“There is never a dull moment. I work in the shop in the winter time. In the summer, I am out here driving truck or harvesting wheat, hay, peas and beans. I like that if you want to do something, you can go do it. Opportunities are endless. If you have an idea you can go do it, there is nobody holding you back. I built 4 of these machines here. I personally like to manufacture things. They sent me to school for solid works. I made models on the computer to engineer or design machines. It was only a one week class but I still take refresher courses at…

“I manage the Dairy. We milk 330 cows here and my job is to make sure they are comfortable and healthy. I trim most of the cow’s hooves myself. We treat all of the fresh cows every morning, after they fresh, we give them a calcium bolus, vitamin mineral bolus and roman bolus. The milkers start at 2:00 in the morning and then again at 1:45 in the afternoon. I go to the diary at 7:30 in the morning and make sure all is going well. We have 20 milking stations and it takes four plus hours to milk all the cows. I have three milkers, two to milk and…

“I am the feeder for all the dairy cows. I work with a nutritionist to work out the feed and all the specs. I put alfalfa, cotton seed, canola, corn and molasses. Then I mix in the forage like haylage, triticale and corn silage. That will be mixed right before I feed, so it doesn’t get hot. I feed twice a day. This big blue mixer has a digital scale so I can put 600 pounds hay and then reset it and put in 2,400 pounds of the batch that I mixed earlier. I reset it each time I add something. That batch is for the milkers, I have different…

“This is my third year coming to help work harvest. I like to come down here to meet new people. I do have some family here. My grandparents live here, my Mom is from here, so I come down every year to help. I am from Riverside in Canada, it’s near Alberta. There we farm hay, wheat, barley, peas and canola. I am also helping build a 5 unit house so I paint, tile and grout. I get to do a little bit of everything there.” #agriculture #hutteriancolony

“I am the piler. My job is to pile the potatoes in the shed. I’m 18 years old and this is my first year at this job so I am learning. It’s not easy. I have to work really fast, no stopping. Back and forth with the conveyor belt to keep the piles even. We are working long hours right now during harvest. Normally I am in school, but we get out for harvest. I like it, it’s okey. I want to be able to look at my work and take pride.” #agriculture #potatoharvest #hutteriancolony

“We are making 80 to go boxes to go out to the fields for dinner. We have one head cook who is in charge the meat. There are 3 cooks who work on the side dishes. They all work together on the menu. The girls start doing the rotation jobs, cooking and baking at age 17, after they are done with school work. Then at age 50 we retire just from the rotation, because when the boys marry they bring the bride to the colony, so there is no shortage of that age range. When you are 50 we keep working, we are part of the work force just not…

“I’m 21 years old; I started driving truck when I was 17. This truck has 18 gears and it was hard in the beginning, but now it’s no big deal. I haul 33 ton each load. The beginning of the summer I clean the sheds, then wheat harvest starts and I am back in the truck. I have about two weeks off between wheat harvest and potato harvest. My Dad is in charge of the sheds and that’s why I work the harvest. I will take over his job when it’s time. I love harvest time, it’s very fast paced. Everybody is go, go, go. One accident I remember was…

“I do all the cleaning in the milking parlor. There are 20 milking machines here so that’s a lot of cleaning. I come in and clean them twice a day, after each milking. Soap and brushes that is what I use. After I clean, I separate the cream to make butter. I make sure the kitchen has 25 gallons of milk every day. I also make cottage cheese. Once a week the ladies, that are over 50, take turns to help me clean the upper part. I do all the rest myself. Every Sunday evening I do a more thorough cleaning and then once a year we do a real…

“We do everything out here. Sorting, piling, sod picking, weeds, backing up trucks, scraping, everything, but drive the truck, maybe next year. We also bag some potatoes for samples and somebody comes by and picks them up. I love working out here.” #agriculture #hutteriancolony

”It doesn’t get boring, trust me. I have experience doing a lot of jobs. I run the scraper the piler and  I separate the vines and rocks from the potatoes. I work here from 7am to 8pm, but the day goes fast because we are really busy. The thing with the piler is to never have trucks wait for you, so always be ready. Nobody is waiting then, the digger in the field or the trucks, time is precious around here. Sometimes it gets too warm for the potatoes, we don’t want baked potatoes in here. We monitor the temperature of the potatoes coming off the trucks. If it get’s…