The Sugar Beet Harvest Experience in Ada, Minnesota

Arrival in Ada

We arrived late afternoon in Ada on 9/23/2020, to be greeted by Don at the Norman County Fairgrounds. I was looking forward to this stay, as my Mom grew up in Ada, and my grandparents are buried here. I have childhood memories of walking these streets with my cousins, but not much more recollection than that.

So we pull in, greet Don, and begin to chat. He asks “So where you guys from and what brings you here for the beet harvest?”. I begin to relate our travel story, where we’re from, and share that my Mom actually grew up in Ada. He says “oh ya? What’s her name?”. I say Sandra Gullekson. He says, “Do you know Merle?”. “Well yes, he’s my uncle.” I say. “Well get this” he says, “You know his wife Sal?”. (I vaguely recall my uncle getting married to Sal some time after my Aunt Bev died of cancer many years ago, but I hadn’t seen him in 40+ years so that was an old detail I had to dust off.) I tell him yes, he says “Well I’m married to Sals sister!”. Ha! So in effect, he is my Uncles brother-in-law by marriage. Well I’ll be. I joke “Well I guess that makes us related in some weird way.”. He chuckles, and says “Well that isn’t all, get this. It’s even weirder. You see that area over there?”. He points to a cabana and a bunch of tables set up just across the road where we pulled in our RV. “You know Merles 3 adopted daughters? Well one of them is having a bridal shower right over there, this Saturday!”. Holy smokes.

What a coincidence? How does that even happen! So I’m excited, as I’d been told we don’t actually start our work shifts until 10/1. I’m thinking I’m going to be able to see at least one cousin, if not more, and make it kind of a surprise. Well it wasn’t to happen, as we started the next day with what is called “pre-harvest”, and worked that Saturday until 5pm.

Oh well, I would subsequently contact my cousin Lori as the beet harvest ended to arrange a meet up, later in this post.

Exploring Ada

We did get a chance to ride around Ada in the following couple days. The first place I wanted to see was the local cemetery where my grandparents are buried, and pay my respects. We stopped by a local flower shop right across the street. Good location for a flower shop.

We didn’t get much time until later to actually ride around the town of Ada, but had a couple nice evenings walking around the fairgrounds. I imagined my Mom would have walked around those grounds plenty of times as she grew up there. I walked around reminiscing of her and wondering when she went there and who she went with in those days, imagining some fun family times on the very grounds where I was strolling. Mocha had a great time running off the leash on the huge grassy areas where I imagine all the rides and booths go when it is in full swing. And we observed some busses on the edge of the grounds, near a race track.

Start of Work

Soon work was in full swing. We were given the 8pm to 8am night shift. We were prepared for this possibility, and actually thought it likely as returning workers were given shift priority. Newbies usually got the night shift. We were ok with it, we’d both worked graveyard for extended periods of time in our work history, and I’m kind of a night owl so I took to it quickly, as did Kathy. We had a “Let’s do this” attitude that served us well throughout the harvest. We came prepared, the clothing and shoes/socks we brought worked out great, as it allowed for layers. A couple of times the temp dipped to 30F, but keeping active kept us warm.

We also lucked out a got on a great team. One guy, Eliud, was a great guy to work with and a good teacher. He taught me operation of the piler itself, which is the huge machine you see pictured above. Basically, dump trucks roll in, and your responsibility is to guide them to the right spot by means of signal lights you control, operate the hydraulics to the huge plates to actuate to the position to catch the beets as they are dumped by the trucks, operate the conveyor at the proper times to ferry the beets up to the boom, and then guide the trucks off the ramp, and operate the hydraulics such that that lane is ready to receive the next truck. This seems simple and straightforward, but when two lanes are going (it is capable of accepting two trucks at once), it can be a bit of a mental juggle and does require practice and experience to get the timing and positioning right. It took me a good few shifts to feel totally comfortable to be on my own up in the box. But before long I was very comfortable and was able to be on my own for sustained periods of time with confidence. There are many other aspects of this job that we were able to learn, and overall it was a fun experience that we would actually do again at some point in the future, if other plans do not eclipse this possibility. I can see us taking on another harvest in advance of skeedaddling down to Florida immediately afterward for a Disneyworld experience, as the money we make here I calculate would make for an essentially free Disneyworld stay, and then some. So that may be in our future.

A parting shot of our crew very near the end of harvest:

More Riding Around Ada

The coming days would allow for some time to see Ada on our bikes, a fun time. And we got our first absentee ballots from our new home state, South Dakota. We rode down to the Ada post office to drop them off. Then we took a bike ride around this nice quiet town on an absolutely beautiful day.

We headed out of town on 10/12. It was the shortest harvest they’d had in over 20 years we’re told, as the fabulous weather allowed the farmers to get the beets out of the ground very efficiently. There were also no cold weather stoppages, although the day crew did get their shift cut short a couple times due to the warm temperatures. The previous year, they didn’t even get all the beets out of the ground by early November, and had to take a loss. So everyone was very happy with this years results.

And so we were off on the trip east to WA. We heard rumblings of snow forecast the following few days, so we were eager to start trucking, but not before taking some time to see a few relatives…