Sugar Beet Harvest 2018

We are once again in Grand Forks, North Dakota.  Jim worked the sugar beet harvest here in 2016 and wanted to work it again.  Sproule Farms happily rehired him for the harvest.

I don’t plan on rehashing the whole sugar beet harvest experience and how it all works.   If you weren’t reading the blog in 2016, here are links to the posts I wrote back then.

https://rv.cjsquare.com/2016/10/beet-harvest-in-the-red-river-valley/

https://rv.cjsquare.com/2016/10/sugar-beets-are-everywhere/

https://rv.cjsquare.com/2016/10/sugar-beet-wrap-up/

This year, I’ll post if something curious or new and different comes up.

As last time, we are camping in East Grand Forks, Minnesota on the east bank of the Red River.  Jim’s employer is in Grand Forks, North Dakota on the west bank of the Red River.  There are multiple bridges connecting the two cities and I can easily walk to North Dakota from the campground in Minnesota.

Marathon

Last Saturday morning was the Wild Hog Grand Forks Marathon.  The race route went right through our campground.  I’ve never seen a marathon before, so I decided to brave the cold (34 degrees) and watch.

There is a walking/biking path that runs along the Red River on both sides (and through our campground).

Along the paved path are these interesting bike repair stations. They have tools tethered to them and an air pump.  That’s convenient!

Our campground was just after mile 16 of the 26.2 miles of the marathon.

I happened to meet up with some people waiting for the runners who explained what was going on. The motorcycles with flashing lights came first. Excitement built.  Note the two people on the left in white unicorn costumes.  I should mention they also had a bag pipe.  They were there to cheer the racers.

Then comes a race official on a bike. Where are the runners?

Here are the runners!  Wait, there is only one guy, the lead runner. The other 75 runners are miles behind him. For some reason I thought I would see a pack of people. I think I’ve watched the finish line of too many Boston Marathons.  It took 6 minutes before the second place runner showed up. The people I met while waiting for racers was the lead runner’s mother.  I asked if he was trying to qualify for the Boston Marathon.  Her reply, “Oh, he’s already qualified.  He’s training for a triathlon.”  Oh!  Well.  I guess that explains while he was so far ahead.  And yes, he did indeed win the marathon.

Oktoberfest

Here at the campground we have reconnect with some old friends and have made some new ones. There was an Oktoberfest on Saturday afternoon within easy walking distance of the campground.  Unfortunately,  it was really cold.

We went to the Oktoberfest with Mark and Debby from Jefferson City, Missouri.   We first met them at the campground in West Yellowstone. They were the campground hosts; the workampers who collect the camping fees, empty trash,etc. (for which they get paid and an awesome free camping spot in the mountains). We got talking to them while in West Yellowstone and found out there were going to be working the sugar beet harvest too. Small world! So when we arrived, they easily found us (our RV kind of stands out).

And these are their traveling companions. This is Foxy.

This is Charlie. Note the leather motorcycle jacket. His full name is Charlie Davidson. Yup, Mark and Debby have a Harley Davidson motorcycle. Charlie was popular at the Oktoberfest, he had many pictures taken of him that afternoon!

They had a Wiener Race at the Oktoberfest. Mark hoped to enter Charlie, but missed the entry deadline. Anyway, it was very entertaining watching the dogs run from one end of the raceway to the other. Let’s just say the dogs were not very focused competitors.

We gave it up after the Wiener Dog Races. It was just too cold. We all went back to the RVs and warmed up, including Foxy and Charlie. (I couldn’t resist putting in a picture of cute dogs.)

Finding Beet Fields

While I was freezing watching people run the marathon Saturday morning, Jim was out with Tim, the field manager for Sproule Farms.  When Jim worked the harvest in 2016 he drove beets from a single field to a single piling station (were beets are loaded off the trucks). Pretty easy! This year, Sproule Farms has more than twice as many beets planted and the fields are scattered all over the place.  Because of the number of fields, Tim wanted to make sure Jim knew where they were.  Jim came back that morning with scribbled notes of road names, land marks, and field names.

Sunday morning Jim and I drove back to the fields to nail down exactly where the fields were.  This map is the result of our 130 mile scavenger hunt.  At least it felt like a scavenger hunt, with us trying to find all these fields from Jim’s notes.The beets from the fields on the lower half of the map go to the Reynolds piling station (I put a red circle around it). The beets from Flaat 1 and Flaat 2 will go to the piling station in East Grand Forks.  It is about 30 miles from Grand Forks to the Ohio field.

This is the very empty Reynolds Piling Station.  The beets will be piled on the concrete slab on the left. I’ll check on this location during the harvest to see what it looks like after a few days.

Let the Harvest begin!

Once Sunday evening hit, play time was over.  The harvest started at 12:01 a.m. Monday, October 1 and runs 24×7 (weather permitting).  The first shifts of workers had to report Sunday night at 10:00 p.m.

Jim got a day shift with Sproule Farms. That means he is on the field from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Add another hour before and after for travel to/from the field and that makes for a 14 hour day.

The first couple of days (Monday and Tuesday) of the harvest have been uneventful.  I drove Jim to the farm shop in the morning at 7:00 p.m..  He drove a truck all day between the field and the piler.  Then I picked him back up around 9:00 p.m.  I have a whole list of RV chores to take care of during the day, so I am staying plenty busy.

However, Mother Nature is NOT cooperating.  Tuesday night we had .75″ of rain.  That shut down the harvest. 

And then this is what greeted us outside the RV this morning. Welcome to day 3 of no work.

So it’s another day of keeping ourselves busy and entertained.  The Redbox has been getting a workout, but you can only watch so many bad movies.  Jim is keeping a close eye on the weather forecast, it doesn’t seem to be improving much. We’ll just have to see what happens.

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