Life on the Farm

[bjrogg]

It seemed strange for me to be back in a beet truck. I usually run the beet digger. I have been doing it for more years than I care to admit. Helping the neighbors they are operating the lifter so I get to take a trip to the beet pilers. I haven’t done that much in the past 30 years. Before I started running the lifter I visited the piling grounds about 100 times a year.

Things have changed some but still basically the same.

Try to pick the shortest line. Looks like just two trucks ahead of me in this one.

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

The truck ahead of me is dumped now and he lowers his box. Then pulls ahead to get the tare dirt that the piler cleaned from his beets.

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

Then they open the swing around hopper and it’s time for me to get my truck stationed at the hopper.

While I’m doing this the truck on the other side of piler is being unloaded.

Bjrogg

PS you can see the beets coming off the end of the boom onto the pile. They are just starting the pile. The boom has a switch on a lever below it. When the beets get piled high enough they hit the lever and turn on the switch. Then the boom swings a little bit to the side. We try to handle the beets carefully and not drop them from any higher than we have to. At the start of the pile they will raise the boom a few feet each pass until they get to the height they want the pile to be.

[bjrogg]

My nephew topping off one of our trailers with our cart.

He makes it look easy but it’s a really tricky job.

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

Our 1985 Kenworth. This is my favorite truck. We basically restored it about 15 years ago. It looks good enough to put in a show when she’s all clean and shiny.

She is a work truck though and she’s not afraid to get dirty

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

The beet pilers at night

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

Gotta go now

We are planning on switching to corn after they shut us down at noon.

We will try my sons corn again and see if it’s dry enough for the bunker silo yet

Going to be another long day

Bjrogg

[chamookman]

Thanks BJ ! Bob

[Pappy]

Love the old KW, worked on many of them. 
 Pappy

[bjrogg]

Your welcome Bob

Thanks Pappy. I’ll have to get a picture of her better side. I always kinda like the look of her air cleaner stack.

We also have two 1990 Mac’s we restored one a few years ago. They are both nice trucks to. The one we restored turned out really nice.

Still need to do the other one yet.

Our newest truck is a 2005 IH it’s a good truck but I’m more attached to the older ones.

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

We dug beets Saturday until noon. It was going really good. Another hour or two and we would have finished our neighbors field. Sure wish we could have got it done before they shut us down.

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

We didn’t miss a gear though.

We just started filling trucks with corn instead of sugar beets.

Bunker is almost empty here and starting to fill it

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

We finished one field and I pushed and packed until the trucks were all empty again. That was about 9:30 pm

A pretty good day

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

Sunday morning and the weather is beautiful.

We moved combine and trucks to my son’s second field. It’s 38 acres and it’s about twenty miles south.

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

The pile in the bunker is getting bigger

Bjrogg