the answer is it all depends...  Some area's (like here) irrigation is a every day all summer long activity. We don't get to plant the crops and sit on the porch drinking mint julups while mommy nature does all the irrigating for us.   Spring is planting, summer is irrigating and cutting baling something or another, then combining, then irrigating again, then hopefully fall planting before the ground freezes up.

So.. what's left ??  Winter.  At $85-90/hour for having shop in town doing the work,, I'll gladly pay $1000/month to heat a shop.  That goof notion of "too cold-too much hassle" was Dad's notion so equipment went to town but then,, shop time was only $25-30/hour. (he flat refused to invest in a shop even had it been free he'd have refused it.)

Concept is fine long as you keep changing equipment like underwear. But if you don't .. a shop and winter time is critical to averaging out the work load, and keeping everything up to snuff so it runs when it's needed.

After irrigating 50-70 hours a week LAST thing I really want to do is fix dang equipment which should have been fixed LAST WINTER!

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