Three and a half years ago my soon-to-be wife and I moved to ten acres in the country. One of the first things we had to buy in order to properly look after the property was a tractor - the one that came with the property ran but was unsafe for the application.

With the help of John Wilkins at Browning Equipment in Purcellville (great guy and far more interested in helping me figure what I needed than closing a sale), I selected a Kubota L3700SU. This turns out to have been a good choice in tractors at the right price. I did a lot of reading and studying, but there was a shortage of good reading material. Farm equipment is something you're supposed to learn about from your dad or uncle, I suppose. I managed to find some good safety material aimed at high school students which I can't find now, and the North Dakota Farm Bureau has safety stuff aimed at younger kids.

Nothing aimed at me though.

Well, a guy who goes by Tractor Mike has created a web site full of videos that has a lot of information that I wish I'd had earlier in the game. I've often said that if I'd known about remote hydraulics when I bought the tractor I would have insisted on a front set and maybe a rear set as part of the original deal and rolled it into the 0% 5 year financing from Kubota. Tractor Mike pretty much comes out and says the same thing.

Plenty of great information here, including stuff like how to properly size a bushhog and how to hook up a 3-point hitch. I'm pleased to see that the method I've worked out for the three-point appears to give me less grief than Mike's.

http://asktractormike.com