3pt Blower versus Scraper Blade

We got a good snowfall yesterday, depending on the report you listened to, it was somewhere between 6" and 12". I'd guess we had about 8" of snow. And being early in the season, I did not have the blower attached to the tractor. To make matters worse, the blower was behind a couple other implements

So I put a rear blade on the tractor, offset it and angle it and go about to pushing with the FEL and scraping with the rear blade. What a PITA. And slow too! Especially with a snow that is deep enough to roll over the top of the blade.

I get serious and go to dig out the blower. What a nice toy that is. Mine is a 60" unit and even on the smaller tractor, 8" of snow doesn't even begin to test the blower. It eliminates drifts, piles and everything in its path, and is much faster than the blade.


So I'm getting close to the house, and normally I end up with snow blown onto the front porch, I normally shovel a path to the door. Last night the lovely Mrs_B sees me coming, sees that the kids left their winter coats on the porch after spending an afternoon on the tobaggan run we set up down the hill. She comes out the door as I am coming toward the porch blowing snow The diesel engine is making noise I don't hear the screams At least I didn't hear the screams until I finally came inside

OOOOOOPPPSSSS!

cj7 said:

OOOOOOPPPSSSS!

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It was worth it

Both blower and blade have their place.

I clear over 1/2 mile of our dead end in bad weather with the back blade. County plows come by late afternoon or the next day to clean up the aftermath but for getting our cars and school bus up to our dead end, I would never dream of using the snowblower. It would take me over an hour to blow that much. back blade - 10 to 15 minutes.

Early season, if I try to snowblow, I blow sod and gravel into the trees - again, a back blade does the job to pack down the snow if pulled in reverse direction or to push back the snow and allow freezing temps to freeze the ground so I don't blow it around.

When I have areas on our property established and frozen, there is no quicker way to clean up everything and not leave piles of snow than the snowblower.

So there is a purpose for both. I have put the FEL on for winter snow pile pushing back but without a large volume snow bucket, it is almost useless. Someday my plan is to purchase a large volume bucket for winter and occationally throw the FEL on to play around.