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Nebraska UpdatesJuly 3, 2008
Website Issues: Dear Detasseling Families, we recently discovered that our website is having problems when we keep pasting new information from our Excel spreadsheet into our website content manager. All that to say, while we thought we were diligently pasting in new names from our spreadsheet onto our website, the website stopped accepting all the many changes we were making, and so our roster list is not accurate on the website. (We DO, however, have you on our spreadsheet and ready for payroll). We are in the process of manually typing each of the 300+ employees onto the Bus Information page and hope to have that done within the next day or so. Thanks for your patience.
Camelbacks: I have obtained roughly 200 camelbacks for use for our crew this season. These camelbacks are of a higher quality than the ones we had last summer. That being said, because of the expense involved, I cannot "give" them away this year. Because lots of you already have camelbacks or prefer to use another method (a water bottle in your pocket or fanny pack), I will be dividing these 200 camelbacks between the busses. On the first day of detasseling, if you are interested in using a camelback, we will check one out to you that will need to be returned at the end of the season. Post-season, we will be laundering all of the camelbacks and putting new mouthpieces on them for next year.
Start Time for Detasseling: Nothing has really changed about the start time for detasseling, so I am keeping the old information below. The only difference is that I have information that our third detasseling company is also predicting a start date of July 14 or 15. What that means is that many of our busses may not hit the fields until the 14th, 15th, or even later. We'll keep you posted here as soon as we know anything more.
Here's an update to the million-dollar question, "When do you think we'll start, Dawn?"
The start date has now been revised to the 9th or 10th of July. Another seed corn company is predicting they won't enter the fields until the 14th of July.
What does this mean? First of all, it means that some busses could start even a week later than other busses. My goal is to always divide up the acres and fields between the busses (except for the Force bus). Keep tuned to the website. It's the best way to get the information the fastest, because if you call me, and I give you what I know to be the case at that moment, I might get a call from a seed corn company an hour later and then what I've just told you on the phone will be obsolete.
Berean 2, Berean 3 and Parkview will probably be my first busses out of the chute. (This is based on driver availability and schedules). I am guessing that it will be a very stop-and-go season. What I mean by that is that we could be very busy for a couple of days, and then nothing, and then very busy again, and so on. My prayer is that between the three companies, things will "even out" for us. What I do promise to do is, as best as I can, divide up the fields and acres equally between the busses. This might mean that I could have one or two busses starting very early, and then possibly not having anything to do for a while as I get other busses going.
Of course, this is all conjecture--and subject to change at a moment's notice! What the seed corn guys are watching for are what's called "heat units." It takes so many "heat units" until the fields are ready to go. If it heats up a lot, things will move along pretty fast. I don't expect that even if it heats up a lot that fields would be ready before the ninth of July.
Omaha/Elkhorn is looking at being ready right around the 10th of July or so.
Again, I appreciate your patience in this matter. If I do know anything, I'll post it here!! (By the way, if you're reading this and have some friends on the crew, would you be so kind as to remind them that this is the fastest place to go to get the latest news?? That would be so helpful--and save me about 15-20 emails a day, maybe!)
I hope you are all able to enjoy these wonderful summer days. Don't we have a lot to be thankful for??
Again, our current crew roster is available on the "Bus Information" page, so you can check to see that we've got you on the right bus!
in grace . . .
dawn buell
If you'd like to see pictures from the 2007 season, click this link.
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