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