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Here in Minnesota a blade windrows the snow or it takes a lot of time to move into piles. The next wind drifts it all in level, so there is more snow to move, more time, bigger piles - then it blows again & the road has 3' of snow while the fields beside are about bare.... I used a blade for 3-4 years, but it was a task. A pickup with a front blade can get more speed to roll the snow out of the way; a tractor you end up dragging one bite at a time out of your way. A loader can make bigger piles, that's handy, but not less work really. (A loader is really, really handy for all sorts of tasks tho, you'll never want to give it up if you get one.) If you get deep snow or drifting snow, a snow blower is the way to go for snow moving. For a snow blower, you want a tractor with a slow reverse gear, and _live_ pto. A blower on the back & a bucket on the front is an ideal snow machine for my snow conditions. I have 3 diesel tractors & 4 gas tractors. as long as you have electricity & plug the (frost plug, tank) heater in for an hour or 2, a diesel works just fine down to 25 below. You need the right oil, winterized fuel (blend #1 into summer fuel, and some anti-gel), and a new fuel filter & most start without plugging in down to 25 degrees or so, some like my little 1720 starts at 5 below without any assistance. As to which tractor exactly, there are 100's or thousands of models that will fill the bill for you. Comes down to picking a color you like, after finding a set of options you can live with. Generally it's nice to have live pto, power steering on a wide front for a loader, a hyd port for running hyd cylinders, a 3pt hitch for easy access to implements, a bigger selection of gears (5 is better than 4, 8 or 16 is even better with several reverse gears for the snowblower...) but a simple manual tranny on old tractors to keep repair bills low, and so on. Not each of these options is vital to you, and some others may be that I don't even think of... Would you like an older tractor that you repair & maintain yourself, a gas engine might be simpler for you; would you like a more modern compact tractor that should be good to go for a decade & let the pros fix it, a modern diesel might be nice. There's a 100 different directions to go... Have fun. :) --->Paul
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