Beet Harvest Day 9 – Most Of The Truckers Are Kind

Morning Conditions:

Most of the Truckers Are Kind Today

After a tumultuous few days of trucker related problems across the yard, we experienced the opposite today.

I’ve actually lost track of how many truckers drove carefully and gave us candy today. Mona has her own stash of candy and we’ve started an industrious candy swap.

It is mildly ironic that all of the candy has high fructose corn syrup and artificial sweeteners while were literally piling sugar beets. But, it’s thoroughly amusing.

Even one truck that’s known across the yard for aggressive driving has driven well. We’ve had him twice and had no problems. He’s not in on the candy though.

One Truck Exception — We Called Him Out on the Radio

Besides our obviously healthy candy exchange, we’ve had one exception to the “most of the truckers are kind” today.

Now, we understand that the truckers work 16-hour days and have to sit in lines to get on the pilers. However, once they get on the piler, they need to focus.

This particular trucker jumped right on the end dump too soon. Basically, the truckers are supposed to wait until the previous truck has turned around before entering.

Since the previous truck was super long, it needed to do a little 3-point turn.

So, first I had to stop him half way over the end dump to let the first guy get his turn in.

Second, he didn’t follow the piler operator’s arrow directions and lifted all the way right off the bat. (They’re supposed to go up in 3 stages). Thus, he almost tips and overloads the end dump.

Last, he lurched off of the end dump when done SUPER fast.

The four of us devised a signal to show aggressive driver to the pile operator who can radio it to the foreman and/or the scale house. Karma was giving our pile operator a break, so he radioed it in.

Our foreman intercepted him in the line to the scale house. I don’t know exactly what was said, but that driver did not come back to us for the rest of our shift.

A Busy Shift

In the morning meeting, they told us that as of midnight on day 7, the harvest had reached 52% completion. They also mentioned this would be the busiest few days.

They weren’t kidding. We had truck after truck and a line the entire day. To get a moment to clean an area in front of the end dump, we had to close a side for a few minutes. Phew!

As we turned it over the the night shift, we walked away looking at our pretty pile. Then…we saw the boom continue swinging all the way to the right away from the pile completely and toward the muddy ditch. 🤦‍♀️

We used our new whistles that our foreman got on Amazon. Our pile operator who was behind us saw it and went to remind them that they had to pay attention.

Sorry this is a short one today…after 6 straight 12-hour shifts, I’m pretty zonked.

Evening Conditions: