Monthly Archives: October 2011

Ten Days in October

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I don’t know what others do in October, I haul sugar beets. It is one of the consistent events in my life by which I can mark time. I wish to mark time now with the 2011 harvest.

 

I don’t believe we lost any of our people from last year. We sometimes lose people to divorce or death but none of those sad things occurred this year. We did see one change as Joe Pierce liked the truck driving skills of Casey Francis so well that he decided to marry her. I see time march and change us all. Eddie Rosendahl and John Rehder drive the farm less while Mike Rosendahl and Joe Pierce take the helm more often. I have seen so many successful businesses and farms turned over to an ungrateful third generation which proceeds to cause its failure. John and Ed have “taken the boys to school” many times and they are so much further ahead of their counterparts for it. Joe and Mike are calm during breakdowns and patient when their truck drivers talk too much on the radio. I trust them in the field and trust them as men.

 

The “Tireboss” is new to me. The tireboss is a system which can set the pressure in a truck’s tires to match the conditions upon which it travels. If we are on the highway, it sets the pressure at 100 pounds square inch (psi.) When we are in muddy or soft conditions in the field, the tireboss brings tire pressure down to 35 psi which allows the tires to have better flotation and traction. It looks like something made to break down, however I’ve come to see it as quite durable. It reminds me of the systems they used on the old World War II amphibious Duck truck. Another piece of equipment are two six wheel drive trucks used by McGregor farms. They look like standard issue for any post-apocalyptic road warrior but I bet they’re a good ally in the mud. I like watching these huge trucks majestically trundle down the gravel road in a shroud of dust.

 

The Warren piler station added another generation this season. Tom Yutrzenka has run the station for many years and this year brought his grand-daughter, Amanda. The scale house is the “kitchen” of the piler station and can be pretty busy as it is the only place to get coffee and it is heated. Amanda handled her tasks very well and was really pleasant. The people who work at the stations spend twelve hours on concrete, in the cold and should be recognized for their hard work.

 

Mike Rosendahl runs harvester during my shift and uses hand signals to direct the trucks as they become full of sugar beets. He was enjoying a special version of “Mountain Dew,” made from pure beet sugar and asked me if I’d ever tried it. I saw my chance to cause mild trouble and so answered that I “only enjoyed pure, natural corn syrup-based soda.” Saying this to a Valley farmer is like swearing in church and I wasn’t surprised when Mike added a new hand signal to his repertoire-just for me.

 

This was an especially condensed, intense harvest. I was really tired this year and sometimes wished it was over. I had to remind myself that the times people most often remember are the tough times so you should make the best of them as those will be your memories. I know one day we all will be old, maybe in a retirement home, living alone or just bored; then remember Harvest, 2011 and our ten days in October.

 

One of the huge 6 X 6 trucks pulling off the scale in Warren, Minnesota

Letter to Dave

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Dear Dave,

 

 

If I trail off and leave only zzzzz’s in the middle of a sentence it is because today was the first full day of the sugar beet harvest. Beet harvest is as close as I can come to a good reason to get out of bed at 1:45 in the morning, however there exists no truly good reason to commit this sleep crime.

 

During the harvest, I must always align my truck with a pipe that hangs from the conveyer which loads the sugar beets into my truck. That pipe is my whole world until harvest reaches a conclusion. I will try to find it in the dark and in the glare of mid-day sun and try to never lose track of it’s relationship to me.

 

I work for R and R Farms near Warren, Minnesota. They have already completed all other harvests which means there’s lots of hands to help. It is a good thing because most people who use their vacation time for harvest plan for the first two weeks of October. I’ve heard that some folks have to go back to their regular jobs as we have typically finished harvest by now-and it’s really our first day, Dave.

 

It was nice seeing you and Mary for the wedding of our nephew, Derik Nelson. He and Nan created a sincere and happy day in which we could all participate. Lisa and I spent a few days in October watching Ana Hibbert and Adam Tongen find the bliss of sharing a same last name. Lisa and I have joked with Ana’s mom that we should receive a goat as payment for introducing Ana and Adam. The joke was on us at the groom’s supper when payment was presented in all it’s furry and cloven-hooved glory. I felt an immediate sense of dread brought on by the thought of goat-parenthood but soon realized this an event created only in an effort to demonstrate how my face appeared when I felt my world was coming to an end. The goat went home to it’s owner and next time we play cupid we’ll just ask for an invitation to the wedding or a simple hand shake.

 

Harvest is soon done around here, Dave. Some of the corn has been combined although I believe many await the corn to shed some moisture so they can avoid the expense of extensive drying. Our nephew, Jamie, has been trying to combine sunflowers and I haven’t seen standing beans for at least a week. Our farmers are now participating in a favorite fall sport-ditching their fields. There’s also more drain tile being plowed into the ground, I suspect people are trying to get more production from the land they own as opposed to purchasing increasingly-costly crop land. I’ve heard some crazy land prices in our area recently, I hope those prices are based on a something other than the sweet emotion of the last decade’s commodity prices. I remember the late seventies/early eighties and all the long faces when prices fell and they had to give back all of that high-priced and highly-leveraged land.

 

Wow, I’m a bummer. I’m sure everything will be fine. (that tune you hear is whistling in the dark)

 

you’re little bro

My brother, Steve

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I am going to talk about my brothers over the next few months. I will drop one column about each of them every few weeks or so in between columns about the sugar beet harvest, farming and life.

 

I won the Punt, Pass and Kick competition when I was eight years old. This is not a completely true statement in that I was probably the best-coached child who had ever entered that competition back in the seventies-my brother Steve and I won the competition.

 

Steve is the brother who owns Town and Country Meats in Newfolden. Steve was a really good athlete and pretty cerebral about how to play sports. He suggested I enter the PP&K competition and then coached me daily on being proficient in each phase of the event.

 

The proper traditional kicking technique from a tee is to approach the ball from three to five steps back , stay focused on the ball, head down and kick the ball square with a pendulum motion-the knee being the fulcrum. It’s like hitting a baseball-you have to just meet ball and let it do the work. If you try to kick too hard, you will have no control and most likely shank it to the same side as the leg which you chose to kick. I did really well during the punt and pass portion of PP&K however my kick really kicked-well you know what I kicked. I am still a disciplined kicker which was ingrained by all that effort from Steve.

 

My first real movie was also in the company of my brother Steve. The world still stops for me every time “the Electric Horseman” is broadcast on television. Robert Redford, Willie Nelson and Timothy Scott (who later acted in “Lonesome Dove”) starred in this movie about a former cowboy, turned cereal spokesman, who decides to free a horse owned by a corporation which keeps it drugged to stay calm during stage shows. It is a fantastic movie and played to my love of animals, the outdoors, freedom and country music.

 

Anyway, Steve and I had planned to attend a different movie but it was rated “R” and I was still too young. We instead attended “the Horseman” and created a memory that I still visit each time I watch Redford free that horse into the wilds of Utah on the tube. I’m sure we went to “Paradiso” for dinner that night but I can’t say for sure. It was a good time.

 

I think my time as a youth with Steve formed my basis for a relationship with Steve’s son, Jamie. When I was the older one, I took Jamie to rodeos and somewhere to eat until he reached a point when he could drive himself with friends. It is the sort of example started by Steve that now visits itself on Jamie’s two little boys when they spend time together.

 

I recently called Steve about hauling two steers to him for processing. Steve is incredibly busy but he knows I am the same and needed to get these steers gone. Anyway, when asked about the steers he put his convenience aside said “bring ‘em.” Football technique coach and cattle processing expeditor; that’s my brother Steve.

the Vikes

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I last watched the Minnesota Vikings in the late eighties. I could
take the crushing defeats but could not stand the heightened
expectations that some good games seemed to encourage. I knew that
the euphoria known to a Vikings fan in good times came with a
hangover caused by the reality of a team that must be perfect to be
good. They had to fire on all eight cylinders to compete with all of
the other teams equipped with 12 cylinder power plants.

It started in the seventies. I knew all of the team players and knew
which position I wanted to play when eventually I would join the
team. My dream was to become a “Purple People Eater” and step into the
defensive tackle position when Alan Page retired. I kept football
cards and would line up dream teams to include players from other
teams and Viking favorites. I was crushed when Roger Staubach
connected a “hail Mary” pass to Drew Pearson to defeat the
Viking in the 1975 playoffs. The terrible disappointment made me want
to go outside and replay the game with my brothers or friends until I
could change the outcome; like a person dealing with post-traumatic
stress disorder.

The more I played football as a teenager, the less the Vikings could
hurt me. After I had no team to play on anymore, I came to depend on
them more which made it easier for them to disappoint me more. I’m
not sure when I quit watching the Vikings but I do know that my
Herschel Walker shirt eventually became my work-out shirt and
then died from ripped seams and holes.

I started watching the Vikings when Brett Favre became number four in
purple. I felt he played like my old favorites; Fran Tarkenton, Ken
Stabler or Terry Bradshaw. He made things happen and wasn’t afraid to
ad lib when careful play calling failed. I watched the NFC
championship game with my nephew that night and felt all the old
trauma as time and again the New Orleans Saints slipped through the
Vikings offensive line like jello through five fingers of offensive linemen.

We watched the game at a bar so I had to listen to a
bunch of Louisiana pipeline workers hoot and holler their pleasure at
the Vikings loss like they had just been chosen to appear on an
episode of “Hillbilly Handfishin’.”

 

So far the Vikings have played three solid halves of football in three games; the kind of output that

rewards them with a record of 0-3. I like Donavan Mcnabb at quarterback and Toby Gerhardt is fun to watch out of the backfield. Jared Allen is the kind of gamebreaker that can change the momentum of any game. He almost did so last week when he narrowly missed tackling a Detroit Lions running back in his own end zone for a safety.

 

I don’t plan on stapling football cards to a tagboard nor can I interest Lisa in replaying games out in the yard. I do plan to watch the Vikings for the rest of the year. I just love the ups incurred in the first half and the taste of metal I get in my mouth (happens when I get angry) during the downs of the second half. Anyway, it’s a nice way to spend Sunday afternoon; you know, on the couch-asleep due to a chips and salsa coma.