Spuds and Beets

  When  I came home from Driggs I didn’t start school because  Max and I were partners and started picking spuds.  I didn’t start school that fall until Nov.  After picking spuds, we topped beets.   Dad would plow out the beets and lay them in a row on the ground.  We would cut the green top off, leaving only the root.  It was hard work but even harder was when the truck came into the field.  We would throw the frozen topped beets into the high wagon.  I wasn’t very tall and it was hard for me.  It was easier when a wagon came, pulled  by horses.  That beet bed wasn’t as high.  I didn’t have any warm clothes and I was cold all the time.

Garth told me ( 2012) that they dig 12 rows of spuds at a time.  Crossover four rows on each side to 4 rows in the middle.  I started picking behind a two row digger that put 2 rows on the ground, back of it.  Happy Day when  two rows were dug and put on top of two rows so we didn't have to cover so much ground, to pick up the 4 rows and could pick more sacks each day.     We thought that was, wonderful.

At first a team of horses pulled a wagon and a man on each side would lift the sacks up on the wagon.   That was enough weight for the team.   Then we had trucks and a man on each side would lift the sacks to the truck bed and a man on the bed would drag them to the front of the truck bed and stack them a few layers high..  When the truck hauled the spuds to the spud cellar, they would put a wide board from the truck bed to the pile of spuds and walk the plank and dump them one sack at a time.  Today 12 rows of spuds are conveyed to the truck and at the cellar an electric motor empties the truck.  It took a lot of man power plus kids and women to pick.  When I am really tired at the end of the day I still say, "I feel like 0I have picked spuds all day." 

Since Jess had a bad  heart it was hard for him to lift a sack of spuds up to the truck bed and I wasn't tall enough to do it.   If there were still sacks of spuds left in the field, after we finished picking, I could get on the truck drag the sacks to the front of the truck and that would help Jess.