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TODAYS-SEAT TIME
.3 Hrs mowing with the 2005 BX1500.
.7 Hrs on the 2003 BX1500 tilling and grading to smooth out the ruts the Dollar General tractor trailer left in my front yard last month.
If you think AG tires mark up a lawn try driving a semi truck through a wet soft saturated yard.
Got that task done and went to the house and discovered that I'd lost my set of keys that has the house key on them.
I had them in my coat pocket when I got on the 2003 BX 1500.
O No: Did they fall out of my pocket on to the ground and I tilled them under smoothing the ruts?
The wife and I walked the area I tilled & couldn't find them so was about to give up but I decided to take one more walk down along the place I tilled and graded, got about 10 feet and looked down to my left and there they were about 3 fourths buried in the dirt.
They weren't hit by the tiller tines and suffered no damage.
O I love happy endings!
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Watch out, now; karma has a way of balancing things.
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I'm a couple of days late posting this, but I just wanted to let everyone know what I've been up to lately.
Last Fall I plowed up a couple of acres of grass in front of my house. This piece of land was previously unused, and was growing weeds and grass. A neighbor of mine was haying it for me, just to keep the place looking presentable.
I purchased a plow to break up the sod, then spent many weeks picking out the rocks. I couldn't figure out where all the rocks came from. I must have hauled 20 bucket-loads of rocks out of there, and there's a lot more remaining. I later found out that the previous owner of this place had allowed a local potato company to dump their dirt and rocks on that piece of ground, as fill. Lucky me......I get to be the one to go through it and pull out all the rocks. On the bright side, the soil is very rich and fertile. It will make a great garden site.
Being that this piece of land is located right along the highway, many people have driven by and taken notice of my work. Needless to say, I've received many phone calls from people who wondered who I hired to do the work. After telling them that I did it myself, they asked if I'd be willing to rent out my services. Of course, I would!
Last Saturday I did my first out-of-town custom job. I loaded the Kubota onto my flatbed trailer and hauled it ten miles east of town to till up two garden spots for the local insurance salesman. And since his piece of land is also located right along the same highway, even more people will now be asking who did his work.
I can't say enough good things about my King Kutter gear driven tiller. It works like a champ, and it leaves a very professional appearance. I've got a lot more work scheduled already, as one farmer would like me to plant a one-acre food plot in his CRP land. (Federal Law permits one acre of land to be used as a food plot for wildlife on CRP land) The Farmer would like to make his land a bit more desirable for the paying hunters who come from out-of-State to hunt deer and turkey.
As business picks up this growing season, I'll let everyone know what's going on.
Joel
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[QUOTE=candoarms;153168]
I can't say enough good things about my King Kutter gear driven tiller. It works like a champ, and it leaves a very professional appearance. [/QUOTE]http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk286/lb59/100_2316.jpg
My KK on BX 1500
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Joel, have no idea about your area but here temporary signs that you push into the dirt are used by many contractors. They are the kind so properly with real estate agents. If you shop around they do not cost much and look very good. You need a phone number on them very easy to remember. Depending on your phone company you can ask for such as 1234 or numbers to spell "dirt". Either helps. kt
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KThompson,
Thank you for the suggestion. I'm relatively new at this line of work, so I appreciate all the suggestions I can get.
The first thing I'm going to do with any new customer, is to ask for cash on the spot. I know many people who mean well, but also have very short memories.
I ran an ad in the local paper today, taking me through the end of May. In this part of the country, we can't plant our gardens until Memorial Day, due to the high probability of a killing frost up until then. Most gardens are in by June 1st.
Thanks again.
Joel
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Joel, a sign easy to see, with a simple business name and phone number is good for people driving buy. Work on the phone number; make it easy to remember if at all possible. If the numbers a person needs to remember spell something that relates to your business name or the type of work it really helps. Tractor Point's name is a good example. Do not miss your area code in the spelling possibility. For an example and, my accountant's fax number is "4355" but I remember it for it spells the devil's home. I told him he should use that as part of his advertising which he has more class than to. My suggestion: "have problems with the IRS; fax your papers to he_ _! Never can remember his phone number.  kt
Joel, you may wish to start a new thread on this. There are guys here who can give you much better advice.
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Joel: Do you carry commercial insurance?
Kenny: You being an insurance salesman surprises me that you didn't bring up the technicalities of hauling/performing commerical activities without proper insurance.
I got a rude awakening 9 years ago when I started my dirt biz. I happened to mention to my auto insurance agent that I was hauling my backhoe to a job. He told me that if I got into an accident I wouldn't be covered because I'm commercial. DOH! $3500 a year later for a commercial policy...
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EW, it has been a few years since I sold P&C insurance and parts of it can and do vary from insurance company to company and also from state to state.
As to insurance and license anyone needs to check with their own company and local government. There seems to be two mind sets on insurance, those companies who treat everyone the same thus if you have a tractor you are a true commerical business with cost as high as EW is qouting and up. Then you normally find one or two in a state that looks at the small operator (read this to mean your own farming operation) totally different and will consider and insure the small operation that does "custom" work for hire.
Normally the lowest price way to go for such if possible is as an extra coverage on your auto or homeowners. Again, not all companies offer the same in coverage.
Joel since I should have thought to tell you the need of insurance I will also expand and tell you the need of good records for TAXES. It would be good to talk with an accountant on this BEFORE you get into it.
Back to what Ole Jeff old boy brought up, you may want to look into a Limited Liability Company (LLC) or such to own the equipement, the business and such to help protect yourself just in case of law suit. That really does vary from state to state. This could affect your taxes also.
Again, it has been a few years since I dealt with commercial property insurance but the individual owner operator often is considered a lower risk and thus cost than the guy even as EW who owns a good bit of equipment and who uses employees. If you are legally able to be considered as farm operation that was the lowest cost way to go. Oh, you should ask if you need workers comp coverage. You could find if you do work for a General Contractor of Government Agency or large corporation they require it or their Workers' Comp company does. This can be right expensive. If you are working for the individual dought this would ever come up.
Many like to print on business cards or letter heard something along the line of "Insured and Bonded". Ask an attorney, but to me that is inviting lawsuits as they will think they are not suing you but some big bad insurance company. While the company may pay, your risk sure did change. If you have such coverage, keep copy of a certificate of the coverage with contact info to give when the bid is accepted. BTW, the ones I found who did print such on there often DID NOT have those coverages. kt
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Joel, EW does bring up a point that most of us forget, but along with that, I'll relate my experience with custom tilling. When I got the 4310 new I also bought a 3 pt. tiller for it, same deal, I tilled our garden along the highway, WOWZER,, didn't know how popular I was. I didn't need a sign or a newspaper ad, information travels faster in a small town than the Pentagon could send it. I did several that were established garden sites, that was OK, but be real carefull when somebody wants to till up a new site that hasn't been worked up before, ROCKS, wire, roots, even a horseshoe and about anything else you can imagine, no wonder they wanted to hire it done. Next snafo, you either see most all of them in the post office or the cafe on a daily basis, they hand you a twenty, not even half enough, but you take it and leave. Then the issue of tiller knife replacement after the rocks etc., one knife wipes out a typical job's pay. I bought a new Land Pride for the 4310 last fall, it is on the tractor as we speak, but I've already turned down a couple jobs, IT AINT FOR HIRE, PERIOD!!! As I said I do wish you the best of luck, but just thought I'd relate my experience. Frank.
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