....(text deleted)......
And, keep the tractor out of your pond. I believe Catmandoo and I have some first hand experience with what a pond tractor looks and feels like. :-)
I almost found out what a pond ZTR mower looks like last summer when i was mowing a neighbor's pond bank in prep for a kid's fishing derby. I got too close to the pond side of the bank and almost slid all the way down to the water. Fortunately, another guy was there and helped me pull it out.
Tractor rental costs here are well over $100 per day. I would be better off hiring an experienced local operator with a small tractor. I have not driven one for about 20 years (used to brush hog some). With our usual traffic and the distance involved it would take a couple hours round trip to go get one and almost as long to return it.
