09 Aug Jada: Hoffman Harvesting comes full circle in thousand mile harvest

Hoffman Harvesting has finally come full circle in what we call the thousand mile harvest. We left Bowdle when the wheat was only just seeded and have finally returned to see it ripe and ready to cut. On Friday, we wrapped up our spring wheat harvest in Gettysburg, SD and moved home Saturday to harvest a very difficult farmer’s wheat- my dad’s! : )

Some farmers are easy to cut for and some need a little more attention. This one seems to be particularly difficult as you can see from the photos. From the long haul to the bins (you can see the bin from our field in a photo pictured below) and the long lines (I saw one truck having to wait to dump) it has been especially difficult to cut for this farmer. But like Tim Gunn would say, we have to “make it work”.

On a more serious note, the wheat is doing good but not as good as anticipated here- it’s averaging around 55 bu/ ac. I think the lack of a good rain shower these past two months had a lot to do with it. Below are pictures of our harvest on my parent’s [Perry and Candice Hoffman] land.

Cutting wheat in Bowdle, S.D.

Cutting right by the bins makes for a long haul.

Dumping on the go and waiting in line for the trucks to get dumped on.

Getting ready to dump.

The benefits of dumping at the bin, the long lines.

The Pit Express allows truckers to driver over the auger to get lined up.

George monitors the Pit Express.

Chillin or cutting…Farmer Perry (Dad) drives up to help at the bin site.

Management. It’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it.

The sun goes down.

A panoramic view of the sunset.

Jada can be reached at jada@allaboardharvest.com. All Aboard 2010 Wheat Harvest is sponsored by High Plains Journal and DuPont Crop Protection.