Sunrise at our campsite in Hamilton, North Dakota
We have worked the sugar beet harvest for 4 of the last 5 years. It takes place along the Red River valley along the border of MN and ND. We have worked at the Bathgate, ND piling station the past two years. It is located less than 10 miles from the Canadian border. We have 2 pilers that will each pile sugar beets 220' wide by 20' high and close to 2000' long. This year I was day shift foreman and Joyce worked in the scale house with Linda a local resident of the area who along with her husband Philip used to grow sugar beets themselves. Our pilers operate 24/7 during the harvest unless we are shut down for weather (too much rain or too warm usually).
Our shift is 8am to 8pm.
This year we arrived in Grand Forks, ND to do our orientation, drug test, paperwork etc. at Express Employment's office first thing Monday morning of Sept. 16th. We stayed the night before at Grand Forks campground (former KOA), paid for by Emp. Express. They also pay for all our camping thru the end of the harvest. We stay at the fairgrounds in Hamilton which has 50amp electric and water at our sites. There is no sewer hook ups so they hire a honey wagon to pump us out twice a week. Our piling station is around 10 miles away. Hamilton has a piling station less than a mile away.
Our 2 pilers at the end of the runway waiting for the season to start
Birdseye view as we start to pile beets - the pile will reach the each side almost to the green grass area and be 20' high
Looking from the piler back towards the scale house where in a bit over 2 weeks we will pile beets as far as you can see down the concert runways
A nice looking pile, straight top and extending to the grass
While we wait for harvest to start, I spend a half day getting certified to run my Cat 926 front end loader at the American Crystal factory in Drayton, ND, attend a foreman's dinner meeting, move a piler to the start position, train ground workers, clean and organize my storage container and work a couple of days of Pre-pile. Joyce works one day cleaning the scale house and one day of pre-pile. We started full harvest on Sat. Sept. 30th and ran straight thru until Oct. 17th on day shift stopping only one day a few hours early due to heat.
Trans-systems hauls beets from the end of the pile to the factory sometimes while we are still piling. They only take the beets over the concrete until the ground freezes up
The piles continue to grow
You can see we are getting closer to the scale house at this point
We will finish the season with the cab of the piler past the blue containers on the left side
View from the piler operator's cab
Just a few days before the end and the piles are almost out of runway. I had the move the porta-potti before much longer
Another beautiful North Dakota sunset on one of our last evenings piling beets
All in all it was a good season for us. We headed for home on Wed. the 18th stopping at Sams Club in Grand Forks and camping at a nice Corp of Engineers campground about an hour west of Grand Rapids MN. They had shut the water off for the season but we had a nice electric site for free, good deal! The next day we made it to Van Riper State Park about an hour west of Marquette.
After a nice night we headed east and were home by noon. We should gross around $13 K for the month we were gone, very pleased with the harvest.
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