Oh, its attached to some kind of tractor, that's serious business. How do you plug it in?

Plug it in? It's not electric, it doesn't have any plugging in. The twirly bits are connected to the power take off of the tractor.

That’s very impressive and looks like you could survive another ice age, not to mention making a small fortune doing the neighbours' pathways. Ironically though, that little car seems out of place. I’d of thought you’d need some sort of Landrover or shooting brake in the country.

Does it double up to make bales of hay?

That's actually a pretty small blower attached to a tiny tractor, we'll have to see over the coming months if the combination is up to the job.

Landrovers, SUVs in general, belong to people who live in the suburbs, it's very rare to see one used where it might get dirty. Out in the sticks it's all pastel Beetle convertibles, big rear wheel drive saloon cars and pick-up trucks.

Er, no, but I suppose it could shoot hay high in the air over fences and directly into the mouths of large quadrupeds.

The business end.

It's a shame you have to be in reverse to do the job.

Yes, that, to me seems the flaw in all of these tractor PTO mounted blowers. One must get a dreadful crick in the neck surely?

dbd33, Is the tractor a Mahindra?

If you mount the blower on the front then you have to take it off to use the bucket. It'd be fine if you have two tractors but I don't think we have the need for yet more equipment.

Is the blower much more efficient than the bucket?

I had a good laugh at a Rangerover driver's expense yesterday. We went to a pumpkin farm festival thingy north of Brampton. While it wasn't raining yesterday, it had bucketed down on Saturday with the result that the field used for a parking lot was a bit muddy. Super-smooth Rangerover guy obviously thinking "I've got 4-wheel drive, this is no obstacle" barrels down the laneway, and manages to slide his way to a standstill, diagonally across the main exit track. Unable to work out how to engage any of the gizmos in his car, and failing to realize that wide, low-profile road tyres won't help, he eventually had to be towed out by tractor.

As he was being ignominiously dragged out backwards, the by-now-extensive lineup of more circumspect drivers in our 2-wheel-drive minivans and sedans pottered through the mud past him, smiling benignly.

Schadenfreude, accompanied by the warm glow of innate superiority, is a dangerous emotion...

Yes, it's a Mahindra with a Mitsubishi engine. Seems to work about as well as the JD with a Yanmar I had previously but was cheaper.

There are a couple of other snags with from mounted blowers;

- you need a second PTO, that's a couple of grand

- the rear mounts on a tractor are designed for heavy dangly bits, those for the bucket are not

That said, all blowing is a pita. The best approach may well be to piss off for the winter and leave the job to someone else.

Oh yes, it is for long driveways. Because it throws the snow there's no back-and-forth for each bucket load and there's no problem with having nowhere left to pile the snow. It doesn't replace the bucket though, you still need something to break through the wall the plough's built at the road.

Exactermundo ! As of next Friday afternoon.