Sugar Beet Harvest - Day # 19 - And then there was ONE

The windchill factor on Friday, October 18th, was 17 degrees......we are both so thankful we were not working the day shift.  For the first time in a week the day shift was promised a 12 hour shift, but starting at 8 am instead of 7 am.  Our start time was the normal one at 7 pm.

I spent the better part of the morning organizing the trailer for departure.  To make it more hospitable inside the trailer I ran a couple of extension cords over to one of the power pedestals and plugged into a 20 amp outlet.  I plugged in the heater, turned on the lights and had tunes playing in my sanctuary for the first time in 2 months.  Within a few minutes the heater had the inside of the trailer feeling comfortable, and then I began to put away the bikes, and other stuff that had exploded out of the cabinets over the past two months.  It was enjoyable to spend time in the trailer, which has become my "garage" on the road.  There is always something to do in there, and the time passes quickly.

As you know, we haven't worked a 12 hour shift in over a week, and Thursday was no different, but we were hoping Friday and Saturday nights would be 12 hour shifts so we could close out our stay here with two good money days.

Our plan before we went to work Friday evening was to leave Monday morning after completing our last shift Saturday night/Sunday morning giving me time to finish cleaning off the coach, and getting a good "day's" sleep, however, when we reported for work Friday at 7 pm we found that once again the trucks would not be running all night, but would stop at 8 pm meaning another short night.  We were also informed that this would be the case Saturday evening as well.

Once again there were only two pilers running all day (FP2 and 4), so we (Dallas and I) were assigned the task of cleaning one piler, but with one caveat......they wanted us to clean what they call the "cross belts".  The "cross belts" pick up the sugar beets from the hopper after they are dumped by the trucks and then move them up to what they call the "incline conveyer".  The "cross belts" had become extremely muddy, and as a result were not picking up the beets quickly enough resulting in the hopper overflowing.  The day crew had already stopped once during the day to clean these belts, but by 8 pm they were pretty clogged up again.  Normally Dallas and I can clean the other areas of the piler in about 30-40 minutes.  This added task added about an hour and 40 minutes, and it was hard.  We didn't start cleaning until 8 pm when the day shift finished, and the trucks stopped coming, and finally finished about 10:15, by which time I was soaked with perspiration.  It's amazing how you can sweat so much when it is 35 degrees outside.

Once we were done I retrieved TLE from the warm, well lit, comfortable Scale House where she had spent the early evening reading a good book, and we headed home.  On the way we decided that since we would be working another abbreviated shift Saturday night that we would get a good night's rest, and then leave Sunday before Noon time.  This works out well as we are heading for Bozeman to hook up with our friends Jeanne and Chris Callahan whom we met in Indianapolis.  Jeanne writes a blog called Have Bus, Will Travel which I enjoy reading.  At any rate this will give us three days to drive the 500+ miles to Bozemen instead of the two we had budgeted.  We'll arrive there Tuesday afternoon and spend a day with them before heading the final 99 miles to Fairmont Hot Springs Resort.

So, at last, as I sit here depressing the keys on my laptop, and watching mostly coherent thoughts make their way to the "page", I can say with the utmost confidence...... "And then there was ONE".......just one more abbreviated shift tonight and we will, once again, be one our way to new adventures.

I have been asked often over the past 3 weeks by readers, friends, and even co-workers here at Sidney Sugars "will you do this again?".  Right now it's about 50/50 that I will.  Of course, TLE loved this job, and would do it again in a heartbeat, so the question remains for me to answer.

All in all it has been an interesting experience, and that was part of why we chose to work the sugar beet harvest....for the experience.  We have met some interesting people, and learned a lot about agriculture in this little corner of the world.  We have helped process tons of sugar beets into enormous piles where they will be gradually hauled off to the factory where they will become sugar.

Over the next 3 weeks we will gradually wend our way homeward where we have not been in almost 2 years.  Of course that means there are still 3 weeks of adventures before we park for a couple of months, spend time with our kids and grand kids, and then head off again after the first of the year to see new things, and seek new adventures.

Thanks for stopping by!

Moonrise around 7:08 am on our last full day here in Sidney, MT

Sugar Beet Harvest - Day # 18 - How it ends

I slept until almost 10 am Thursday after going to bed a little after midnight.....I don't remember the last time I slept almost 10 hours, but it felt yummy.   The first thing I did after pouring  a cup of joe was to call the employee hotline to see what was what for Thursday evening.  The message said we, the night shift, were to report at our usual start time of 7 pm, but gave no hint as to how long we would work.

There is not much else to report about our Thursday.......we went no where, and really did nothing.....seriously, nothing.  Since I'm not sleeping until 3 pm like I was when we were actually working a 12 hour shift, and I'm going to bed earlier, and getting up earlier I have a lot of time to do nothing.  We are both getting bored with long days before going to work, and anticipating the end of our assignment here in Sidney, MT.  

It was sunny all day and we could see that in our RV ghetto the mud was drying up, so we were hopeful we would have a normal 12 hour shift, but, unfortunately, being hopeful does not always pan out.

We reported for work around 6:30, and found out right away that once again the trucks were only going to run until 7 pm, and our task, once again, would be to clean the two pilers that ran Thursday.....2 and 4.  Dallas and I were sent to FP4 to clean it.  We took our time, but were still done by 7:45.  Then we walked over to FP2 to help Joe and Casey move the gigantic 4 phase power cord to its final position for that piler.  It appears FP2 has about 2 more days before it is done, and FP4 maybe one more day.

While I was out climbing around FP4 TLE found out from our over all supervisor, Vanessa, that our last shift will be Saturday night/Sunday morning.  She also found out that they do expect to run a full shift Friday night and Saturday night, but we'll see.   At any rate it turns out that if we are called into work we get paid for 8 hours no matter how little time we are there, so at least we will get paid for 8 hours for Wednesday night, and for Thursday night, while working less than 3 hours total for the two nights.

Well, there you go......we are just two shifts away from finishing this job, and we will be departing on Monday morning for warmer, less muddy regions.  By Wednesday we will be soaking in the hot springs at Fairmont Hot Springs Resort, and by the next weekend we should be at my brother's home in Salt Lake City where we will have our floors redone.

Right after we got home from another abbreviated shift it started raining again, and kept on for almost an hour.  I hope this does't mess up plans for tomorrow night, but whatever happens we will just "roll with the punches" as my Dad used to say.

Thanks for stopping by!

Sugar Beet Harvest - Day # 17 - False Start.....5 yard penalty

Wednesday started out with sun and clear blue skies, but it did not appear throughout the day that after almost 2 days of sun that the mud was any dryer.  A couple of walks over to the trailer confirmed what my eyes were seeing......not much dryer at all.  I think the high for today was in the low 50's, which is why it is not really drying out fast enough.

We saw the people assigned to the Noon to midnight shift leave about 11:30, and were glad we were not with them.  If it is bad here in the RV ghetto I could only imagine how bad it was at the Factory site.

We took at easy all day in anticipation of our 7 pm start.  I took a couple of naps.  TLE went into town for a brief shopping foray around 3 pm.

Around 6:30 we headed over to the Factory site expecting it to be messy, but fully expecting to work our 12 hour shift.  We arrived as it began to sprinkle again.  I could see from the break hut that the field between the us and the pilers was a quagmire.   I decided not to even think about driving the 'Bird out to the piler, so I hitched a ride with Dallas, my piler mate in his four wheel drive Dodge pickup, and even in four wheel drive low we almost got stuck on our way out to FP2.  We were about half way when the day time foreman, Tish, stopped us to say that there would be no trucks after 7 pm as it was just too muddy, and they could not move the pilers back as their wheels were spinning in the mud, so we (Dallas, Joe, Casey and I) were to just clean FP2, 3 and 4, then go home.  

I talked with a few of the people who had gone on duty at Noon and who were leaving at 7 pm, and they said it was a nightmare all day long, and if we thought it was bad at 7 pm we should have seen it at Noon when they started.  It looked like a war zone.  So we bid them farewell as they headed home and started our cleaning chores, and with four of us it took exactly an hour to clean the three pilers,  so once we had finished with FP4 I headed back to the scale house where TLE was.   By the way, cleaning them wasn't quite as bad this time, but maybe that's because I knew we would be done after that.  According to TLE I looked dirtier than I have after 12 hours of doing my regular piler job.

Our night foreman, Amanda, told us we could stay the whole shift, even though there was no work to do, but I was not prepared to spend the whole night sleeping on the floor just to get in 12 hours......I'm talking about spending the remaining 10.5 hours of sleeping on the floor, which didn't appeal to me, so we headed home knowing we would get paid for 4 hours.  

The good news about Wednesday was that my Dodgers managed to win game 5 against the Cardinals, so they are heading back to St. Louis down 2 games to 3, but they have their ace pitcher Clayton Kershaw going on Friday.  The Tigers won game 4 of their series to even it up at 2 games apiece now.

We got home just before 9 pm and watched Survivor (live), Revolution and one of TLE's cooking shows, Top Chef (recorded) before heading off to dreamland.

I'm not sure what will be happening Thursday, or Friday with the new rain tonight, but I'm thinking if it is more of the same that we may bail out and head south.  We need to be out of here by the 21st, or 22nd, and I just don't know if conditions will permit them to finish by then.  If the site wasn't so muddy we could be done by Sunday, but I just don't see it happening right now.

Thursday is another day, and we'll wait to see what it brings......thanks for stopping by!

Sugar Beet Harvest - Day # 16 - Watching mud dry....

And that is literally what we are doing........watching mud dry.....because until it dries out enough we won't be working.  We started off the day with sunshine, no clouds, and no wind.  All good signs that we may get back to work soon.  Although the temp got below freezing last night and as a result the hose froze again, but it's all good.....I just turn on the water pump and use the water in the heated water bay, which isn't frozen.

Based on the employee hotline message from Monday we knew there was a 10 am meeting for the day shift, so we were expecting news about when the harvest will start again, and how many days there are left.

Around 11:30 I took two pairs of our shoes over to the trailer to clean as TLE and I won't be wearing them again at the harvest.  I'll be back in my much warmer, water proof boots when we go back to work, and TLE has a couple of other pairs that aren't muddy.  While I was there some of the folks from the 10 am meeting began returning and I found out they are going to run 2 pilers 24 hours a day until we're done, which means we won't be quite as lonely on the night shift.  But they still did not know when we would begin working again......one guy I talked with said he thought Thursday, or Friday......my immediate thought was "Uggghhh!"

However, as we were ending our conversation the guy said "of course, you know, we get paid for a minimum of 4 hours per day that we can't work due to weather, or conditions".......hmmmm, you know, I had forgotten that........so that means we're making $112 per day sitting at home, so in the last five days we've earned $560.  That makes the pain of doing nothing feel a little more productive.

We were waiting for the updated 4 pm employee hotline message to see when we would begin working again, and finally 4 pm came......the message advised that we would report to work at our normal 7 pm start time on Wednesday.....YAY!

I came across this cool YouTube video of the sugar beet harvest here in Montana.  At the 4:50 mark in the video you will see video of the Factory site where we work....specifically FP4.......the first part is of the Sugar Valley site where we were originally assigned.  With these aerial shots you can get a better idea of the size of the sugar beet piles, and the venting pipe.

Video of Sugar Valley and the Factory sites 

So, at least now we know we will be back to work Wednesday evening with about 4-5 days of the harvest left.....we should be done by the end of the weekend, or shortly thereafter.

As you know, our plan is to head for our home in SoCal after the harvest, arriving there sometime the middle of November.  I've been in contact with the ranger at the park (Rancho Jurupa Regional Park) we were camphosts at for a year before we left on our journey.  I finally heard back today that we do have a position lined up, which comes with a free full hookup spot.  That will make it easy to spend the two months at home that we planned without incurring any additional cost.....very, very good news!

Around 5 pm we headed into town to have dinner at the Cattle-ac restaurant, which is really more of a bar, but has really good food, and draft beer.  I had their chicken fried steak, a baked potato and a couple of Land Shark drafts.  Yelp give them 3.5 stars, and I think that is about right.  If there was a more updated interior I would push the rating to 4 stars, nevertheless, the food was excellent and so was the service.

On a sports side note, the Tigers lost to the Red Sox, and my Dodgers lost to the Cardinals.....no timely hitting again......decent enough pitching, but no offense.

Thanks for stopping by!

Sugar Beet Harvest - Day # 15 - H2O

I usually love the sound of rain on the roof.....in fact I really can't think of a time when I haven't liked it.....until now.  Why?  Because rain on the roof means we are being delayed another day from completing our assignment.

It began raining about 1 am Monday morning, and continued raining into mid afternoon.  Pretty much like the last rain......never hard, but steady, hour after hour.  The longer it continued the more certain we both were that there would be no night shift Monday night.  Around 4 pm we called the employee hotline and confirmed our suspicions that once again we would not be required to show up at 7 pm for the night shift.  That H2O  falling from the heavens is now becoming our enemy.  Based on what several people have told us we had 5-7 days left as of Friday morning at the end of our last shift.......now 4 days have passed and it is looking like a 5th may pass without working.....we could very well have been done by Wednesday morning, but here we sit waiting for things to dry out again so we can be done and move on.

Monday was a very, very cold, rainy, blustery day......certainly not the kind of day you would want to be working outside, especially at night.  We pretty much stayed inside all day with 4 electric heaters going full time........the one in the water bay keeping the fresh and waste water from freezing, and three inside the coach.  The water hose froze again.  We spent the day napping, and still catching up on a big back log of recorded shows (CSI, X-Factor, Person of Interest, Master Chef, etc,).

Around 3:40 our daughter, Meredith, called to chat for a few minutes as she often randomly does.....it is always nice to hear from her!  Around 5:30 I took a long nap.....still trying to do my sleeping during the day time, but it's getting harder and harder to stay up til 3, or 4 am.......I've been slipping back to 2, or 2:30 am, which means I'm also waking up earlier in the day, hence the writing of this blog entry getting done earlier and earlier in the day.

I settled in to watch the Dodger vs. Cardinal MLB NLCS game around 6:30 hoping my Dodgers would win and get us back into this series.  After 22 scoreless innings the offense and timely hitting finally reappeared and we won the game 3-0.  If you had told me a week ago that the Dodger pitching would hold the opposition to 3 earned runs in 3 games I would have thought we would be up 3-0, but we have only scored 5 earned runs in that span, and 3 of them in the last game.  The pitching has done its job, let's just hope the offense continues to wake up.....we need three more wins to advance to the World Series.

We hit the sack around 2 am.....see what I mean?  Doesn't take too many days to reverse our routine. Oh well, there are only 5-7 days left, so we'll just have to tough it out.  

As I write the sun is out, and there is not a cloud in the sky.  We will await the next employee hotline update and see if we go back to work tonight, or wait one more day.

Tuesday morning around 9:45 am....the sun is out!

Thanks for stopping by!

Sugar Beet Harvest - Day # 14 - Some Day

I suppose that some day we will go back to work, but for now we are just playing a waiting game.  Some day we'll be far from Sidney, MT soaking away our (actually my) soreness in the hot springs in Fairmont, MT, but for right now some day is just something I dream about.  Meanwhile we called the employee hotline about 4 pm Sunday to find out if we were going to be going to work at 7 pm, only to find out that we will wait one more day to go back to work.  We are tentatively scheduled to go back to work at 7 pm Monday evening.  But here's the kicker, and why I say tentatively......it is supposed to begin raining again tonight around 10 pm, and rain most of the night.  If the amount of rain is sufficient we will not be working tomorrow night either.  After tonight we have clear dry weather for over a week forecast by the weather guessers, so some day not too far distant we will start working again, and then we will be finished in just a few days.

I went to bed Sunday morning around 2:30 am.....again, still trying to keep somewhat to our work schedule.....TLE was more successful than I as she didn't go to bed until  after 4:30.  I was up around 10:15 am.  The skies continued to be clear Sunday, with another high around 55.  It did get cold enough overnight that the water hose froze so I had to turn on the water pump to access water from our fresh water tank,  but within an hour or so the hose unfroze, and water was once again flowing freely.

I watched football all day, but at the half time of the first game I headed over to the trailer where we parked the T-Bird last night to avoid driving it through the mud after just getting it cleaned, and did a little more detailing.  While I was gone TLE mended my $3 winter coat....a seam in the sleeve had come apart, so she stitched it back together....it only has to last 5-7 more days and then it will be given an honorable burial.

The afternoon NFL game was between the Patriots and Saints.......Tom Brady threw a touchdown pass with 5 seconds to go to win by 3 points.....it was a very good game to watch.  Once we knew we didn't have to work I settled in to watch the evening NFL game between the Cowboys and Redskins and, simultaneously, the Tiger and Red Sox MLB game.  Life is good, but some day, not too far distant, I won't have to worry about anything interrupting a football, or baseball game.

This has all really worked out well, because I really needed 3 days off from work.  Even though things had slowed down I was starting to feel like I had been in a car wreck.  After three days off the achy feeling is mostly gone, except from my hands, and they will probably take a week to 10 days of no activity to start feeling like hands again.  Right now I have a hard time making a fist they are soooo stiff, but some day I won't be thinking about that anymore either.

Thanks for stopping by!

Doesn't look like work today (Monday)

Sugar Beet Harvest - Day # 13 - Waiting

Around 5 pm on Friday we called the employee hotline to hear the latest message about whether we would work Saturday night.......the message advised we would not work Saturday night, and should call back at 6 pm on Sunday for further instructions.  So, we have a second night off.......no one here is complaining.  On top of that Rain is forecast again for early Monday morning, so even Sunday night is up in the air.  There are only 5-7 days left in the harvest, so we are ready to get on with it and finish out the job so we can head south to warmer climate.  Nevertheless, if it rains it rains.  We'll continue on in style and take one day at a time.  

In the mean time we are enjoying the reprieve from the 12 hour shifts.  I spent the morning and afternoon watching NCAA football.  Around 3 pm we decided to run the T-Bird through the local do it yourself carwash, and then go out for a late lunch/early dinner. I bought the best carwash the Exxon station sold for $11 and we got our money's worth for sure.  She looks good again.

From there we headed over to a local pizza place called Panini's Pizzaria, which while it only has one Yelp review bestowing 5 stars upon it, we would have to agree with that rating.  The ambiance is very nice, the service is quick, and the pizza is exceptional.....if only they served beer.  Frankly, I can't remember the last time I had a beer, but to be honest I haven't really wanted one....I've been too tired for most of the past 13 days, and if I had a beer it would just put me right to sleep....lol!

There is not much else to recount about our day......I did watch the entire Tigers vs. Red Sox game, which the Tigers won 1-0.  My Dodgers dropped their second NLCS game to the Cardinals by the same score.

The wind from Friday night continued into mid morning, and the daytime high was only 55 if that.  The wind was strong enough that it blew out the pilot light on the water heater twice, but now, this evening, it is calm and windless.  The sun was out all day, and the mud mostly dried up here in the RV ghetto.

We are (as I write) enjoying a nice quiet evening, and the time we have off from the harvest.  Sunday will be another day, and we will await anxiously word of whether, or not we are called back to work Sunday evening.

Thanks for stopping by!