we had serious problems.  But even better, a great deal of maintenance and repair could be done at the homestead, as Ken is a good mechanic and the Grillos are relatively straight-forward to fix, unlike much of today’s computer-enhanced farm machinery.

To go with the tractor, we also chose to get:

(1) a Berta flail mower – a tough mower that can cut and mulch salmonberry and which will make keeping our road and orchard mowed a much easier task.

(2) a mowing sulky – used to convert the tractor into a “riding mower”, a very useful modification for mowing our long road.

(3) a chipper-shredder – very useful in turning alder branches from our wood harvesting and salmonberry cuttings from our land clearing into mulch to be used around our trees and gardens for weed control and water retention.

(4) a dump cart – for hauling wood, mulch and soil around our property.

On the 23^rd of December, 2023, we placed our order for “Christmas presents” with Living Lots, hoping to avoid the spring rush for equipment!  And on the 5^th of February, 2024, it all arrived in good order at Living Lots in North Saanich.

Now we were faced with our next challenge … how to get our new tractor and its implements from Saanich to Sayward.  Unfortunately, our truck is not big enough to carry the tractor, and it is not set up for towing a trailer, so we needed to find someone who could move the equipment for us.  Early on, a friend offered to pick up the load with his truck and trailer.  However, at the last minute, he was exposed to COVID, which truly messed up his schedule.  Luckily, in the end, he didn’t become ill!!  Two other people offered their vehicles to help out, but ended up “overtaken by events” and had to cancel.  We reached out to several professional trucking agencies, only to discover more problems.  Firstly, the trucking companies would only move the equipment if it was boxed and strapped to pallets.  However, as a part of their initial servicing, Living Lots had already uncrated everything and run the equipment to ensure that all was functioning as it should.  Trying to put the genie back in the bottle was not a simple thing!  Secondly, apparently their is a divide between South Vancouver Island and the rest of the Island which cannot be readily crossed.  Some companies would ship from Saanich to Nanaimo, others would ship from Nanaimo to Sayward, but none would ship directly from Saanich to Sayward.  This introduced no end of head aches when it came to trying to schedule pick ups.

In the meanwhile, as we struggled with setting up schedules to get the tractor to Sayward, we also had to figure out how to move it from Sayward to our homestead in Port Neville Inlet.  After some head scratching, we figured that we could haul the equipment in our herring skiff.  The biggest problem would be getting things into and out of the skiff, which does not have a landing ramp.  The skiff also needed some maintenance and upgrading.  Early spring was spent rebuilding the skiff’s outboard motor and making a deck in the skiff (which up to now only had fish pens) so we could haul the tractor.  Ken designed and built a lift using the old boom from the Moody Blue and the winch from the old ATV, and mounted it on a big spruce tree stump overhanging our beach, with the hope of being able to use this system to lift the tractor out of the skiff on a high tide.  Then we cleared the pathway up to our cabin of all roots and rocks, so that we had a nice incline to bring the tractor up.

Back to trucking … finally, as a last resort, I contacted Sayward Delivery, a small business working locally out of Sayward.  I hadn’t tried them earlier because I didn’t think they would transport items from as far away as Saanich, and I wasn’t sure they had a vehicle large enough to handle the load.  But they were the little delivery company that could!  Working together with another small business out of Nanaimo, Mikus Transport, Sayward Delivery organized the shipment for us!

And so we embarked on the next stage of getting our tractor home.  On April 8^th, we left home towing the herring skiff behind the Awen.  From Sayward, we drove to Saanich to take possession of the tractor and spend a couple days with Living Lots getting “tractor lessons”, a quick introduction to walk-behind tractor usage and maintenance.  A great thank you to Living Lots, who let us stay in their spare bedroom and fed us for three days!! On the morning of April 12^th, Mikus Transport arrived to pick up the tractor.  Their driver was tremendously helpful in getting an awkward load aboard and safely secured!  Back to Sayward we went.  The next day, Sayward Delivery arrived with the equipment.  Thank you for all your assistance with loading the herring skiff!  You guys are terrific!!  Here are a few photos (taken by Sayward Delivery) of that operation:

Then … hurry up and wait.  The northwest wind came up and blew and blew and blew!  Finally, on the morning of April 17^th, we were able to sneak out of Kelsey Bay and head for home.

Nearly 10 days later, and finally we were back home.  Were we ever happy!!

But wait!  There’s another problem!  Delayed as we were by the weather, we had now lost our spring tides and couldn’t bring the herring skiff up high enough to use our new crane for unloading.  Oops!

Two days of skiff maneuvering and ramp building (using beach scavenged lumber) later …

… and the tractor has landed on solid ground and become terrestrial again.

Let the fun begin!