The Waiting Game

And so we wait. And wait. And wait.

Who would think that we'd be complaining about weather in the low 80's, no humidity, and sunny? Go figure. But that is much too warm for harvesting the beets. The temperatures must be between freezing and 70 for proper harvesting. And so we wait. The "perfect" forecast we had coming up is slowly going downhill as well. The last message we had on the "beet hotline" said they hoped to start Monday or Tuesday. Looking at the ten day forecast, Thursday and Friday nights show temps in the 20's...so we wonder if we'll be shut down those nights due to cold? This is where more detailed information about the job would have been helpful. It's doubly frustrating as Amazon called last Wednesday to see if we could come....now?! We've already signed the hiring paperwork here, and done the training, so we don't want to leave...but knowing we'd be working there while twiddling thumbs here is annoying. Oh well, it's a new experience and I know many of you are looking forward to hearing about it!

Unfortunately, there isn't too much to do here, except watch sugarbeets, soybeans and hay grow :-) We did find a Ford dealer in Fargo and went yesterday to have the truck serviced, oil, fuel filter, and it was due for a 90K transmission tune-up. That was an ouch, but due diligence on maintenance will hopefully keep us trouble-free down the road. The truck is our life blood after all...without it we wouldn't be going anywhere!

While in Fargo, we visited the Fargo-Moorhead Visitor Center.

This painted bison was there to greet visitors. I didn't take pictures, but while in Custer, there were many painted bison decorating the streets of the business district. It was really neat, and reminded me of the decorated frog sculptures in downtown McKinney, TX when we were visiting Al's family there.

The Visitor Center is home to one of Fargo's most famous citizens, The Wood Chipper from the movie "Fargo". This movie is really all I knew about Fargo, and it was enough to make me stay away from wood chippers :-).

The Wood Chipper in person

and up close! Yes, this is what we are doing for some excitement :-). I wish I had a copy of the movie to watch, it's been so long since I've seen it. After saying hello to The Wood Chipper, we headed down the road to pick up a few things at WalMart, since we were "in town", and then had lunch at one of our favorite places, Culver's Butterburgers. We discovered Culver's in Michigan, and you can't beat their burgers or frozen custard. Yum!

One nice thing here is there is a very nice public park, Woodland Park, here in Hillsboro. It's usually devoid of people, so we can let the pups off leash and have a good game of wingy ball with Casey. Chelsea just likes to roll around in the grass :-). Then we go for a walk around the perimeter roadway. I don't know if it's because we became acclimated to a higher altitude, or got in better shape climbing all those trails, but walking here is a snap! I almost feel like I could jog ( I can't believe I just said that!). So we go to the park twice a day right now. We've been catching up on some television shows, I started beading a new bracelet, and Al has been working on a new model rocket. Not very exciting stuff, but there you have it.

Today I'll leave you with a picture of some of the, shall we say, interesting things we are finding up here in Hillsboro Campground. Has anyone ever seen a rig like this before, for real?? I assure you, it is real, and there is a family living in it. They are here for the harvest. Too funny!

Hopefully, I will have a better idea of what's going on after Monday. We feel we have made a commitment to work here, and don't want to be "those people" that leave, but jeez, it sure is frustrating to be sitting here. I'll be back when I have something to report :-)!