Pre Piling Sugar Beet Harvest

We have made it to our Final Destination Hitterdal,MN for the Sugar Beet Harvest. This town is so small all it has is a bar/restaurant the gas station closed down 3 years ago. We are camped in a field with FHU and nothing more and that is just fine because all we are going to be doing is working and sleeping once the normal harvest starts.

Todd is the Forman for our piling site so we had to arrive early for training we started training on the 10th. First day we did not know what to expect walking in blind. We were greeted with happy faces and a walk through of the piling area. We were given our PPE gear (hard hat,yellow vest,safety glasses and ear plugs) and we are ready to start piling now. 

I start out on the ground being a helper/sample taker this is not a bad job I guide the truck to dump the beets if they need a sample we take a sample for the beets running through the piler tie the bag and put it off to the side. The job can get tiring but if you keep up the energy and keep moving it is not bad. Not even an hour into the job I get pulled up to the operator station in the piler and I am being trained to operate this beast of a machine. After 1 hour of training I am now on my own running this HUGE machine. This position is not very hard, it was easy for me once I got my rhythm down. You really need to pay attention to you surrounding there is a lot that can go wrong a member of my ground crew could get hurt, the trucks lifting up could tip over if there gate does not pop in time to empty the beets and much more so I am always very alert. After working 3 days of the pre pile I am now an operator. I will be heading to Operator training and I get better pay OH and I am out of all the elements I say this is WIN for me.

As the foreman Todd is in charge of everything , an area manager will oversee him but will not always be onsite.  He will manage the crew, gatehouse, quality of the beets and flow of trucks into the site.  In addition he was put in a front end loader and said learn how to use this.  He is pretty good with stuff like that so he picked it up quickly.


So far we are loving this job this is only our first 3 days and the pre pile stay tuned for more posts as we get further into the season and see if we are still loving this job!!!! Also follow me on my Facebook page for quick posts and updates since I will have limited time when the harvest starts :-) 

https://www.facebook.com/toddandamandasexcellentadventure


  

Follow My Facebook Page For Quick Updates and Photos

I realize that I do not always have all the time in the world to post lengthy blogs about our adventures especially when we are working crazy long days. I created a Facebook page so you can follow us there for quick updates and photos of what we are up to. 
This doesn't mean I will stop posting on my blog this is just so you can get quick updates and photos until the blog posts happens. I would love if everyone who read my blog would go like the Facebook page and follow me there as well. 

Here is the Facebook link 
https://www.facebook.com/toddandamandasexcellentadventure

Off To Fargo We Go

We have made it home from Michigan safe and sound. We are not done traveling yet sleep in Sioux Falls for a night and we are on the road again to Fargo we go.

240 miles north is our destination seems like nothing but we have been in the car all night and the pups are sick of the car and I am so over traveling for the week so I will be happy when we get to Fargo and stay put for a month or so. 

We are moving along making decent time and our big blue girl (our truck) decided to be temperamental. She decided that we she did not want to let enough fuel to the engine if we get to about a half of tank or a little lower. Todd believes it is the fuel filter clogged or the fuel pump is going out. So we are stopping more for gas and if we go to low we spit and sputter down the road and if anyone has traveled north on I29 up to ND you know there are some long stretches without a gas station :-( stress and praying for a gas station happened one or more times. As I have been saying for the past year but this time we are NOT LEAVING NORTH DAKOTA without a NEW TRUCK. 

The last 30 miles of a trip I swear feel like it takes forever and you get antsy to get there. We pull up to check in, wait whats that I see.......it 3pm and the office is on fall ours they do not open until 4pm..UGH now the pups and anxious to get out of the truck and we have to sit for another hour. We drove through the place to check it out very nice little campground.

4pm rolls around I go in and get us checked in. A phone calls comes through while I was inside that we have been waiting for..... OUR ASSIGNMENT FOR SEE'S CANDY....!!!! We found out we are going to be selling in Tampa at Westfield Citrus Park Mall.... If anyone will be in that area our store opens Nov 12th.... Come see us and buy some candy!!!!! Super excited we got our assignment we are all checked in and now we go find out spot. life's great now time to relax!!!!! 

See's Candies after Suger Beets

We have decided that we were not going to do Christmas Tree's this year but instead pursue something different we are going to be selling See's Candy!!

We are going right from the fields of Sugar Beets to San Fran to training for See's Candy we have no time in between. I have to fly my mom to North Dakota to watch the pups and cat because we do not have time to take the camper to our destination were we are selling. 

We got the call a few weeks ago that our background checks went through and we will be getting our assignment in the beginning of Sept so we are patiently waiting our assignment. 

They asked us where we would like to go and gave us some choice. Our choices were FL,GA,TN,NC,SC,TX and a few other places that we can not remember. Our course our number one choice was FL but we will take any where we get. 

We are super excited now we just have to get through Sugar Beets alive lol... stay tuned I will have blog posts on how Sugar Beets goes and how See's Candy goes as well..... :-) 

Our Time In Michigan!!!

I forgot that Michigan was so humid and all the bugs lmao....ugh I miss the mountains....haha joking It has been so nice to just sit back relax and visit family and friends and swim in the lake. The weather here has been crazy we got here on a warm day the next 4 days it rained and was cold now it is HOTTER THEN HELL..... 90's in Michigan with humidity means we will be swimming in the lake. 

We are staying at Todd's father's house who we have not seen in about 4 years it is so nice to visit with them and we are so grateful they are letting us stay in there camper. We have done a lot of fishing off there dock Wes, Todd's nephew came over to fish and we were having a blast not catching anything tho. I decided to try to catch some small fish by the dock I am sitting there just having a good ol' time and all of sudden a HUGE bass comes out from under the dock and snaps my line and scares the $hit out of me!!!! Now Todd and Wes are on a mission to catch the HUGE bass. Trying with worms was not working the fish wanted nothing to do with them so we catch a small speck the moment we put the speck in the water the bass went for it but we did not have a big enough hook so Wes rigged his pole with a hook that he will not get away from. Caught another small fish and this time for sure we will catch him. Sure enough the small fish went in the bass bit and Wes brought him up WOO HOO.... now we must measure a wooping 21 inches a big boy... took pictures and threw him back bye bye...... BIG FISHY... Over the next few days the bass kept biting and we caught him and another big one 18 inches like 4 more times fishing is always fun. 

 After fishing one night we also played a game called Cards Against Humanity now if you ever get the chance to play this game, you have to. I would not suggest for kids but it is good adult fun. You will laugh so hard that your stomach will hurt you can get a group of people up to 12 to play. Wes had 3 decks of cards and we played through all of them and if we had more we would have played for hours and hours you will loose track of time when playing.  

While we are at Todd's dad's house they are putting Todd to work to build a Well Pump Shed nothing to big but something important and since she has the muscle and the knowledge from Todd why not take advantage of it. 

Shannon Cooper is one of Todd's best friends that he has had since he was young. We went to dinner with him one night and tomorrow we will go out with him and his wife it will be our first time meeting her and we are excited to finally meet her. 

Of course we have visited Wes at his house a few times and just vegging and playing video games is awesome sometime. Til Dawn on PS4 is a pretty awesome game it is like a 90's slasher movie that you have to make decisions in and it determines weather people in the group  live or die.... you have to play it to understand what I mean beware it can suck you in for hours at a time :-)

Back  to the small town where Todd grew up Lowell, MI to visit his Mom a few times. We lived there for 8 months or so before we moved to FL so it was nice to go back and see what has changed. We went to lunch with his Mom and she has recently bought a new house so we went to the new house to check it out. It is nice and big, some remodeling needs to be done so in March I think we will be back to help her out. Also while we were in Lowell I used to work at the Chrysler dealership there and I went back and Visited my friend Kim. I surprised her she has no clue I was coming and Jerry was there it was nice because everyone remembered me when I only worked there for a short time because we moved. I guess I am one unforgettable person ;-) 

other things we have done while we were here was hit the casino a few times and lost but you never go there expecting to win tho. Fished, of course I went to Meijer even if I did not need anything just to go because I love that store. Chilled by the lake all in all this was a great mini vacation and we had a great time but we have to head home early sugar beets called and moved our start date up so we head home this Sunday.