Limited Experience as a Beet Picker

Limited as in None...

Actually, "Beet Picker" is a fib... we'll be working the area where the trucks deliver the Beets from the field to the Sugar Plant, after they've been ripped from the ground by the machinery. They have to dump 'em into a hopper setup that then shakes the mud and crud off of 'em and lifts the things up into a great tall stack.

So... a better Moniker;  Truck Guide? Beet Stacker? Moving Target? Gen'l Step an' Fetchit? 

They'll sit there through most of the winter before they actually get to 'em all to extract the sugar.

So... somebody has to control the truck traffic, keep the machinery clear... and also do the testing work in what they call the lab. We managed to snag a lil' of both jobs. We'll be working our 8 hours out under the sunny Montana sky... which today is hiding behind a grey curtain called CLOUDS... and then 'bout 5 in the evening we'll move over into the "Lab" for four to whatever hours until that chore is complete.

My guess is that at the end of three weeks? I'll be purt near the end of my desire to bust hump working for dollars and will be ready to roll south for the Arizona Desert!

Today we'll be starting our first "day"... but it doesn't happen till 'bout 5 tonight. We'll be training in the "lab"... which they say ISN'T a white coat geek retreat... but really just a dirty old building where they process the samples from the trucks. It's from those samples that they really figure out how much the farmer is gonna get paid...

So... an easy week this week... and then they turn the dogs loose next Monday. :)

I took a break from editing yesterday and was walking down to the end of the row of rigs here in the county fairgrounds... to visit with a blog reader... and never got there.

I was walking past a rig and another guy introduced himself (I'd never seen a pic)... He's the guy that re-enforced my own belief... a bunch of years ago now, that I could haul my bike behind the cab the way I do... We ended up sitting in front of his rig fixing all the ills of the world with a lil' "horse sense".

Today... I gotta make it all the way to the end of the row!... Have you any idea how tough a job that is for an itinerant, inveterate Bucket Mouth? ...

Maybe if I sneak along behind 'em all... 

So... I better go make another pot of Joe... so I'm well coffeed up for the Journey!

Readying to Get Beeted
Brian