“I am driving the spud digger, harvesting here for the next 5 or 6 weeks. I drive about three miles per hour right now, but when I get closer to the pivot I have to go slower because there is more sod. Last year we grew grass in this field so I deal with a lot of sod. The sorters have to deal with all this sod too; they have to get it out before the potatoes go in the shed. If we have sod in the sheds it blocks off the air, without air the potatoes rot in the shed. I am in contact with the trucks all the…

“I am 18 and I have been working potato harvest since I was little. I worked after school, but this year I am out of school to work full-time. I am learning to run the piler because I will have my own crew next year. This is a new piler, so I am learning how it works. It’s a hard job, it keeps moving. I like that we always work together, we are always helping each other, and nobody has to work alone. If we have new ideas, we are encouraged to voice our opinion. They are always open to new thoughts. I am graduating this year so after school…

“This is my truck; I drive this water truck when we are doing potato harvest, keeping the roads from being so dusty. When it’s not harvest time I use this truck to haul fertilizer. I am hauling all the liquid fertilizer to use on all the circles.” #agriculture #hutteriancolony

“When we have a baby, we can stay home for 8 weeks, you don’t have to do any chores. It’s like maternity leave. We always have a caregiver come to help out the first 4weeks. Typically that is your Mother or Sister. To start back on our cook weeks, our baby has to be 14 weeks old. After the 14 weeks, we are back to our regular rotation to cook and bake. Grandmas,then take care of the babies during the times we are working. I am married and have three girls. I love the community life, being all together.” #agriculture #hutteriancolony

“I’m 17 years old and I am here from Canada for the potato harvest. We work long hours during the week and we are so tired, that’s all we do. We get up at 5am and we work ‘till 8pm. During the day we have lots of fun out here with the girls. We talk about things, people and we laugh a lot. We make our own fun. On weekends we have a gathering on Saturday night. We have other colonies come and we all gather for food and games, we play volleyball. We talk and make friends. We look forward to that.” #agriculture #hutteriancolony

“I am 17 years of age and this is my 2nd year doing potato harvest. I drive a big 18 wheeler Kenworth truck. The best part of this job is loading my truck. I like fields that are challenging, what makes them challenging is the huge hills and side hills. When I get to the field the first thing I do is deflate my tires to 35 pounds that allows me to get more traction so I can climb huge hills. Once my truck is full I put my tarp over manually which means I have to go to the back of the trailer and crank my tarp 8 times,…

“Some of my students are at harvest right now so everyone else is working on elective courses or computer work. I teach 6th through 12th grades and I have 15 students. Kids that are younger than 15 years old have German class in the morning and German class in the afternoon, in addition to the regular studies. So they are in school from 8am to 5pm, 5 days a week. When they start school at three years old, that‘s when they start to learn English. Until then they speak High German. They learn manners, alphabets, some bible verses and songs in kindergarten. The portable classroom is Kindergarten through 5th grade…

“When I am not working harvest and driving this truck, I am working in the Dairy Barn. That’s my main job. Spring time, I’m driving truck. Fall time, I’m driving truck but the rest of the time I’m in the barn. My Dad is head of the Dairy and I do the maintenance, trim hooves, feed cows or just whatever needs to be done. I have a beautiful wife and three girls. My favorite thing to do is drive truck during harvest, 16 to 18 hour days.” #agriculture #hutteriancolony

“This is my ride when I am working harvest. I do have a funny story…one summer my friend and I were supposed to be working in the garden. My Mom is the Gardner so we were in there by ourselves to transplant other plants into rows. We were so tired of doing it that we just didn’t want to do it anymore so we took the plants and dumped them in the corn patch and we said that there weren’t any more. Another time we took the ladies to the garden with the pickup. We pretended that it wouldn’t start and we made them push the pickup all the way…

“We work hard in the kitchen; we have a lot of people depending on us. During harvest I am at the kitchen at 4 o’clock in the morning. We get ready to make breakfast for the harvest crew. They eat breakfast at 5:30. We set up a buffet line so they get their breakfast. They also make their lunch boxes. After breakfast we clean up a little bit, then at seven we make breakfast for the ladies and the children. We then get ready for the afternoon meal, that’s just for the ladies and kids. In between that time we get everything ready for dinner. We start making 80 to-go…