|
  |
|
|
Sorting Potatoes
By Gillian Knebel
I've done a lot of physical and manual work in my life and usually quite enjoy it, being a physical sort of person. This was different.... I was living in a shared house in the countryside between Leeds and Harrogate. I was on a meagre income and so when one of my housemates asked if any one of us could do his potato sorting work for a day or two, I said yes. This entailed being pulled behind a tractor, on I can't quite remember what, with four of five other people standing either side of a conveyor belt. As the tractor ploughed the potato field the potatoes were thrown up onto the conveyor belt. It was our job to sort them, leaving the big good looking ones on the belt and discarding the small, bad looking ones. Now this sounds OK except everything happened so quickly; the potatoes kept appearing on the conveyor belt, there was no let up and my hands just weren't used to grabbing anything so quickly and so often. Why I didn't enjoy it at all and why it remains my very worst work experience to this day, was that it was monotonous as well as requiring total concentration. It wasn't even possible to exercise the mind in another direction for an instant or the potatoes would begin to pile up and the farmer who was with us, would start to shout. It was also physically uncomfortable, standing all the time, being lurched around behind the tractor. It takes all sorts though, because there was one woman there who loved the job and returned to it every year with haappy anticipation. |
|
 |
|
No reactions yet.
Please login or sign up to rate this intel.
Please login or sign up to add a comment.
I had no idea how potatoes are gathered nowadays. I will never look at a potato in the same way.
We raise a lot of potatoes here in New England, Guillian, been there done that when I was much younger.
Great intel.
Keep up the good work.
Frederick
That is the sort of work that I wouldn't like either, uncomfortable especially on the back. It sounds dangerous too! I think that we take farming and food production for granted these days, and although a lot of processes have been mechanised, it's good to know how these used to be done. I sometimes wonder if there was an apocolypse or some sort how mankind would survive. How many of us know how to plant seeds or farm, or even to do essential building or technical tasks? Given a group of 100 survivors, I dobt if any would be capable of growing cereals, harvesting them and making flour/bread.
The copyright for this content entitled "Sorting Potatoes" has been specified by the contributor as:
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
Details 
This content may be copied, distributed, and modified, as long as a) the original author is acknowledged with a link back to the content page, and b) if the work is modified, the result is distributed with this same license.
If you use this content according to the license specified, you must link to the following URL:
http://puffinpie.qondio.com/
|
|
February, 2012
| | | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 |
| 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| 27 | 28 | 29 | | | | |
|
2008
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
2009
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
2010
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
2011
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
2012
January, February
|
|
Not a member yet?
Qondio is a powerful network for making it online. If you have a website to
promote, we can help.
Sign up and get in on the action.
|
|
Welcome to Qondio! Discover the awesome power this network can deliver by going to our About page. Or you could skip straight to the Sign Up form.
|
|
