BATTLEFORD, Sask. – Spent tractors sink into the tall grass at Battleford Agro Services, the hulls pecked at by the human magpies that rip out their tires, doors and lights.
Combines, swathers, radiators and tires litter the sprawling graveyard for used implements, while thousands of smaller parts line shelves inside warehouses.
Owner Earl Jones, eyes squinting into overcast skies this cool fall day, created this yard and the one that spills across Highway 29 near Battleford in western Saskatchewan.
He easily rattles off the price of most parts farmers ask for, keeping a running inventory in his head on what he has and what he needs to get.
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His bookkeeper, Ken Robson, uses a computer to keep the business’s accounting in order, but a green chalkboard and Jones’s memory are the only tools used to find parts sorted by type and manufacturer.
Combines, some red and some green, line opposites sides of a rugged path. Orange hubs from tractors fill one corner of the main office building, while a pile of starters covers the floor nearby.
A saw blade featuring the company name, painted by Jones’s brother Wilbert, hangs from the ceiling. His murals also grace the modest home of Earl and Muriel nestled just above the wrecking yard.
Jones started the business in 1988 by selling his own farm equipment. Other wrecking yards have moved into the region since, but Jones said the inventory, now estimated at close to $400,000 worth, has provided a good, stable income over the years.
Others specialize in items like combines and tractors, but Jones offers a potpourri of agricultural equipment.
“I don’t overhaul anything, I just sell it,” said Jones, who sells most as is.
“There is a limit to what we get done in a day,” said Jones, noting his shop also employs Muriel, Robson and two mechanics, farmers Wes Veit and Merv Oborowsky, who spend most days helping customers find what they need.
“I’m a wrecker, not a fixer,” Veit said of his work. “I just take the parts off to sell.”
Veit slows his hectic pace for lunch, the morning’s work still staining the fingers reaching for sandwiches and pop. Pungent smells of gas, oil and metal permeate the wood-paneled office.
While searching for a tractor key after lunch, Veit explains how important it is have a sense of humour in a business where hours can be spent looking for parts with customers.
Pointing to a boat in a large slough behind the shop, he said: “We tell the customers that’s Earl out there fishing.”
The scrap yard will see close to 30 people most days, slowing down in the winter. That allows the Joneses to take a month of holidays and the mechanics to dismantle and sort parts inside the shop.
One truck pulls away with a $300 stripped-down swather header that will be rebuilt on the farm as another farmer arrives with tools ready to remove a primer pump from a machine out back.
With people coming and going constantly, Jones shrugs off the fact that parts sometimes disappear.
“That happens. What you don’t know won’t hurt you.”
It’s not uncommon for Jones to work evenings or weekends. Muriel remembered one man who came looking for a spindle for his tractor on Christmas day.
“It’s a very necessary business for smaller farmers,” said Jones, whose business targets the mid-sized farmers.
He said many are holding onto their older equipment longer, or fixing them up for chores. Many have farm shops and fix equipment.
“There’s always a demand for somebody wanting to make something.”
Jones said dealers are located farther apart, many old parts are obsolete and new parts are often double the price of used and not always in stock. Jones’ customers generally pay $100 to $200.
Returns on parts that don’t work or fit are commonplace, as evidenced by the returned starters littering the floor with white marks denoting non-starters.
Muriel said Jones’ past career as a car salesperson helps him do well in this business.
“Ninety percent of them will say they love dealing with Earl because he always has a chuckle,” said Muriel, who married Earl almost 25 years ago. Earl has two children and Muriel has seven, but none are involved in the business.
“People are amazed with Earl remembering he has a part – it’s all in his head,” said Muriel. “I could ask Earl what he had for breakfast and he maybe wouldn’t remember.”
Jones said he likes dealing with people and living and working in rural Saskatchewan.
“The city wouldn’t like this mess,” he said of the wrecking yard that acquires much of its stock from auctions.
“You’ve got to be quite flexible in your pricing and your attitude towards other people,” said Earl. “You sort of have to have them figured out as to how far you can go with them. You learn who you’re dealing with.”
He said the face of agriculture is changing, with semi-trailer trucks replacing two-ton trucks in the field and grain hauled greater distances along the highway past his 35-acre property.
Farms are getting bigger and fewer in numbers and smaller ones are finding it tough to compete with large farms, he said.
Jones said his business and location keep him close to his customers.
Mayfair farmers Henry and Mary Konopelski drop in to deal on a tractor, fill Jones in on what’s going on in North Battleford and just look around.
Henry comes here because the used parts are half the price of new ones.
“We can usually get what you want here,” he said. “He is about the best around the country.”
Gordie Germsheid, stricken with multiple sclerosis, deals out of his truck cab with Jones on a tire rim.
“You have to know your prices or you could get screwed,” smiled the Handel farmer, who later agreed amicably on a sale price over a cup of coffee.
Inside the office, Jones puts a small part for an injection pump into the hands of Charles Dorval, waving off any payment.
“In town, I’d have to buy six to get one and I only want one,” Dorval said.
Jones has been working steadily since 1949 and, now at age 74, he looks toward easing out of the business.
He has already suffered two heart attacks and has been advised to take it easy, although Muriel said that hasn’t happened yet.
“Probably retirement is boring,” said Jones.
