Sounds great. The grass you are getting is a combination of Rye and KBG.
Id like to see some before and after photos.

I think there are two problems. One is having mother nature do your watering. Grass seeds need to be moist for at least a week (for the rye, a lot longer for the KBG) to germinate, and frequent watering when it is young. The second issue is that part of the grass seed mix you are considering is annual rye grass, which will only last for one growing season. If it was me, I would either go for all perennial rye since it is the fastest germinating grass, or use a perennial rye and a fast germinating, aggressive KBG like Orfeo. It would be better to do this in the late summer/early fall, but if you are going to do it now you really need to time it right before many days of light rainy weather.

And do this when? Now, in Spring?

That's throwing money out the window.
100% guaranteed those weeds will return and out compete the new grass before the grass germinates.

Look into clover and 'cover crops' Plant that now.

Then in August, section off an area in front of the house and call this area your 'lawn'

Spray 2,4D in this area and plant your grass seed inside the area.

You end up with green all over the property (clover is decent left uncut and natural) and the 'lawn' area is manageable because it is NOT 2.5 acres of grass to mow.

I'm going to be blunt. With that approach you are guaranteed to be back where you started by May. But I'm very glad you wrote in now instead of May and told us what you had already done. You would have been asking, "What did I do wrong??"

1- rent a large 4x4 tractor with pto tiller for $165 day from local rental company
Just send me a check for $100 for saving you $165 times however many days it would have taken you to learn how to use the tiller.

2- use my Garden Tractor with my box grader to finish
This will work all by itself. You don't need to till first.

3- buy 600lbs of this stuff: grass seed mix of KBG and rye.
This will bring you back to weeds. Doing it now will guarantee a crabgrass lawn all summer long. Rye grass is the fastest sprouting grass (3 days) and KBG is the slowest sprouting grass (3 weeks). What will happen is you'll water it 3x per day for a week and then stop because it looks like it is all sprouted. The good grass, the KBG, will never sprout because you stopped watering too early. Then again if you are relying on Nature to water, you won't have anything but weeds because even the rye won't sprout.

4- use broadcast spreader, then use Sears Drag Harrow to cover use a water fillable roller to roll the seed down for good seed-to-soil contact.
Harrowing will covering the seed at best. Covering seed will prevent much of it from sprouting. All you need to do is roll it down.

You basically have a field. Dutch white clover is very impressive (in my opinion) and great unless you are allergic to bees. It is completely care free, dark green, and very plush looking. Another consideration is blue grama grass. It looks very nice when mowed to 4 inches. Search this forum for recent pictures.

I appreciate your bluntness and the suggestion from everyone else. Perhaps I've should have explained things a bit better.

First of all, I've worked with farm implements/tractors on my grandfathers farm since I was 11. This rental is nothing but a toy to me (I've had worse). The Garden tractor I have spun its bar lug wheels (with 50lbs of weight on each), or almost stalled the 19hp Kohler when I tried grading the property last fall. Like I said, this is tough ground when dry.

As far as irrigation, I planned to use spinklers at first, but I was not going to keep up with it all summer. It has been extremely wet around here for almost 2 years, with rain occurring three times a week on average. You're right, I would probably have quit sprinkling after emergence.

The only reason I was looking at the seed I linked to is because of the cost. The good stuff would cost well in excess of $1500 which I do not have. Clover is not an option. My neighbor has a great lawn and would probably be P.O.'d if my clover started creeping into his yard. My weeds have already started doing so.

Thanks for the Roller suggestion. Another site said that seed needs to be covered, which is why I was going to get the harrow.

Mowing 2.5 acres is actually enjoyable for me. I have 2 small kids, so 3 hours of peace and quiet on the mower is heaven

Thanks again

Zim,

If you read other posts by dchall, he is a strong proponent of not tilling, regardless of the cost. All you're doing is 1.) bringing up to the surface numerous weed seeds that have otherwise been dormant, and 2.) giving your lawn a chance to go from flat (your words) to uneven due to settling.

Your response was a little unclear - "The Garden tractor I have spun its bar lug wheels (with 50lbs of weight on each), or almost stalled the 19hp Kohler when I tried grading the property last fall." Is the Kohler the box blade? If it's flat ground, why grade at all?

Also - you don't have to keep the clover. Think of it as just ground cover until the fall, at which time you can save up money to get better seed and replant in the fall, where you won't have to worry (as much) about weeds and crabgrass.

As far as irrigation - you shouldn't need to "keep up with it all summer" - once it's high enough to mow, it should only need 1" of water a week - if you're really getting rain 3x a week, you should be fine. But just realize that you'll probably need to irrigate for at least 30 days in order to get the KBG to sprout and continue growing as well.

Please let us know what route you decide to go with.

--Gags

Kohler is the engine on my New Holland Tractor. The box blade is Brinley.

As stated before, this was new construction. The numerous trucks we had, drove all over the property during construction (and wet weather = mud) put more ruts into the ground that you can imagine. Some areas are so bad, I have to use a weed eater becuase the mower gets hung up on the ruts. The ground where the septic system has settled with even more uneven areas. The reason I want to till is to get the current weed growth removed and to make it easier to finish grade and smooth things out. I need to redo the swail through the front yard to fix some drainage issues.

Not sure what else to say. I will consider all the suggestions stated above.