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SUGAR BEET HARVEST


mountainborn

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We have been home from Colorado for a couple of days now and are still trying to catch up on stuff ! The camphosting Summer job above 10 K was a wonderful thing. We are looking forward to being there next year.

It is six days until we leave for the Sugar Beet Harvest and we are rushing to get all of our plunder sorted out for the trip.

Betty will be taking samples for quality control and I will be operating a front end loader. The harvest starts on October first and runs 24/7 until finished, usually about four to six weeks. The job pays straight time, time and a half and double time. They also furnish a full hookup campsite. Here is a link to the web site:

http://www.sugarbeetharvest.com/

Then after that it is home for the hollidays and deer season, then,,tadaaa ! off to the tie dye event at St georges Island ! We have our beach front reservations made already !

After that, who knows, more beach, flip flops & tee shirts we hope !

I would rather wake up in the middle of nowhere than in any city on earth 08' Oliver Legacy Elite HULL NUMBER 0003(sold)

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Wow, can't believe you'd leave beautiful Arkansas for the Dakotas in October. But, since you're going....

 

I don't know which factory/processing plant you and Betty will be near, but the Dakotas have their own beauty (notwithstanding the Black Hills, everyone knows that...)

 

In Fargo/Moorhead, you'll find three colleges, two beautiful towns, and thousands of people who fight the floods each spring. In their spare time, they build beautiful monuments to their heritage.... You'll find a replica of a Viking ship, built in a shed, that was sailed by the builder's family from Duluth, through the Great Lakes, out to the Atlantic, and to Norway and back. Also, a lovely replica of one of Norway's stave kjirkes (stave churches). A few of these medieval structures are left in Norway, kind of like upside down ships, with the poles supporting the intricate roofs. Take the time to tour the area if you can.

 

The Scandinavian Festival (hostfest) in Minot is amazing. In this little town, literally thousands of volunteers man the state fairgrounds, and exhibits and great music go on all day... out here in the middle of the great prairie. My dad and I drove out from southern Minnesota a few years ago to meet a distant cousin from Framfjord, Norway (and a few distant cousins from the US), and had a wonderful time. Usually, the first weekend in October.

 

Oh, then there's the Lewis and Clark trail, Mandan, and so much more. Hope you get some time to enjoy your time there. The sky is amazing. (Cell phone coverage is not.)

 

Sherry

2008 Ram 1500 4 × 4

2008 Oliver Elite, Hull #12

Florida and Western North Carolina, or wherever the truck goes....

400 watts solar. DC compressor fridge. No inverter. 2 x 105 ah agm batteries .  Life is good.


        
 

 

 

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Thanks Sherry ! The Lewis & Clark Trail has already caught our attention.

Today we finished the orientation process, payroll, ect. got in four hours of training and will do more tomorrow. It is pretty cool to be operating that big ol' piler on the first day ! It is also pretty cool to have someone else pay for your full hook up campsite !

I would rather wake up in the middle of nowhere than in any city on earth 08' Oliver Legacy Elite HULL NUMBER 0003(sold)

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It has been an exciting and very busy week at the Sugar Beet Harvest, Betty and I being the newbies will be working on the night shift from eight at night till' eight in the morning. I will be relief piler operator and Betty will be the boom operator. We will have a few days off before the harvest actually starts, so today we drive into Grand Forks for an oil change on the Jeep and to buy a few groceries.

I would rather wake up in the middle of nowhere than in any city on earth 08' Oliver Legacy Elite HULL NUMBER 0003(sold)

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The next day we drove into Fargo/Morehead to see the Viking Ship. Was it ever cool ! We had lunch at a great family restaurant.

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On the parking lot side of "Mom's" family Restaurant we saw this:

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I would rather wake up in the middle of nowhere than in any city on earth 08' Oliver Legacy Elite HULL NUMBER 0003(sold)

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We came back from the museum in Moorehead via hwy 75 on the Minnesota side of the river and found this clever motorcycle shop sign. The name of the shop is "the Vroom Closet" and the sign is a motorcycle going in through a open door in the upstairs.

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I would rather wake up in the middle of nowhere than in any city on earth 08' Oliver Legacy Elite HULL NUMBER 0003(sold)

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Great signs. When I was a kid in southern Minnesota, there were so many huge signs in that vein. My favorite was the giant toilet on top of the plumber's facility (small kids love scatalogical humor...).

 

So the beet work begins in earnest...

 

I'm glad you got the opportunity to visit Fargo/Moorhead. The Viking ship replica is just too beautiful, and so well done. I'm sure you watched the video of the launch and sailing through the Great Lakes and on to Norway. I marveled at the bravery of the kids sailing it across the Atlantic.

 

Sherry

2008 Ram 1500 4 × 4

2008 Oliver Elite, Hull #12

Florida and Western North Carolina, or wherever the truck goes....

400 watts solar. DC compressor fridge. No inverter. 2 x 105 ah agm batteries .  Life is good.


        
 

 

 

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As we arrived back to the campground from our all day long museum tour, we noted the campsites were all full and the windows all had a yellow sign in the window like we have, more last minute Sugar Beet Harvest Workers had arrived. Here is a look at the window signs:

100_0728.jpg

I would rather wake up in the middle of nowhere than in any city on earth 08' Oliver Legacy Elite HULL NUMBER 0003(sold)

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The long range weather forecast was for heavy rain the first week of October, so the Sugar Beet Harvest was kicked off a couple of days early. We have a toll free number to call that keeps workers up to date on work dates and status. Sure enough the forecast was right. About 6AM on the 1st of October the rain came, We recieved our rain gear and finished up dumping the beet trucks that were waiting at the time, piling the beets to await their processing time.

Because of the weather break we will go to East Grand forks Minnesota for lunch and a visit to Cabelas the outdoors outfitter.

I would rather wake up in the middle of nowhere than in any city on earth 08' Oliver Legacy Elite HULL NUMBER 0003(sold)

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EMAIL status update sent this date:

>

After a fabulous Summer Hosting at Trujillo meadows, we made a hurried trip back to Arkansas, changed out our clothing to be ready for the far Northern climate of North Dakota. Put new tires on the Jeep, ect.. We had seven days at home and it was rush, rush all the way to get it done. This was followed by eleven hundred miles of driving, straight North to our reporting location at Hillsboro ND, with a short detour to Springfield MO , to Bass Pro Shop to gear up a bit for the North Dakota weather. We did dally somewhat, driving a sixty mile stretch of old route 66, and finding a few geocaches along that route.

Photos and narative at our blog located at:

http://www.mountainborn.blogspot.com

The day that we finished our orientation and signed stuff for our personnel packages, we were to be off until the harvest start. But we had never seen a beet piling station before. He, he, so we drove to our assigned site to take a look. We stopped in at the scale house, and within minutes we were in safety vests, hard hats and safety glasses ! A brief tour of the facillities quickly turned into a few days of training at the pre-pile. We had started learning job skills with lots of hands on experience !

After a few days off, the harvest started and quickly snowballed into a full blown eighteen hundred trucks a day, beet piling event. We are well into the second week now and have had a shut down from freezing temperatures. Betty and I caught up on our sleep and went shopping for grocerys and a couple of clothing items to make those 12 hour nights a bit more comfortable.

It is midnight here and we are still on our night shift sleep / wake cycle. As I write this Betty is catching up on our laundry and I am getting ready to pay bills.

Hope all is well with you and maybe it won't be long til' we are camping again.

harm & bett

I would rather wake up in the middle of nowhere than in any city on earth 08' Oliver Legacy Elite HULL NUMBER 0003(sold)

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Good idea to keep your circadian rhythms stabilized even during the down times. Perhaps you can get some night vision goggles and do some midnight geocaching. :shock: Makes it a bit more sporty he, he, he.

 

Be sure to let all us southerners know how the Ollie does during a prolonged frigid camp setting. (better you than me, buddy ;) )

Pete & "Bosker".    TV -  '18 F150 Super-cab Fx4; RV  - "The Wonder Egg";   '08 Elite, Hull Number 014.

 

Travel blog of 1st 10 years' wanderings - http://www.peteandthewonderegg.blogspot.com

 

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