I have developed a relationship that requires me to neither buy nor rent. I took in a tenant who owns an excavator. I think that is what you are calling a track hoe. It's my tenant's job to maintain the road and provide me with 3 hours of digging per month. I provide him with a nice patch of gravel with a view of the river valley. I stand at a safe distance and point, while a 40 year veteran runs the controls.
My brother mentioned that I
should keep Randy around for a long time. I told him this. " If Randy weren't old, ugly and male, I'd marry him right now".
If you live near a
city, I guarantee you that there are guys like Randy who have storage problems with their Bobcats, excavators, bulldozers and such. It's expensive for them to rent commercial lockups for this stuff. Just a yard would cost Randy more than the $300 in machine time that he pays me. He wouldn't be allowed to live with his stuff as he does at my place, so he would have to rent an apartment. And he wouldn't be able to pay with machine time during periods when work is slack.
As the property improves, Randy lives at a better place all the time. He is currently surrounded by
hugel beds and a
pond will soon reside 200 ft from his door. He hunts
deer and he fishes, as do many of his friends. His butchery trailer where they all process meat, will soon be parked by a
pond that contains some hungry catfish.
We're both winning with this arrangement.