We have two pastures in front of our house. When my father was still alive, we kept five ponies on them. However, when my father got cancer, he had to sell the ponies, which was heartbreaking for all of us, but in particularly for him. They only listened to him, and they wouldn’t respond to me or my mom, and he didn’t want to risk us getting hurt.

I’ve always been interested in self-sufficiency, and after my father passed away, I was able to pursue this interest on a larger scale. However, the pastures had been home to ponies for over 30 years, and the soil had never been opened during that time, becoming very compacted. My mother made a brave attempt to turn the soil with a shovel, but she quickly realized that this was nothing like our old kitchen garden, where the soil wasn’t compacted.

At that time, we were facing many expenses, so we initially decided to hire a local to till a portion of the pasture for us. However, we planned to get a mini tractor in the future so that we could maintain and till more of the land ourselves. I also needed to create a small space to park the tractor, keeping it dry during the rains. It would have felt like such a waste to leave it outdoors.

A few months later, the time finally came, and we got a Kubota B7000 with an original tiller. I’ve been working the land with it, and we are very happy with the mini tractor. Since then, I’ve added a three-point hitch, and we plan to get a mower for the mini tractor soon. This will allow us to mow the other pasture and several large areas of the garden. I also enjoy exploring all the other possible attachments for the mini tractor and look forward to getting some of them in the future.