Not many people would claim "better weather" as one of their reasons for moving to North Dakota, but the apparently aptly named Zack Snow and his wife, Jordon Snow, found themselves really liking the brisk winter temperatures during their visits.

Those deep-freezes, paired with generally milder summers, are a stark change for the pair who moved north from Kansas, where 100°F days are not uncommon in July and August. 

Zack and Jordon made the move to North Dakota this past April to work for Brandon Nehring at his farm in the Bottineau County area. Zack had worked as a custom cutter for Nehring for several seasons before the pandemic and says he had "the itch" to make the move permanent since then.

"I loved it here. Every time we were here, I just loved it. It always just felt like home. And then, obviously, the winters, everybody talks about the winters being so bad, you know, and of course, the summers are amazing, but winters, you hear so much about," says Zack. 

"So, I actually met my wife and then brought her up a bunch of times in the wintertime just to see if we were going to be okay with it. And it's cold, but we really liked it. It's better than the 100-degree heat every single day. And then finally, this year, everything came together, and it just worked out. We made it."

When it comes to farming, the flip-flop in weather has also flip-flopped Zack's approach and mindset; the growing season is much shorter in North Dakota, which became immediately evident as local folks would get "pretty amped" when it came time to seed or harvest due to the necessity of accomplishing a lot in a relatively small amount of time.

"I think sometimes it doesn't even feel like the same thing," Zack says of farming in the south versus in the north. 

"Down there, it's like the opposite of every problem almost up here. Like up here, this year has been dry. From what we're hearing, most years are wet, and you're fighting the rain, cool weather, and moisture. Down there, it's the complete opposite. You're fighting the heat and the lack of rain.

"Down there, we were so used to just being relaxed. You got things done when conditions were right. That's been the biggest difference. Up here, it's like you go when you can, not necessarily when you want to. That's been a big adjustment," Zack says.

Zack, a Kansas native, has farming in his blood; his dad was also a custom harvester, as were his grandfather and uncle. He spent his whole childhood in a combine or a grain cart with his dad and uncle, and says "pretty much every memory was in a wheat field somewhere." 

As he entered high school, his family stopped custom harvesting, but that didn't stop Zack; as soon as he graduated, he joined a different crew and started his own career. 

Brandon is also a lifer; he's been farming for 26 years, but the farm itself has been around since 1885. His grandfather homesteaded at nearby Gardena, ND, and Brandon owns the original homestead quarter where his grandfather had a sod house. Like Zack, Brandon also grew up inside of combines, helping his dad seed and harvest. 

"I got to get a bird's-eye view of farming from the time that I was old enough to sit in the back window and pay attention to what was going on," Nehring says.

But unlike Zack and Brandon, Jordon, originally from Texas, was a city girl – emphasis on was – before she met Zack and he made her fall in love with farming. Now, after a few lessons (and a lot of encouragement) from her husband, she can run a grain cart with the best of them. 

"It just became me and him (Zack) a lot of the time. We would be the only ones in the field together, and that built my confidence," Jordon explains. 

"His boss would get in the field, and I'd chase two combines… and I fell in love with it. So, every year, I kind of volunteer. When we first started here, Brandon was like, 'Are you sure you want to do this? Are you sure you want to be the grain cart operator girl?' I was like, 'Yep, that's kind of my job!' Every summer now, I drop everything I'm doing and do this, and I love it."

Funnily enough, Jordon says her time in the service industry earlier in her life actually provided her with some skills she has found helpful in the fields. 

"I also used to be a bartender and a waitress, and this is a lot like that. Instead of beer, it's grain. So I'm chasing people around, making sure they're good. Are you good? Are you good? And I'm running, running, running, so I compare it to that, and it helps me handle it," she laughs.

"You know, anyone can do it. If I can do it, then literally anyone can. Do not be intimidated, because I don't know what I'm doing half the time, and I'm having fun."

Jordon documents the inner workings of Nehring's farm on her various social media channels, which have amassed a large following over the past few years. On YouTube, Jordon has more than 828,000 subscribers, on TikTok, there are another 254,000, and on Instagram, she has 245,000 followers. 

To stay connected with JojoSnow on social media, click here.

Initially, she posted mainly videos of herself doing cold plunges – the act of dipping one's body into a tub of ice-cold water for a short period for health benefits – as well as videos of herself gardening. However, as her farming career evolved, her feed slowly transitioned to more tractors and fewer tubs. 

One of Jordon's more recent videos from August features her and Zack on the first day of the wheat harvest in the cab of a Case IH AF11 combine with MacDon's FD261 FlexDraper® header ready for its inaugural run in Nehring's field.

Jordon says from the cab of her grain cart while watching the header in use in the YouTube video.

"This is so cool, seeing this thing finally in action. It's a whole different situation seeing it in the field as opposed to sitting in a yard, sitting in the barn, sitting at the dealership, it's a whole different experience."

Released in September 2024 for the 2025 growing season, the FD261 FlexDraper® is the highest-capacity FlexDraper® the company has ever made. And while the sheer size of the header was a bit intimidating at first, Nehring knew Zack would be able to not only step-up to the challenge, but master it very quickly: "You're not going to find anybody better than Zack on a piece of equipment. And if he doesn't know the answer, he's going to get the answer," he says.

The decision to add the FD261 was a relatively easy one; after demoing a 50-foot head in very heavy wheat last year, Nehring says he thought it was going to work fine, but once they did the soybean harvest last fall, he reconsidered, thinking they needed something else to feed the combine in the beans. 

There was some initial concern that the huge header might be a bit clumsy to maneuver, but after a short time running it, it became clear to both Nehring and Zack that the FD261 functions just as any other header in the FD2 series would.

"And so far in the wheat and the small grains, it has not been a problem. That's actually been very nice on the front of that combine. I was a little worried about how it would function. Is it going to be clumsy? And what we've come to find out is it's an FD2 head, just more of it out there. And it functions exactly the way a 40 or a 45 would, just that it's a little bit bigger. And so far, we're pretty pleased with that decision right now," says Nehring.
 

"Now, I don't feel like I'm running a 61-foot head anymore. It feels like a draper header. I don't really notice a difference anymore," adds Zack.

"Granted, of course, it's still a huge header, but that was a question mark for us when this decision was made, like, 'Boy, I hope it's not so big that it's a pain to run.' It's not. Once you're out in the field, it feels like any other header you would have on here. It's pretty neat."

Nehring began running MacDon headers in 2020 when they switched to using a Case IH combine. His first header was an FD145, and they've since added an FD245 and, more recently, the new FD261. No matter the header they're using, Nehring says the MacDon products are all simple to use and have not given them any issues. 

"They feed very well. As far as all the crops that we're doing, between small grains, canola, soybeans, the header can do all the crops and do an excellent job at it in all those crops," Nehring says, while also pointing out each header has specific benefits, such as the FD245's triple-reel technology. 

"The triple-reel, especially in shorter crop or shorter beans, or anything like that, there's nothing that will beat it. Because the reel-to-cutterbar relationship is right on the money, you can have that reel smacked right on the cutterbar, all day long, kicking all those short beans off the cutter bar, and it just works fabulous," he says. 

Nehring has also invested in the ContourMax™ wheels for his FD245 and the FD261, saying it is "one option I would not be without." 

"ContourMax™ does not work exactly the way that many people probably think it does for setting your stubble height. ContourMax™ works together with the adapter and the wing balance to give you basically, the best way I can explain it is like if you like the way that this thing performs in soybean harvest, when you have it in full on-hinge mode, down on the ground, it does the same thing except for at whatever height you want to set it at. If you want to have 10-inch stubble, you'll have 10-inch stubble all day long. It is absolutely incredible how tabletop the stubble is by the time you're done," he says. 

Zack, too, is an advocate for the ContourMax™ add-on. Nehring's farm is located in an area of North Dakota designated as a waterfowl preservation zone, which means that installing any tile or drainage system is prohibited. Any feature that retains water must be preserved to benefit the waterfowl. Consequently, they deal with a lot of potholes; so much so that they've earned the nickname "pothole country."

"With a header this big (61 feet), you could still do it without ContourMax™ wheels, but with them, you don't touch it. You put the thing on the ground, set your adapter height, and you forget about it. The thing just follows the ground so good. So yes, I love the ContourMax™ wheels. I think they work awesome," says Zack.

Moving from the world of custom harvesting to a single farm has been a significant change for Zack, but it's a change that has brought new perspective and enjoyment to an industry he's been involved in for decades. Unlike a custom-harvesting relationship, Zack isn't just dropping in at the end of the season to cut; he now gets to watch the process from start to finish.

"We were so used to when you're on harvest, you roll in and it's just ready to combine, so you combine it and then you're gone. You don't get to see any of the other parts. I've seen the harvest part so many times, but the seeding, watching it grow, taking care of it, and keeping it are all still fairly new. That's cool, I love that," he says. 

"It's so cool just thinking about... It feels like we were just here seeding, and now we're here, harvesting. It's crazy."
 

To learn more about MacDon's FD2 Series FlexDraper® Header, click here or visit your local MacDon Dealer for more detail.