Beets Beets, and more Beets

So, remember I mentioned those lovely little sisters of mine?  Yeah, 7:20am they re-revealed their presence before they left for school.  This started our day Monday.  By 9:30am we were at the Sugar Beet Hiring Center filling out paper work and meeting our potential work mates.  In the waiting area we met a couple from Minneapolis who serve just outside of Leon Nicaragua in a semi-rural Spanish congregation on the beach.  I actually met them when we stayed with Krista (refer to Blog posted dated Feb. 21, 2012).  We had separate “interviews” and watched a safety video.  Did you know you could DIE working in a sugar beet factory!?? Well I didn’t either!  I am so happy that we are all working inside and nowhere near Bobcats and huge trucks. 

Our training was at 4pm the same day, so we went to Sam’s Club and bought food to eat during “supper break” and through-out the week.  At $16 each I think we did a good job.  (I think it’s hiliarious that we literally bought cheese for DAYZ, more specifically 7 pounds!  At 3:30pm we got picked up to head over to the plant.  At 3:50 we’re panicking because we can’t find the location, we definitely should’ve paid attention to the hand drawn maps provided at training.  At 3:58pm we pull in. 

Our jobs are so simple it’s not even funny.  Camille and I switch between scrapping beet mush into cups and blending it and placing it on a carosel for the next worker to take a teaspoon sized sample from, and manning the computer station.  The other couple ended up on the other end of the line: loading the scales with the initial dirty beets and counting the actual crowns of beets after they have been washed.  Next the beets get chopped up into the mush that I scoop.  After the sample is taken, solution is mixed in and a machine calculates the Sugar, Amino Acid and Potassium content.  These figures are entered into the computer and at the end of the line I verify that no beet samples have been lost in the shuffle and the truckers are paid based on the sugar content of their loads.  Sounds complex, but it is actually quite simple.

After 7.5 hours we head home literally beat and hit the sack.  I am ready to start this harvest!