My name is Brian Jones of Greenfield, Iowa, and I am a second generation farmer and wheat harvester. I was born and raised on a family farm about 50 miles Southwest of Des Moines in the rolling hills of Southwest Iowa. During the tough financial times for farmers in the 1980s my father Glen Jones and grandpa George Rahn began were looking for additional income to keep financially viable during the farm crisis.
With combines being such expensive investments we were inspired by George’s brother who ran a custom harvesting crew to load up our own equipment and head to Oklahoma. From knocking on farmer’s doors randomly in the countryside to referrals from locals, one job lead to another that moved us northward one state at a time. As they say, the rest is history, and the 2022 season marked the 40th anniversary of Jones Harvesting.
Our crew is completely a family operation. Glen Jones and his wife Vernelle farm in Southwest Iowa with their son (thats me!) Brian Jones and their daughter Brenda and her husband Cameron Hamer. Brenda and Cameron have 4 young boys, and all 9 of us spend the summer working together harvesting. David Rahn now operates the Rahn family farm near Butterfield, Minnesota. David joins us with his equipment each summer, continuing the Jones-Rahn Harvesting legacy.
Back in Iowa the Jones and Hamer families works together raising corn, soybean, and hay along with running a cow-calf herd. We also do some customer farming and harvesting locally as well. With spring planting finished and the cows turned out to pasture, we load up equipment typically early June and head to our first stop in central Oklahoma, followed by two stops is SW Kansas, Western Nebraska, Central South Dakota and Southern North Dakota.
After harvesting the amber waves of grain on the plains for more than 4 decades, it’s hard to not look back and consider all that has changed over the years. Yet one thing has remained the same…our love for the harvest. It’s been quite the adventure, and we look forward to sharing our journey together with you as we celebrating our 40th anniversary together.
The past week has been a blur, filled with finishing our last field in South Dakota, cleaning and loading machines, and then making that arduous drive with all the equipment back to Minnesota and Iowa. True to the theme of the 2023 harvest, we had difficulties right to the final fields.
Everyone can use a little advice from time to time, and no one is better at dispensing timely wisdom than a mother. "Everything looks better after a good night's sleep" is probably something your mom once told you, or perhaps "this too shall pass" was said to comfort you after a bad day.
After 16 days of sitting still, the crew has finally started harvesting spring wheat here in central South Dakota. I looks like it's been worth the wait.
It's unusual that a full week goes by without any harvesting to report, but this year has proven to be anything but usual. With winter wheat finished, we now are waiting on this unusual spring wheat situation to play out.
For the first time this summer, South Dakota is providing us with weed-free fields to cut. Outside of a few occasional sprinkles or a brief rain shower it's been mostly rain-free, too.
There may not have been balloons, banners or confetti, but that didn't stop the crew from celebrating this week. After 18 days we successfully won our battle with the weeds and finished our Kansas acres, but not before our single-digit rain chance turned into quite the spectacle.
After twelve days of going stir crazy staring at the clock, we finally have started harvesting in Kansas ... and it's about time. This weather pattern is so unusual even the locals can't recall another summer quite like this.
Going on harvest is kinda of like taking your band on tour. You travel around from location to location, putting on a few shows before moving on to your next gig.
After being in Oklahoma for 27 days, it felt like we had almost taken up residency there. I'm not sure what the rules are, but I was beginning to think I'd need to change the address on my driver's license if we didn't get harvest wrapped up there soon.
They say if you make a wish on a shooting star it will come true. I’ve also heard if you catch a leprechaun they will grant you three wishes in exchange for their freedom.