Continuing The Harvest... Very Very Slowly...

Got another four days in I think... We were whistling along gettin' it done... the ground was drying so we could really pile the beets... and then yesterday morning it snowed.

First it was rain, so we waited... then it immediately went too hot to pile, so we shut down early... then more rain and more waiting... and now it snows. This is turning out to be the toughest Harvest of the bunch.

Was only supposed to be cold and some showers... A dusting we can work around... but when it just kept on we had no choice but to pull the plug. When the trucks can't turn away from the pilers... and start getting stuck even trying to pull up into them it's not a good situation.

Even if it IS sugar for Grey Goose Vodka and Hershey Chocolate! ;) it ain't worth getting somebody tore up over it.

Only put down maybe an inch, but it was wet heavy slop. You mix that with this gumbo clay and it'll stop equipment cold... and it shore enough did.

Slip slidin' away was pretty much the deal.

So now we've sat another day and a half. Got so cold last night the surface froze which makes it hard to dry up very well. Since it didn't warm much today.

They'll let us know in another couple hours if it's dried off enough to go back to work in the morning. I'm hoping.

It has for sure taught me, even if I am busted up a good bit... I ain't quite ready to take up the rockin' chair... The sitting is making me a bit stir crazy. I can only read for so long and then I need to get up and DO something... buuuuut... eastern Montana ain't exactly a tourist mecca. ;)

It's sure got me restless and dingy, but that fur ball that lives in my "house" is goin' stark raving bat shit crazy waitin' all day on me. At least the bad weather gives him a break so he can get out in the daylight for a couple of good runs.

The good part of it has been that this year we've worked the weekends which makes that O.T. pay. Though I'd rather just get it all done and get south. It's looking strongly like the forecast of an early and tough winter up here is going to work out to be fairly accurate.

*The Sidney Piling grounds with a coat of snow*

*The snow makes that hard right turn away from the Piler a tough go when it's slick*

*Ground crew building a snowman on my pipes*

Only a quarter done... so if anybody has an "In" with momma nature... whisper in her ear to give it a rest for a tad... ask her to pretend that global warming is real and let the weather soften for a few weeks... so we can get done and get Gone! ;)

...gonna go walk in a circle now... and let the dingy dog run bigger circles around me... to burn off some restless...

-Brian

Harvest? Not So Much...

Arrived in Sidney the afternoon of September 18th, ready to get it done.

Since then we have worked 1 full day... and two half days.

Had to wait a week straight off because of heavy rain... then as soon as we started... wait again because it went too warm!

Been sitting near a week now because of more rain... 

Supposed to make another try in a few hours... Hopeful.

At this rate I expect Halloween will come and go... and we will be sitting here...waiting.😕 

Patience is not a great attribute of mine. What little remaining that I possess is being sorely tested! There's things I need to get after ...elsewhere!

Not wanting much... just enough break in this infernal "weather" to get the work done!

- Brian

From Beet Harvest to Horses... The Long Fall Migration...

Finally finished this latest beet harvest on Friday with a pretty fine sunset.

*Last Sunset over the Sydney Sugar Beet Ground*

The next few days have been a tangle of bureaucracy and snafu. To transport a horse interstate there's certain required paperwork. True to form, Ol' Murphy got hisself involved and mucked up the paperwork.

The trouble with it is that it takes a few days to wait on the results of a blood test to allow legal transport.

So rather than pick up the horse I have contracted in Glendive... and roll southeast to South Dakota to pick up the second and then swing southwest... I've had to go to South Dakota first and then I'll back track the near 400 miles to Glendive before I can make the turn south and west.

The consequence is, he who was supposed to be number two is now number one. This morning this guy, a fella name of Cody Jack will climb in the trailer to start the long ride to winter camp.

With him on board we'll turn back to the fairgrounds in Glendive to wait on the paperwork that will allow me to load this gal... who goes by the moniker of "Foxy" ... cuz it's easier to say than her whole registered name...

I'll make a bit of a slow trip with fresh horses with little hauling experience. There's a fairgrounds in Sheridan for the first night. Then I'll stop in Fort Collins for maybe two nights. The haul to Cochise winter camp is a touch over 900 miles. I'll make that a two day haul as well...

... and then the work begins. Have pens to put up/build... water to line out... and young horses to start. Probably need to get another book started in there somewhere as well. 

The good weather we had for the harvest was NOT good for piling beets. It was too warm. That shut us down several times to wait on cooler weather.

The consequence of that was that rather than twelve hour days with lots of overtime... we had way too many off days and six hour days. That meant all straight time and a huge bite got took out of the overtime hours... which all settles out at less money than I'd been kinda countin' on.

But... me being that stubborn  puss gut I am, I simply refused to give up these two. Decided; "No Sir. That just ain't gonna happen." __ and Peter got robbed to pay Paul. Here's hoping I can slip the coin back into his purse before Ol' Pete finds out!

I'd actually planned on three for my "winter work"... didn't really make what I needed for these two... but... Like the song says; I just "Bowed my head, gritted my teeth and rode in to the wind".

It looks like I'm either making progress at goin' back to horse... or I'm sinking fast. Time will tell. At least if I'm sinking... with a trailer loaded with this sort of Quality, a cowboy can die happy.

-Brian

Skidsteer... Warm Beets and Burnt Buns...

Getting along... just piling beets and sleeping... or trying to...

Here's a look west from the Piling ground just a little while 'fore we shut down the other day...

Oh... and here's a pic I captured a few nights back. A friend asked me if I could see the moon? I asked "Why?" having not heard about anything special going on... I took my camera outside and saw only full overcast... But... Luckily the clouds parted for about fifteen seconds... and  I captured this...

*Blood Moon eclipse*

The weather has been getting in the way. This time__GOOD weather. It's been pretty nice if you like that sort of thing. Only trouble is, if the beets get t0o warm... that's warmer than 55 degrees, we have to stop piling or they'll spoil before the are processed.

Had several short days for that reason... soooo... in an effort to get the work done... we're starting tomorrow at 5 in the oh damn it's early morning... which means, I've got to get up 'bout 3 to suck down the normal amount of coffee required to get moving for the day.

Now... yesterday had an interesting situation develop.

It was warm, too damn warm and the yellow jackets and bees are pulled in by the beet piles so the windows of the Skidsteer were closed and the air conditioner was running full tilt...

Onliest problem being... I kept getting HOTTER! I mean... my backside was on fire! After a bit I was squirming like a two dollar hooker listening to a fire and brimstone preacher blistering the faithful!

Now I thought of a "Thing" and looked all over for switches... of which there are many in these new computerized skidsteers... only trouble THERE being... they aren't labeled! Some moron thought that some sort of squiggly lines and pictograms garbage makes it easier and clearer for illiterates and them that won't learn the language to operate a machine...

But damn it! I can read! and I've no friggin' Idea what most of those squiggly line pics that make no damn sense mean! So finding the switch I was looking for was what they call a FAIL!

I finally bailed out of the cab__wondering what the hell was goin' on! and fanning the smoking back pockets of my wranglers... until I looked back at the cab and there... under the seat was a lil' bitty red light... HIDDEN UNDER THE SEAT... where your leg can accidentally bump it on and blister your behind on a 75 degree day.

I don't mind seat heaters... but gol dang it! TELL ME it's there... and then put the dang switch where a guy can find it when his cute lil' butt is ON FIRE!!!

 I still sit a little funny...

- Brian

Sugar Beets and Montana Colts.

Settled in at the fairgrounds now over to Sidney. Worked the first night of the harvest in my "short term" job in the Quality Lab. I'm training up a gal to run the scale... since I'm not going to be able to do that this year once the harvest starts in earnest on Sunday.

Left my BLM camp and rolled to the Cabelas in Billings. Figured I'd go inside and buy some "Lil" thing so  could get use of the Dump Station for free.

#1 - I have a cabelas card so it would have been free anyway... sheesh. annnnd #2 - buying boots and a shirt to save the five bucks to dump is the sort of math you learn from modern public educashun. :-/

But with some fresh gear I moved on find a wally world camp for the night in Miles city.

Next day took me to looking at a horse a ways above Glendive, Montana. She was in the far out and wild "Plains" of eastern Montana.

Took about an hour to find her bunch out on a section pasture. The colts had divided into three bunches and hers was the craftiest at staying out of sight for a while. They'd brushed up in the bottom of a pretty deep creek bottom. Wasn't till we rolled around the other side that we could spot 'em down below.

Those unbroke/half broke young horses, filly or colt, I pretty much call 'em all colts. This one is a young horse I think has a lot of potential... and will be one of my winter projects this year. She's got a very few saddles on her so it should be a busy winter what with all I've got planned...

She's locked down and waiting for the end of Harvest over by Circle... then... there's another I really want to take a look at... but she's over in South Dakota. It's a bit of a gamble... but if she's still on the ranch come the end of harvest there's a real good chance I'll go try and put her in the trailer to haul south too.

*The first Montana Filly*

*Last sunset on the Yellowstone*

*September snow in Montana*

*Storm over Montana*

For those interested; Leather and Stone, my sixth western novel is available at Amazon It is also available through Smashwords and all of it's retailers on Pre-order as well. Click one of those links to go right to the book in Amazon or Smashwords... or you can search me up at Barnes and Noble or Apple... and the others.

It will release on the 28th. Anyone who is planning to buy a copy that does it on Pre-order gives me a boost because all those are credited on the same day which gives me a lil' bit of a ranking kick! So, many thanks in advance.

Gotta go get ready to work the lab now so we'll talk at you later.

-Brian

Bound For Montana

Enduring the hits that life delivers with a heavy heart and a broken spirit, I am bound for Montana.

Somewhere up there is a place to hide for a bit.

I've got three weeks to brush up, complete the current book and get it published before the harvest job starts.

So I'll go on solitary and alone... 

Sometimes life shines... too often what's shining are the tears running down your face.

-Brian

Sitting in The Back Of My Horse Trailer House...

... Braiding up some reins on my writing desk/braiding stand...

Works good for braiding... less good for writing... and with all my junk piled behind it__ kinda keeps horses from getting loaded...

Sooo... there's something else to be dealt with soonest. A storage shed of some variety is going to be needed at winter camp.

Just as soon as I leave the harvest job up in Montana at the end of October. 

Giving the book a few days to simmer now that it's finished... before I dive into the edits.

Best to start that with as fresh a view as possible. 

Sooo... back to work for me.

- Brian

Sorting Out the Future As I Go...

... life goes on whether we go with it or not... so... just take what comes and do the best with it...

Kind of a last minute thing, I've contracted out my October with the sugar outfit up in Montana again. That job will carry me into the winter well. And those funds will be sorely needed if I'm to keep this "back to horse" goal moving...

Till then, I'll be pulling out of here shortly, now that the latest repairs are done and the first steps of the tribulation of separation have been taken. My current need, to ride along with the beet harvest is to get this book I've been laboring on completed and published. Excuses don't pay the bills and feed my scrawny butt. Time to quit with that and just get it done.

My camera has not seen near as much use lately... The first three are actually from my phone on a lil' unexpected walk I took yesterday...

 

Truck went in the shop Tuesday for several hundred bucks worth of shocks, steering dampers and alignments to correct the tire scrubbing that started to get bad in the last few hundred miles...

Then Friday...

The truck in the past couple months has started getting a lot "warmer" pulling grades. When I got back from Missouri and took that time up to Steamboat it was getting warmer yet. Close inspection revealed a pretty good bug load down in the radiator.

So...  figured to just blow 'em out at the car wash...

Bad choice... turns out, that carwash wand had the power to fold over all the radiator fins it got too close to... That carelessness cost me a few hundred dollars for a new radiator... Maybe.

Buuut first... I dropped the truck off first thing yesterday, thinking it would only be a couple hours that I could kill at a coffee shop and/or people watching... wrong... they'd need it all day.

Since I'd not lined up a ride that left me with that unexpected walk I mentioned. Yep... a 7 1/2 mile stroll!  Dodging trains, trucks and liquor bottles. Seem like somebody does some pretty heavy drinking along those tracks. Every two steps there was one of those lil' "Shooter" bottles of some variety... just my luck of course - they were all empty! :-/

Google maps claimed I should get it done in two and a half hours... took me two hours and forty minutes to hoof it... what a wimp!

But then... when I found a ride back in the afternoon I got informed that the radiator I'd got put in back in 2010 was the wrong one! That was for a gas engine... not my diesel. It was maybe 1/3 less "Thick" so with less fluid and cooling surface... which is a wonder it worked as well as it did for a hundred thousand miles!

But on the way back to the Lakota I captured those three pics above. ;) so all's good.

Those below are just what's been passing by around me in the past few weeks...

He'd been running around and wading in along the shallow bank of this big pond... then came running down that lil' point behind him and jumped high... thinking he'd land in water six inches deep... only to find that there was a hole 'bout six FEET deep right there... he learned to swim right quick.

Talk about "keeping on"... This Plane is something on the order of 70 years+ ... and still flying... Circled over me several times... Makes a guy wonder what action it might have seen... and about the men that flew her...

... Which tends to dwarf our own sorry problems in comparison...

I'll head to that little patch of Arizona dirt I did a deal on in November; as soon as the beet harvest is done... and start putting a winter horse camp together...

That's how it's all laid out just now anyway.

Brian

Finis, Kaput, Done. The Lights are Turned off and the Doors are Locked... The Harvest is Over

Shortest Night Yet in the Quality Lab. Just 28 samples to finish out the 2014 Sidney Sugar Beet Season.

I'm ready to move south.

Tomorrow will find this old rig poaching a parking spot at Wally World Resort in Sheridan Wyoming... and then a bit longer haul, about the longest we ever do in a day, a mite over 400 miles to Northglenn... though... truth be told, we'll likely pull up in Fort Collins. :) so... 'bout 75 miles shorter.

None to soon neither... the weather fella is threatenin' rain tomorrow. Since it rained hard this morning his credibility is fairly good... annnnnnd... the bugger is threatening to let it break off into snow...

So this Ol' buster is Out O' here!

Not doing the NASCAR Thing this season... lots of reasons, one being... I've got other work to do! :)

So... a few days in Colorado takin' care of business... rig registration... etc... and then, continue to march south

Brian

Not There Yet... But... Ever Closer to the End...

No No No... I'm not the goofy whack job on the street corner in a bed sheet and sandwich board preachin' about the end of the world and callin' all sinners to repent... ever'body knows that the end of the world only comes along... when you run out of beer anyway...

Nah... I'm talking about the 2014 Montana Beet Harvest. Except for lockin' the doors... it's juuuuuust almost done.

We had no work in the Quality Lab yesterday night 'cause there weren't enough samples in to bother firing up the lab... which is ok... was the first full day off I think since September... buuuuut... I'd just as soon jump some gullies and get the work done, so I can get south before ol' Jack comes rippin' in here with a genuine Northern plains blizzard!

They're takin' bets on whether we'll be done tomorrow or Monday... I'm HOPIN' on tomorrow. If my wishes meet up with reality I'll hitch up early Saturday and make the easy haul to Sheridan on Saturday...

If they don't... I guess we'll have to sit in the county playground over the weekend... waiting to finish up at the start of another week... which isn't ALL bad, considering they pretty much pay us to be here... yeah yeah I know... whine if they tried to hang me with a new rope.

I want the broke in one so it don't scratch my neck!

Projects and Plans a waitin'... books to write and leather to carve... but none of it can start... until the last sample is tested and I'm haulin' south!

Brian

In the Final Week of the Beet Harvest... and got Extended :-0

Wellll... thought kinda that today would be the plug pulling last day of our 2014 sugar beet harvest... buuuuuut... me being me... I was bad... and they've held us in detention. :)

About half the crew got their walking papers today... I expect most of the rest will get it tomorrow... There's few acres left to harvest for this yard.

How-some-ever ... there's several other pile grounds that work on past the end of operations in the Sydney yard. That means the Quality lab that we work in at night will continue to crank for another few days.

Soooo... we, Heidi and me, were asked to stay on in the yard and the Quality Lab until ever'thing is shut down... yeah... my work ethic apparently let me down one more time. :-P

I'm guessin' it don't know I'm a lazy buster would rather sit in the shade and drink cool beer than whistle and spin on the job! Aw... it'll come out ok... two or three more days of work will pay the diesel to get south so no complaints... and to tell the truth, I'm not sure I can afford any more burnt bridges... so I agreed to hang on. :)

The past few days have slowed down a lot.... and then were juiced up with moments of OH CRAP!

Yesterday, a trucker got her bed full up not realizing the gate hadn't opened... Now... the Piler operator was tryin' to get her attention and get her to drop her bed before... OOPS!

Yup... the gate popped with the bed full up... which meant... the load didn't come in any sort of a controlled dump... nope... it came with a rush and a hustle! filled up the hopper and flowed right on over the back gate...

*NOT how you're supposed to dump your load of Sugar Beets*

The gal drivin' the truck was suitably embarrassed. She climbed out of the rig apologizing like a Nunn caught in a bar with a beer in her hand and squeezin' the leg of the hunk by her side... by the local Bishop.

Yes sir. There was some little conversation as we labored to clean up the mess as to what might could have been the screw up that caused this lil gyration...

Yeah... most wanted to blame equipment. "the bed stuck"... "it was the trucks fault"... 

Now... me... being the pragmatic, seen quite some little bit sort of a fella... paints it this way... Though the driver claimed the bed gate "hung up"... I'm sorta kinda doubtful. The fault I'm sure and certain enough to bet both my kidneys and half my liver goes this-a-way...

First... the piler operator was at fault when he failed to stop her raising the bed when it had gone 1/4 up without the gate opening... The driver was at fault when she failed to see that she wasn't dumping anything when the bed was a 1/4 up... Ether person catching it at that point would have prevented the mess...

Buuuuut... it gets better... see... I don't buy the bed gate was "hung up". My money is on; It's late in the harvest. Everyone is getting tired... and she simply spaced out, tripping the gate to release... when she realized it wasn't... she jumped and scrambled to pop it... buuuut her bed was way up so WOOOOOSH! it unloaded. :) What she SHOULDA done is drop the bed and start over... (Lesson Learned)

The folks on the ground were only talking about the mess on the ground. I told 'em as we worked; "count your blessings. We're all lucky none of ya'll are squished."

Huh? They wondered. What are you talking about? ( see... most of  'em are from "other" backgrounds. This sort of thing is new to 'em... )

This is what I been 'round my whole lazy life!

See... with that heavy load still in the bed, and that high? if the truck isn't sitting on level ground?... just one wheel down in a bit of a hole?... WHAM! It falls over... if the load (and most aren't) is loaded off center in the field? WHAM! it falls over... If one side of the load slumps faster than the other when it dumps? with the bed that high? WHAM! it falls over.... sooooo... the mess on the ground was the best thing that could have happened in that deal!

It pays... to pay attention... when ya'll work 'round big equipment. Never Ever Ever... get into that zone beside a dump truck that the bed can fall on if it tips over... It ain't no rare occurrence... When the bed is in the air... that zone beside the truck is a Kill Zone. Stay out of it!

Took six buckets out with my bobcat and piled behind the piler before I could get close enough to the hopper where I could even start dumping into the hopper to clean it up. :) Ha ha...

Then today... a weary driver pulled another, longer semi rig with a belt unloader system crooked into the piler... Oh crap... broke part of the suspension frame of the bed and had it wedged into the hopper as he crossed it crooked pulling in. :) another embarrassed driver. Poor bugger couldn't roll forward and couldn't back out (crap happens with big equipment)

Took pulling the broken frame with a chain come-along over far enough to clear the Piler parts and pulling the tail of a 95,000 pound semi truck over with the "big" loader as he backed out to get him free... and get back to piling beets!

Yeah... it ain't all just boring Sugar Beet Piling. We got us some excitement on occasion! So... when you're working such a job? and you're getting weary? THAT... is the time that a lil' bell should go off in your head... "Brian said take extra care and watch what you're about RIGHT NOW!"

For us, Two Farm bred lady bosses... a couple of rednecks and a farm boy or two got it happening. :)

I'll take rednecks and Farm/Ranch raised over all other sorts ANY day. :)

Sooo... we work and we work and we work till the work is done... and then we roll south.

There's two ways of sayin' that that come to mind;
1. If you take a fellas money... you do the job he paid you for.
and
2. If you take a man's money... you ride for the brand.

If you can't hang... saddle up and ride! :)

Yes Sir... I'm stronger right this minute than I was a month ago when we pulled in. I truly like it when I'm challenged and come out on top! ... annnnnnd... just a mite of a braggart about it too! :)

Big Head and all... I'm...
Brian

The Sugar Beet Harvest of 2014 is Nearing The End

The weather has held and the work's getting done. You never know for sure and for certain until the people with the power tell you they've pulled the plug... but it's looking like the first of the week will see the end of the harvest.

Sometime next week, Monday through Wednesday or so... we'll be rolling back south.

The toughest part this year has been in the Quality Lab at night. The first few nights saw the highest volume of samples to process... along with some sort of equipment scramble pretty near every night for the whole harvest that has obstructed getting the work done.

Yup... a few of these nights with Beet dumps, water pumps, lab machines and other "equipment challenges" making us adjust... it's been a bit of a challenge to keep on keepin' on... but that's the nice thing about that... when you look back at what you've overcome... difficulties ahead of you seem a bit less threatening.

...Then there was a bit of... ahem... interpersonal drama to keep things interesting.

Last year the "Personality Dramas" were on the piling grounds... this year... T'was in the Lab at night.

It's a curious thing to me; considering that I've got an ego of some significant size... and I know it, I still have difficulty understanding how somebody signs up for a "Crew" job... and then comes here and deliberately and willfully refuses to be a co-operative part of the team... "I'm not doing that. I don't care if you need someone over there. I'M STAYING RIGHT HERE!"...

Huh?

Why bother coming if you're just gonna be a rock jamming up the wheels of progress?

It's kind of a funny thing to me that one of us "flunkie" laborers on the floor... thinks they're gonna control who does what and where. ha ha ha ha ha... Luck with that! :) Ya'll might could have been some big muckity muck in your past life... but here, at a Beet Harvest... you're a paid laborer piling beets or processing quality samples... Get over yourself! ;)

The job here is to get the job done. You take a man's money, you do the job he paid you to do and you do what you have to to get that job done. It's called Cowboy Up!

I mean, there's an old saying; Lead, follow... or get the hell out of the way. There's another that comes to mind. I think it also fits well; Are we all in the seventh grade? Grow Up!!!

Anyhoo... with all my fingers, only a bruise or two and my pockets filled fuller than they've been in some little while I'll soon be rolling south headed for new projects on the winter desert.

Brian

The Day Job... Saddling a Diesel Bucking Horse to Crochet Steel Pipe Into a Ventilation System...

So... I already posted pics of the night job... This is the day job... setting ventilation pipe and piler cleanup on the Piling Grounds...

That be me running the skidsteer with the grapple. I have to run across the rutted lumpy piling grounds nigh on to a quarter mile or so, to get the pipes where they're stored in a tall pile that threatens to fall on me ever' time I grab a pipe...

Then... after I peel myself off the ceiling, belly bar and various pieces and parts that that damned diesel bucking horse has splattered me on as I thump and buck back across that ground as fast as I can tolerate in that machine... I drop 'em in stacks three deep or so, along the fans that extend down either side of where the pile is building. Basically staging them until we need 'em.

Dan, a bob cat maestro, runs the other bobcat... and he kinda percolated up to be the head of our ventilation crew... which is him and me. I swear, the man can do things with a bobcat bucket I have difficulty doing with my fingers!

So... the deal is, there are big fans that shove air in through these perforated pipes... pushing the air up through the pile to cool it. They don't want the beets getting too warm in the storage pile or they rot.... which kinda degrades the ability to turn 'em into sugar!

We have to fit the pipes together as best we can. Now, if they were new and fine that might not be much of a problem. Buuuuut since they're all more than a season old, and have been buried and dug up several times... they are NOT in what you might call... good... condition...

*Ventilation Pipes under sugar beet storage piles*

So, Dan and I end up trying to crochet a steel ventilation tube out of corrugated junk with bobcats and imagination. That pic up above was just about the last of the decent pipes... Now... since I ain't got time to gather the pics of the rotten stuff :) imagine trying to fit those pipes together when one is squished oval one way... and the other is flattened another... and the perforations all need to be toward the bottom....

some ends are crushed so they can only be used as the last pipe. Others are bent, warped and overly distressed...  buuuut... they're what we got to work with so we tease 'em, squeeze 'em and push 'em with machinery until we've got a tube they can pump air through.

And... not really seen in these pics... are the semis full of beets... some weighing 125,000 pounds 0f beets PLUS the truck... roaring around you. Empty rigs leaving and loaded pulling in, all in a hurry cuz they want to get back and get another load... and the piler booms swinging back and forth... and ground crew walking around... and your goal is to not BE run over by the big ones... and not run over the walking ones!

... and not break anything while you're dodging all the things that can quickly convert you into fertilizer! :)

The piler that requires ventilation is the biggest one, the one one the left. There's two more pilers on these grounds not in the pic. One behind me and a fifth out of frame to the left... so... there's trucks of various sizes, from 55,000 pounds of load to 125,000 pounds scrambling around trying to find the piler with the shortest wait... and me threading through that mess hauling 24' culvert pipes with a bucking bobcat... oh yeah. Guaranteed to bring on a desire for quiet and a beer... or nine...

Oh... and when necessary I zip over and swap the grapple for a bucket to clean up a mess dumped by a truck if Dan is already tied up cleaning up another mess... then swap bucket for grapple and get back to hauling and setting pipe... really boring day with nothing to do :)

Buuuuut, after doing this all day... Me in the skidsteer and her on the ground crew... we go into the Quality Lab for a few hours...

Tonight which of course... after the day job gets more difficult because of the degenerating quality of pipe left... I go into the lab, where I run the outweigh scale... and... the rasp which cuts the samples is starting to fail. I can hear the bearing making noise...

... and the dump that dumps the sample beets into the rasp won't dump... so I have to force it each time with a shove... and then... and THEN and THEN! The scale itself takes a Dump! and goes spastic...

So there I am operating the scale... with no dump, no scale and a failing sample cutting rasp... Fun Times girls!

You got those same two choices. "Tuck your tail and ride for home and wait till it ends"... orrrrrr... " Pull your hat down tight, grit your teeth, bow your head... and ride into the wind."

Ha ha ha ha ha... I might be noisy with complaints and grousing from time to time... but this child ain't never got fond of or gained much of a handle on quitting. We just pushed on through and got the biggest night yet of the campaign processed and done.

They say were somewhere in the vicinity of 40% or so harvested... so juuuuust a bit of work left to do.

This is what a Cowboy does when he gets to scheming. ;)

...and now... I'm gonna knock back that second beer before I climb under that east German army wool blanket that keeps me warm at night! :)

Brian

The Harvest Campaign Continues...

The weather has been cooperating to allow things to dry out so we can get our work done. A few folks have complained about the wind. Ha Ha Ha... This is Montana girls. 30 mph ain't wind, that's a calm day! :)

With temps staying in the fifties and low sixties we're staying away from the two ends that shut down operations. If the beets get too warm, they have to stop piling or they'll spoil/rot in the stockpile before they can be processed. Likewise if they freeze.

So... periodically one of the higher highers take internal beet temps to monitor where they're at... so far so good. So this weather is just about perfect.

The campaign is beginning to wear on a few folks though. Simple truth is, there's a lot of people who have never worked for twelve hours a day, seven days a week for any length of time. It takes a certain sort of mindset to just pick 'em up and put 'em down one step after the other, when you're weary and dirty, and just get the job done.

Compound that with the wind, dust, noise and machinery roaring around everywhere, and it can get fatiguing. That right there is when you reach down inside, look up with a grin... and holler; "Let 'er buck!" :)

Yup... time to separate the Cowboys from the men ;)

This right here is where I swell up my chest and brag just a lil' bit. When the pressure tightens up, the wind rises, and the proverbial "Stuff" is hitting the fan... is where I do my best work. It's kinda like climbing onto the storm deck of a bronc...

To folks on the outside sitting in the stands, it looks like a blur of confusion and violence... on the inside... things slow down and you "See" what needs to be done and when... and you just get the job done.

Now... Piling Beets is not something you do for fun... I came here for but one reason... Dinero! :) That said, it's a good feeling to be able to test yourself against the crowd... and yourself. To know that you can still hold your own when things get more difficult... and even still outrun the majority is not a bad feeling to have. :)

To be a "Disabled Vet" and still be out front... why... That's just Ego on Steroids! Ha Ha Ha.

Yeah... I'm a show off braggart at times... I suppose that's the Cowboy in me... and maybe just a lil' bit of the bareback Bronc Rider. ;)

Brian

Shhhhh... Be Vewy Vewy Qwwww-iet...

Got all fired up ready to go to work... and then ... NADA... Three days called on account of rain. :-/

Hell of a way to start the Beet Pickin' Campaign ;) buuuuuut... Today the morning sky is Montana clear, even if it is shiver in your jeans cold! ... sooooo... shhhhh... don't tell nobody and jinx it!

I can't complain about the wait, other than to say too many days of cold and wet waiting in a fiver for to go to work... is too many... even if they DO pay us four hours a day just for being here to wait!

But, now it's time to pull on the hard hat, turn the key in the ignition, fire up that BobCat skidsteer and start hauling ventilation pipe and piling beets!

You know, some folks think sitting in a bobcat is an easy deal. "You have air conditioning, a heater and a radio!!!"

Ha ha ha... I'll tell you what. Last year I thought I'd be losing some of my fitness from a month in the cab of that skidsteer. Yeah... I HATE working out. You might end up buff but other than that and sweat you got nothing to show for it.

I much prefer having something DONE for all the hard work. A shop built. A hundred ton of hay stacked for the winter, something. But working out... meh it's just boring... so... anyway, since I am sorta busted up from the world I've lived in, with maybe a half dozen bones that haven't been broke, bruised or dislocated... and the carcass around 'em Heat stroked, concussion-ed, frost bit or cut...

...I work out a bit to stay mobile and functioning, since tapping out words on a keyboard doesn't keep much but my fingers and brain in shape. ;)

So... last year I thought I'd get weaker in the skid steer for so long...

Turned out, according to my modest lil' workout routine... I GAINED about 15 or 20% ! It seems working a bobcat skidsteer is harder than it looks!

Off to my Beet Campaign workout!

Brian

The Early Week is done

The first week we do only the evening work in the Quality lab doing the testing on what's called research beets.

That's a four hour deal+- ... though in the first days it's only really about two hours actual because there's just not enough work... buuuuut... they pay us for the full four, just for being here, so that's kind of a good incentive to work hard and accurate. ;)

It's a heck of a couple hours though... Hustling and pushing to get tuned up for what's coming in the next week gets the blood pumpin'. 

We're off for the weekend and the official "Campaign" will begin Tuesday Morning on the Piling Grounds.

After paying the few hundred it costs in diesel to roll up here, with the same to get back south... and at anywhere from 200 to 260 bucks a day for us on our split job deal and depending what day it is in relation to over time... a fella just about doesn't want to have it end too quickly. :-P

The beans for doin' winter work pile up pretty quick at that rate.

We got done last year in about 3 weeks on the clock. With what's prognosicated as the expected crop, I'm hoping it takes us four weeks this year... or five would be sweet! I'd run out of ambition about the time they ran out of work!

It's been warm this week. Last night standing at my scale in the Quality Lab it was 90 down on the floor and the gals running the Washer scale and dump up top had it 100 degrees up there closer to the ceiling... ha ha ha... you'd have thought they were being drawn and quartered the grousin' that was coming from there...

Claim was made it was 'cause we had so many fans running down on the floor... "It's pushing the hot air up there!" ... "You don't understand the physics of convection do ya?" I replied... yup... smart azz to the end.

A comment was made that maybe I was a mite crazy the way I was gigglin' and carryin' on. I told 'em; "Ha! Hot? This ain't Hot! Why, I seen it so hot when I was Cowboyin' we couldn't push cows during the day... It smelt like burnt hamburger and the fat just melted off 'em and left big puddles all along the trail...

...so we moved 'em after sunset. Even then the sunlight bouncin' off the moon was so sizzlin' we fried our eggs in skillets we held against the saddle horn long before sun up as we pushed the cows through the moon beams!"

Yes sir... THAT was hot! :)

What ya do is COWBOY UP! and get on down the trail.

Today it's broke off cool and breezy. Perfect weather for pilin' beets! ... 'course... it's predicted to rain tomorrow anywhere from .2 to 2"... I'm hopin' for the two tenths which won't amount to nothin' and leave the way clear to get to work come sunrise Tuesday!

Gettin' Ready to Really Jump Some Gullies
Brian

The Slow Build Up to the Sydney Beet Harvest Has Begun

We took a last drive in the afternoon the day before we pulled out of the North Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. There's only an up and back road there, so if you're going to see more than that you've got to put your boots on the ground...

It's purt near as pretty a country as the south unit... I just failed to capture any pics of it that caught my imagination.

So... the next morning we loaded up, hitched up and rattled our worn old rig on down the road to Sydney.

They put us up at the fairgrounds just on the edge of town. We've got electric hookup and a tangle of splitters and hoses to supply water... and a pump truck comes every two or three days, so effectively full hookups.

Yesterday was the first time in I don't know how many years that I remembered we HAVE an air conditioner! Took me near a half hour to figure out how to turn the sucker on. ;) and... find the circuit breaker that was stopping it from doin' its coolin'! Yup... it was Warm in Montana!

Ten billion acres of northern plains... but folks still pack things together as soon as you put up a city limits sign... must be a human need for companionship... that I lack :-/

Don't plan on putting out your awning in this workers resort... of course... wind isn't much of a problem. Buuuut... you'd be advised, in consideration of your neighbors... don't eat a lot of beans!

The first week we don't pile any beets... and only work the nights at the Quality Lab. That's where the sugar content of each fields beets is calculated - which is how the farmer gets paid for his crop.

During the first week we only work the lab, and are receiving the samples from what are called "test beets"... university experimental fields I believe...The actual harvest won't begin for a few days.

This is where I spend my evenings... scrambling around this scale and dump station. The beet samples come to me down the line in one of those green tubs you see on the overhead trolley.

I shove the tub onto the scale behind that yellow rail on the left... enter the weight into the computer console in the cabinet... pull the empty tub out of the dump which is that blue railed area at the end of the line... push the full tub onto the dump... hang the empty tub back on the over head trolley... and put the weight/sample ticket from the full tub into a clip on that white belt you see going through the wall on the right hand side...

When that ticket gets to the right position hit a button on that grey box just to the right of the white ticket belt, which dumps the sample beets to be cut for the sample...

Then, turn back to repeat for the next full tub...

Looking back up the line, just as we're getting ready for the evenings festivities... There's two scale lines. One below each row of tubs on the trolley.

When things really get flowing in about a week... that routine I do that I layed out above gets done every few seconds for about four hours... unless... which happens often, there's a problem with a ticket, the computer, a blown air hose or such...

... and then the five or ten seconds has to get sped up... to Catch Up!... :-) yup... That's when it's Time to Jump some gullies!!!

Come Monday or Tuesday we'll start piling beets on the Pile Grounds here at the receiving station here in Sydney... and we'll go from our four hour easy evenings to 8 hours on the pile yard and then our four hours in the evenings... and hopefully, weather permitting... get the job done in a month.

Today, I'm off to Williston to stock up on a few grocery needs. Once the big push starts there's little time if any for supply runs.

Brian

A Late Start for Perambulatin' Across Nebraska... But We Got Gone...

Was nigh on to noon before we got ever'thing locked down and headed out. My saddle is cabled to my scooter in the back of Evin's garage till I roll back through in a bit over a month to pick 'em up...

Made no sense to load the bike up now. All she'd do is sit on truck in the weather... so... she'll be safe there until my return.

Been six months and more since the rig has hit the highway... had planned on just cutting over to 85 down in Colorado... but with the extra late start decided to run the interstate to Cheyenne, make a little bit of time, and then follow along 85 from there.

Only went as far as Scottsbluff  Nebraska so a hard day of maybe a 150 miles ;) That set us up for a hard day of around 200 miles yesterday... yup... two days and 350 miles... I'm pushin' hard.

Up north of town an hour or a bit more... at the rate I travel, is the Agate Fossil Beds National Monument.

See the piece of equipment behind the entrance sign? That's over at the improvements of the Agate Ranch that sits beside the monument.

Seems a fella named Cook built that place at the end of the 1800's. He invited Red Cloud to bring his people to raise their Tee Pees in the Cottonwood grove at the ranch each year.

They'd dry beef and such on the land where they used to roam free.

Angus cattle have replaced the longhorns and buffalo of those days... and a 21st century covered wagon is the shelter these days... But... Nebraska still looks pretty fine.

We took a short mile walk up into some of the bluffs where fossilize remains of ancient beaver dens are displayed... they formed kind of a corkscrew appearance that the diggers of those days first thought were some sort of a giant plant... until one of 'em found the fossil of a beaver buried up in one... You'll have to go look for yourself... I couldn't get it to translate into a decent photo!

 I believe I always thought this far west in Nebraska had gone dry enough that it was into the short grass prairie... buuuuut... that's lookin' pretty "long grass" to me... where they mowed a bit alongside the path up into the bluffs.

The Lakota (the true name of what us white fellers always called sioux) and the Cheyenne used to roam this part of the world... Living pretty fine and free... until a horde of illegal aliens invaded their territory an overpowered 'em with sheer numbers... and TOOK their land - something to keep in mind in the 'debate' of the current times when ever'body has their panties in a twist over "illegal aliens".

Inside the visitor center are two displays. One is a collection of the fossils from a bone pit found on the monument. Apparently there was a pond or small lake that was the hunting ground of some sort of humongous Bear Dog... 

Those hunters stacked up quite a collection of bones...

and then, there's a gallery of the gifts Red Cloud's people made and gave to the Cooks in response to their friendship.

There's another "story hide" there as well... one that remembers the Battle of the Greasy Grass... what our culture calls "Custer's Last Stand" or the Battle of the Little Big Horn...

*The Lakota Version of the Battle of the Greasy Grass*

Buuuut... we were dawdlin' a lil' to much and the day was sliding away... so we had to push on...

Up north of Custer in the Paha Sapa... the Black Hills is the privately built, or being carved Crazy Horse Memorial. It's a heroric sized memorial to Chief Crazy Horse; Likely the greatest of the Lakota War Chiefs.

 It's a totally privately funded enterprise... Federal funding has been refused a couple of times. Started in 1948 it still has a ways to go...

 Just north of that site we found a National Forest camp called Orville half way between Custer and Hill City... for five bucks a night for us, it doesn't make hunting up a free camp worth the effort ;)

We pulled in about an hour after I like to clear the road, but being late in the season, there was no shortage of sites.

Having held fairly closely to the rule of two's (go two hundred miles, get off the road by two and lay up two days) we're gonna putter around this area today... and then move on to the Theodore Roosevelt National Park area in North Dakota likely on Thursday or so...

We start working at the harvest on Monday so plan is to pull into the fairgrounds where we'll be based on Saturday afternoon.

Till then it's just goin' slow
Brian