Team Vedder and Our North Dakota Adventure

Yep, Team Vedder as—VEDDERS CONSULTANTS—got all kind of requests.

Our # 10 Consulting trip brought us to North Dakota where we were going to work for a mushroom farm facing bankruptcy.

On Saturday, January 9, we both left by 1:30 PM for the Atlanta Airport (a good 2 hour drive). 

Our flight went via Minneapolis/St. Paul to Grand Forks in North Dakota where we arrived by 8:50 PM.

On one of the Campbell Soup Seminars that Pieter did in October 1992—the owner had begged Pieter to come to his small mushroom farm in North Dakota—he was desperate!

They made their own compost, had 1 tunnel and 5 growing rooms of 400 m² built by the Dutch company Huub Aerts.

More than likely the son of a Pennsylvanian mushroom grower that liked to leave his Dad's old farm—sorry for his Dad—will come to manage the farm.

Don Dusek came to pick us up and together with him, another hour driving the 60 mi (96.5 km) to our Motel in Park River, North Dakota.

We both slept well and on Sunday, January 10, Don Dusek came to our motel and had breakfast with us. We went to Church with him in Pisek, together with his son and daughter—all Catholic Czechs. 

Next we had lunch and went to the mushroom farm till 3:30 PM.

There was a lot of snow and it was –25°F or about –32°C with a daytime temperature of –5°F or –20.5°C. 

By 5:00 PM we went together for supper to Ron (3rd generation Norwegian) & Renae, together with Steve.  

We got an old car from Don and we both returned to our motel.

Monday, January 11, the day started with an empty battery! Someone from the farm came over. 

After our breakfast at the Guest House we head to the farm to work.

Very busy day with the 9 harvesters. 

Pieter does some training  in the afternoon after first going over the farm.

We had supper at the guest house.

Tuesday, picked with the harvesters and visited them individually training and correcting—they opened up and start to follow my training and it goes well!

For lunch we got stuck in the snow with that old car—due to having gotten off road!

No telling where the road ends—with such a layer of snow... We don't live there.

After work we have supper at the restaurant of our motel: Don, Ron & Renae, Steve and both of us.

Wednesday January 13, Steve departed this morning, back to Pennsylvania. 

Both of us continue with our training. Very busy and working over time in room 4...

We both have supper at the motel at Alice's.

Thursday, January 14. Don's old car broke down and he came to pick us up in his pickup. 

Don was quite a figure! He actually has a gravel business! 

He went on to tell us a nice story. They were at the gravel extraction site, stone breaking when suddenly bones and skulls appeared...

They stopped and called the police as they first thought about a possible murder case.

As a result they halted the entire enterprise for days and eventually the investigation led to ancient Indians—no murder case and it all had cost him some US $ 40,000. 

So he gave his people the instruction: Whatever you see, keep grinding!

Another routine work day and we picked off room 4 entirely and cleaned the beds by removing any stumps and debris. Good feeling!

Friday, January 15, we packed and had our breakfast with Don and he drove us around for seeing a potato grading company, to which Ron was connected. That was quite impressive!

In water through concrete canals under the road they transported them into large sheds where they got sorted and bagged—heavy work! 

Too bad we had forgotten to bring our camera for this trip...

It was so huge that for every American they had 2 kilos or 4.4 pounds in stock—so impressive!

By 10:30 we did a slide presentation for the harvesters.

Farewell to a satisfied group.

My ONLY paycheck were red roses with ferns and baby's breath + card!

Thanks!

You went all out...

...and

The results were outstanding!

Training by Pieter for the men till past 7:00 PM.

Then we had dinner with them, including Sherry their daughter.

Saturday, January 16, we briefly went to the farm and Duane is now also caught up.

At 11:00 AM take off from Grand Forks and via Minneapolis/St. Paul to Atlanta.

Home by 7:00 PM and reading our mail with the fireplace on.

Just received one more letter from Ron Monson, dated January 23, 1995...

That was our North Dakota adventure!

It was quite a surprise that on Facebook one of our mushroom friends reacted to this photo from April 23, 1983 when Campbell Soup flew both of us from Camden, New Jersey to Dublin, Georgia in their corporate Learjet—40 years ago!

Still grateful for being able to read such feedback about our training after 40 years.

Related link:

modern mushroom growing 2020 harvesting | previous post by me