chicago-pneumatic34inheavydutyairimpactwrenchmodelcp772h

DR POWERWAGON: Next size down in size and capacity are the DR Powerwagons--a unique line of powered garden carts made by Country Home Products, Meigs Road, chicago-pneumatic34inheavydutyairimpactwrenchmodelcp772h P.O. Box 25, Vergennes, VT 05491; (800 711-7276. All sizes are tank-tough and capable of hauling 800 pounds of bricks, firewood, garden compost or rocks. They are maneuvered by hand with stout handles and castoring wheels at the back, thus avoiding the steering mechanism that would boost their cost. GARDEN WAY CARTS: And finally, if a powered hauler is more than you can justify, get yourself a shiny, metal frame and brown stained, plywood box-bodied Garden Way-style garden cart like you see in many rural and sub-urban gardens. These carts were designed by Garden Way founders Eddie Robinson and Lyman Wood back in the 1940s; they took their inspiration from the amazingly well-balanced, high-wheeled railway station baggage chicago-pneumatic34inheavydutyairimpactwrenchmodelcp772h cans of the day. You may remember Garden Way carts from the magazine ads that compared their lightweight and easy-dumping gardening convenience with a tippy, back-straining wheelbarrow. Perfectly balanced on easy-turning, rustproof, chrome-plated spoked wheels, a box cart will let you haul bulky or heavy loads of all kinds over an acre or so of flatland. A word of caution: Don''t overload them. I once boldly filled a small model #16 (so-named for its 16-inch wheels) with 200 pounds of flatrock and pulled it down a foot-high patio ledge. The load (twice the cart''s rated capacity), collapsed the spokes in both wheels.

You''ll need a properly sized, wheeled, perhaps engine-powered machine to do the heavy hauling. The capacity you''ll need and the amount you''ll pay will be determined by the size and topography of your place, the nature of the work you intend to carry out, your financial resources, maintenance tools and skills, and available storage facilities. Ideal, albeit impractical for most of us, would be a team of horses, mules or oxen along with a hay wagon for field work, a buckboard for trips to town, and a barn and paddock. If you obtain beasts of burden, you''ll also need pasture, hay and grain to sustain them.

The most universally capable modern homesteading machine we know of is a commercial-grade compact diesel tractor. We like Kubota tractors, John Deere''s 20- to 48-hp 2000 class and New Holland''s Boomer chicago-pneumatic34inheavydutyairimpactwrenchmodelcp772h line. Even the smallest models--which look like sturdily built lawn tractor mowers--are equipped with powerful diesel engines and industrial quality transmissions and running gear. They also sport a three-point rear hitch that will mount commercial farm land plows, harrows and rakes and provide attachment points for a hay or field corn cutter bar or silage chopper, a sprayer or buzz saw. These tractors include a hydraulic system that will power remote motors on the chopper''s flails, the sprayer''s pump or the saw''s blade. They''ll also mount hydraulic cylinders to pull the plow up or dig it in and hold it down and will run any number of other hydraulic attachments such as a front-end snow thrower or plow blade, a bucket loader to carry soil, gravel or building bricks, a rear-mount backhoe to dig trenches, a forklift to raise bay bales into your barn loft, an electric generator to power the house and barn if the power lines go down in a storm, or a pump to fill a pond or empty the cellar after a flood. A modern, small diesel tractor is a major investment for a ranch or truck-farming operation--but one that will expand your homesteading capabilities beyond muscle-power, and will pay off every day for a lifetime or two of strenuous use.

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