Man you aren't kidding about fertilizer prices. I paid $482/ton for straight liquid nitrogen this past Saturday.
So if I make a decent 2nd cut on my grass and average 3 bales/acres I'll still have a little over $16/bale just in fertilizer alone in it.
And the cost of string is up at least 20% from last season as well. I use a lot of string because I want my bales tight and to stay that way even if stored a year or more. I get maybe 20 bales from a roll of string so now there will be at least $1.50 in string in a damn bale. Crazy!

And you are couldn't be more right about the price of one with green paint. I know they are good machines but honestly I know plenty of people with them in the size range we are talking about and they ARE NO better than a Case, NH, or my Mahindra as far as reliability. When I bought my machine in 2012 I had it narrowed down to JD, Case/NH, Kubota, & JD. I ruled out the Kubota because I felt they were just far too light weight for heavier farm work in the HP range I wanted. Out of the 3 left the Mahindra was by far the heaviest of the machines and after side by side comparisons the hydraulic systems both up front on the loader and on the capacity of the 3-point on the Mahindra just beat the others hands down. It actually smoked the JD that was the same size 4x4 machine.

My uncle farmed 1500-1600 acres and had over 200 momma cows and the last 25 years he had nothing but Case machines on his places (130-185hp). He worked them damn hard and loved them so I'm leaning very hard to Case/NH when I do upgrade my machine.

That's great!!

Once you have a cab you never go back - trust me

I hear ya brother

I swallowed a lotta dirt as a kid sitting on an old Massey 145 farming my grandmas 100 or so tillable acres of her place. It takes a while to disc that up with a 6' and just about as long to plant corn with an old 2-row planter. lmao

I stepped into my first cab (JD 2950) mowing highways for my uncle in the mid 80s and OMG........HEAVAN

lmao