This chapter in our story finds us in lovely Culbertson Montana (yeah, I'd never heard of it before either.) boasting a population of just over 800 people and what are arguably the coldest toilet seats in North America if not, the world.
Just to fill in the blanks a little we finished up our contract at Yellowstone on 9/19/18 and hit the road for Culbertson. The earliest we could arrive at our RV site in Culbertson was Monday 9/24/18 so we ended up spending a couple of nights in Billings and one night in Miles City. Both of these were places we'd never been and at least one of them we would probably never return to, I won't say which one it is but it rhymes with fillings.
We were told that we may end up sitting around for a few days as the harvest typically doesn't start until around October 1st. We knew going in that we could be working from 14 - 16 days straight, 12 hours a day with no days off. Easy enough. Much to our surprise we had a short 3 hour orientation in the town of Sidney, MT and were told we would be doing an hour of training at the piling site the next morning at 9:00 a.m. sharp. It turns out the training was about 15 minutes long and then we were full into it. We worked a full 10 hour shift that day and then 6 straight days after that. Then came the shut down, 5 straight days of calling in and being told "nope, not today". Finally we got the news that it was time to go back to work, and so we did, for 3 days then another 2 day shutdown. Back to work for 1 day and shut down for 2.
This brings us to the present where we are on the 2nd day of our 3rd shutdown with about 8 more days of harvesting expected. The great thing about being shut down at this particular location is that we each (
So let's break it all down:
Why do you get shut down?
There are several reasons that we get shut down and so far all of them have been related to weather. Sugar beets can only be harvested within certain temperature parameters and if the beets themselves get too cold or too hot then we have to shut down. The first shut down was due to about an inch of snow covering overnight and every other shutdown has been because of below freezing temperatures at night. Apparently from what we've been told the beet harvest typically gets shut down this time of year due to high temperatures (I believe it's over 70 degrees) but we got the abnormal year and have been working in some freezing ass temperatures.
Is the work hard?
The work itself is not very hard at all. You can expect to work 12 hour days and up to 16 days without any time off. The hardest thing about the job is the long hours and the oft-times inclement weather. If you're considering doing this job it is recommended that you wear layers of warm clothes and broken in work boots.
How did you get hired and what company do you work for?
We applied for our jobs at sugarbeetharvest.com which is managed by Express Employment Professionals and in this case we are harvesting for the company Sidney Sugars.
So what did that look like as far as pay and living expenses?
The best way I can break it down is to give you our hourly wages and total it up by day.
I am a Ventilator/Oiler and am making $16.42 an hour and $24.63 for every hour over 8 hours.
Since we're a couple it can be added up to $30.92 an hour for straight time and $46.83 for time and a half. Saturdays and Sundays are both paid at time and a half for the full day.
On a full 12 hour shift on any day Monday through Friday we make a total of $432.88.
On a full 12 hour shift on a weekend day we make a total of $556.56.
Some locations that we are aware of pay double time all day Sunday and the last 4 hours of Saturdays but do not pay you anything when you are shut down. We are lucky in the fact that we get paid 4 hours each for every day that we are shutdown. Weekend shutdown days are paid at 4 hours of time and a half. Considering we've had a total of 10 shut down days thus far we've made out pretty well. This breaks down to:
Weekday shut down days we make a total of $123.68.
Weekend shut down days we make a total of $$185.52.
We are staying at the Roosevelt County Fairground at no cost which has water and electric hook ups and they have a honey wagon which comes around to empty our black and gray tanks every Monday and Thursday.
So, in essence the only costs we are incurring are what we spend to feed ourselves. Culbertson is such a small town you could live here for a full year on one tank of gas if you only drive around this town.
I won't add everything because I think you can get a fairly accurate reflection of the money we're making here at the Sugar Beet Harvest. To date we have put in 7 full days of work, 2 days at 10 hours, 1 day at 7.5 hours and 10 shut down days. We expect to work 7-9 more days (non shut down) and then we'll be out of here.
Nick is staying with our daughter Kristin in Colorado and is enjoying his time there.
Have you taken any pictures?
I thought you would never ask...
Some of these beets are larger than a human head.
Julia running the beet piler.
This is the piler.
This is the pile.
A gratuitous shot of my goofy ass.
Julia catching some beets.
And finally, an awesome sunset over the piling site.
In contrast, we stayed for three and a half months while workamping in Yellowstone National Park and barely scratched the surface of everything we wanted to see and do there. In a matter of minutes we were able to see about every square inch of Mayberry, er... Culbertson MT.
This has been an incredible experience with some decent money made along the way and we've met some great people. We still have another good full week of work during which time we will be DROPPIN DEM BEETS!
During our time off here in Culbertson MT we have managed to start up our blog site and if you like what we've got going on here then like us, follow us and subscribe at Trippin Brehenys
Want to learn more about sugar beets? We know you do, so just click here ----> Sugar Beets.
Thanks for stopping by!
I hope I have enough resource credits for this post to go through when I click on post... Here goes nothing.