Working at a grain elevator

A typical old fashioned grain elevator

I am working at a grain elevator, and lately it has looked like Halloween, with grown men stepping from their trucks and carrying small buckets. If they were only in costume they would resemble children hoping for treats. Unlike the children's buckets on Halloween, the buckets the farmers carry hold grain, not sweets.

After a delayed planting due to a late spring snow and followed by weeks of heavy rains, the farmers are anxious to climb into their huge combines and harvest their summer's work. They meet in the scale room, joking with the workers who will test the moisture content of the grain. If the grain is too wet, the harvest must wait. If the grain is too dry, many bushels could be lost onto the ground.

Everyone in the building is anxious for the harvest rush; long hours lie ahead, with the future of the co-op intricately tied to the success or failure of our clients, the farmers. Their anticipation feeds into us and we too become restless, waiting for the grain trucks to begin their yearly parade across the scale which will determine their yield.

Let the harvest begin!

January weather in North Dakota

When I awoke this morning in my hometown of McClusky, ND, I saw that for the second time in two days there was a half-inch of ice coating the bottom seal of my bedroom window. Despite two electric heaters running constantly, my kitchen floor was frigid. I fired up my portable propane heater to take the chill out of my kitchen.

Ice forms on a weeping birch.
Copyright: Gable C Rhoads

Even though I had run my dog's tie-out cable under the front door into my entryway, the cold 25-below-zero temperature had crept up the steel cable and the clasp was frozen shut. I used a lighter to de-ice the clasp as the cold burned my fingers. My 110 pound German Shepherd wasted no time doing his business when he confronted the 25-below-zero temps and a wind chill of minus 50.

The school board had wisely decided to close the schools due to the extreme cold and icy roads so I dropped my son off at Grandpa's house. As I left for work at the local grain elevator, I heard a loud snap. It wasn't a gunshot -- just a tree cracking from the cold.

The wind howled between the buildings at work and I turned my face away to avoid the stabbing pain. I was unable to unlock the door with my thick work gloves on and after a few seconds of fumbling with the keys bare-handed, I retreated to my pick-up to warm my stiff fingers. My second attempt to unlock the door was successful despite my numb hands.

The talk around the coffee pot at work was all about the extreme cold. Whose tractors couldn't be started? Who spent the morning thawing water pipes? How will the cattle fare and how many calves may be lost? Will the deer and pheasant populations be decimated as much as they were during the last extreme cold snap two decades ago?

But the talk in rural North Dakota always turns to the future. This morning it turned to this coming weekend. It will be 30 degrees above zero - shirt-sleeve weather!

Conservative logic in North Dakota

In addition to my regular job, I also write for my hometown newspaper. One of my assignments is to cover the government meetings.
One of the duties of one particular group of elected officials is to hire people for the county road crew. There was upheaval this past year - the county employees did not like being on salary. They wanted to be paid for all the hours they worked so they could receive overtime pay. The elected officials  gave in and decided to pay the workers by the hour.

Trouble started when seasoned employees  found out they were being paid less then people who had been hired more recently. One employee asked for a raise equal to what a new hire was given - $14.00 an hour.

I was in attendance at the  meeting when this  employee's request was considered. The elected officials were angry that the employee was asking for a raise. One official recalled a former employee who would work from sunup to sundown for  60 cents an hour. Another said that if they raised the employees salary then next month he would be asking  for $15 an hour.

The employee did not get his raise and resigned.

What did the officials do? They hired a new employee with no experience at the rate of $15 an hour.

Why? Because they were outraged that someone would ask for a raise. How dare the employee not be grateful for the job? He must be a union agitator!!! We will show him!


Yeah. They showed him........... and the taxpayers will pay.