As you all may or may not have noticed I have been reletively absent for the last week.
My presence had been requested to aid with my area of expertise, truck driving? ::)
there is a guy who is a member of this board and whom I have known for a few years now,TNT, also known as Todd Sorenson who has a farm in the northwest corner of the state.
one of his main crops is sugar beets and when harvest time rolls around, its all hands on deck!
I have been to busy with work the last few years to help him out, but this year our work season ended early and as it turned out, I had the time, on short notice to make the drive to Hallock MN and give farm life a try.
I woke up at 6:30 a.m. and took care of some duties at home before driving north. when I arrived, I was introduced to some of the help.
we then drove to the field and into a truck with my shift partner, Bergy.
I made a couple rounds with him before taking a load myself.
I'm not sure what these guys are made of, but what ever it is, it doesnt require sleep. twelve hour shifts were about the shortest shift, with fifteen to sixteen hour shifts common and twenty hours with four or less hours of sleep in-between not uncommon at all.
The process, requires trucks to drive alongside of the tractors and beet lifters to load into the trucks.
we then drive to the nearest holding facitlty to unload the beets
they weigh the loads at the scale shack and then proceed to the pilers, which lift the beets into these ginormous piles so they can be stored until they can be hauled to the processing facility.
the trucks come for miles around, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for about 2 weeks.
there are trucks on every road with a common destination. when one of the pilers breaks down, the trucks pile up fast.
this is the truck that I drove most of the time I was there.
they can take beets during a temperature sensitive window of opportunity. if it gets to hot they can not take them to store. if it gets to cold, they shut down as well.
we had two such days while I was there, with snow and temps dipping into the teens.
those days are the days we spent driving to find one of minnesotas elk herds, which remained out of sight during both of my attempts to spot and photograph them. we did however find sharptail grouse and I managed to get my first one of those, and Bergy put some smack down on these two beautiful snow geese.
we also spent time listen to the Slate Colored Junco's smack into the windows of their home.
Todds wife and I decided we needed to invent something to keep the trajic event of bird window slamming from happening.
I was thinking rubberized glass, or maybe even flight sensitive glass with airbag deployment. these little guys really get their bell rung!
I will add here, that I got to meet one of the youngsters who is/was on the picture of the week and is currently on the banner that is our header.? These are Todd's nephews.this kid is off the charts.
Hunting and these pictures have helped his teacher at school, find an avenue of interest, that she can channel to help keep this boy on track at school.
he will be bummed out when the picture is no longer there, but I told him he will just have to keep doing well in school so he can keep going hunting, so he can keep on getting his picture taken, so they can have a chance to be put up here.
he now has an incentive program that he can relate to.
I would like to thank Todd and his wife Tanya for putting me up and all the great meals.
to me it was like a working vacation and I was glad it worked out that I could come up and help this season.
maybe it will work out again :)
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Topic: SUGAR BEET HARVEST 2006 (Read 6281 times)
