22 Jul Brian: Miles of smiles

Onida, South Dakota — The crew was all smiles to have our 650-mile trek from Kansas to South Dakota behind us, but we’ve continued to pile on the miles since our arrival in Onida. With at least a week before harvest begins, the crew split up in all directions to take care of more pre-harvest odds and ends. We’ve logged a lot of windshield time recently.

David headed back to his farm in Minnesota, a 600-mile round trip. The chance to return home during harvest doesn’t come along very often, but this visit produced a few frowns and was decisively less fun. Like so many others in the upper Midwest, recent heavy rains caused serious flood damage to many of David’s fields. A firsthand damage assessment will help decide if replanting some acres is still feasible.

Glen, Cameron, Titus and I piled into the semi for a 500-mile trip back to Iowa to fetch the grain cart tractor. This was our first glimpse of our crops since leaving home, and after a slower start to the growing season everything looked pretty exceptional. This put a smile on our faces. Hay-making was in full swing, and the high humidity amped up the smell of fresh-cut alfalfa lingering in the air.

We still managed to keep busy at home, hauling a few loads of corn out of storage, miscellaneous equipment tinkering and a thorough wash and wax of the tractor. Anticipating school may start before harvest wraps up, Cameron and Titus headed back to Onida with another vehicle that could potentially shuttle kids back home if needed. Glen and I returned to South Dakota with the tractor, but when the semi truck A/C quit half-way back, our smiles were replaced with frowns. Next we made a day trip to pick up the grain cart, and we now have that unit ready to shuttle copious bushels from the combines to the trucks in what is looking to be a high-yielding harvest. Go ahead and add another 1,750 miles to our traveling tally.

We’ve journeyed quite a few places in the last week while waiting for the wheat to ripen, but we’re not done yet. With just enough time to squeeze in a little fun, the crew is on its way to Rapid City for a scenic exploration of the beautiful Black Hills. It’s rare to have this much downtime between jobs, but it’s even more rare for our family to take a summer vacation together that’s not in a wheat field. It may mean another 1,500 miles of looking out the window, but I’m confident this adventure will produce nothing but miles of smiles.

Brian Jones can be reached at brian@allaboardharvest.com.

Thank you to our 2024 All Aboard Wheat Harvest sponsors: High Plains Journal, Lumivia by Corteva Agriscience, Unverferth Manufacturing Co., Inc., Merit Auctions, Kramer Seed Farms, Shelbourne Reynolds and U.S. Custom Harvesters, Inc.

Tags:

aawh, agriculture, All Aboard, harvest, High Plains Journal, HPJ, oklahoma, wheat