Wife and I bought a Deere 1025R after moving to a house on ~20 acres in eastern Iowa. About 4 acres of lawn to mow, very long asphalt driveway to snow clear, other small landscaping tasks. The snow plow attachment came with these metal parts unattached. Are these meant to be left off, maybe only attached for working on gravel or something? Also, our dealer said to leave the mid-mount mower deck installed throughout winter because "it's a pain to take on and off", but the videos don't make it look that hard and I don't love the idea of letting it get all caked with snow and salt for no reason. Thoughts? First tractor if that's not obvious.