This was the only thing that kept me going. It was what I looked forward to after finishing a long row in the hot sun. It was my motivation to keep going. I am talking about the snacks. The snacks were amazing!

Every day, one of the chores that one of the detasselers had, each for the boys and girls seperately, was to fill the snack cooler. It was the best job because you were able to pick and choose whatever snacks you want and fill the cooler with your favorites. At the girls house, there was a huuuuge stash of all sorts of snacks and sweet treats. Along with the snacks that Greg and Barb provided for us, many people brought and donated food for us. There was trail mix, Oreo’s, a variety of granola bars, fruits, fruit snacks, and soooo much more.

Referring back to the snack cooler, the girls and the guys both had their own cooler to fill. All the coolers, including the sandwich coolers, were then put into the van that would park near the bus. That van was always a happy sight to see. It contained all 4-5 coolers of food, and 1-2 pitchers of Gatorade for us. After a couple rounds, you’d stop and grab a snack of your choice. I don’t even want to think of how many Oreo’s I ate last summer during detasseling!

During lunch, all of us detasselers would gather round the van, sit on our tiny gallon water jugs, and eat as many snacks as we could. I will forever be grateful for the snacks of detasseling.

Stretching curfew is probably something that most of us teens would be familiar with. The midnight curfew at detasseling was one of the more strict rules set in place by the older detasselers out of respect for Greg and Barb. The rule was that you had to be on the house porch by midnight, and every night at 11:59pm you would see at least one full carload of girls pull up and speed walk to the porch to make it in time (I may have been a part of that carload regularly), but everyone always made it back in time… except for Katie Beth.

A little background on Katie: she is fairly outgoing, but at the same time very reserved. She has never had a boyfriend, and is probably one of the most innocent people you would ever come across… the farthest she’s ever gotten with a boy was holding his hand when they were at the movies.

So it all started when this one boy, Basil, caught her eye at detasseling. They started talking some, and then more often. They would always sit together on the bus, sometimes do rounds together, and then after work they would hang out for a long time. One night they decided to go to the windmills (a little hangout if you wanted to be in a little smaller group and get away from everyone else). Most of us were hangin out at the shop when Katie and Basil left, around 9pm ish. Time ticked by and the hours past, and before we knew it, it was already 11:50pm. By this time we were kinda just wondering when they would show up because it had to be soon. But then it was 11:55pm so the rest of us girls piled into our cars and headed back to the house for midnight cereal to wait for Katie.

This is when it gets interesting. While I, along with the rest of the usual midnight cereal girls, got settled in to devour our delicious late night snack, more girls started filling into the kitchen. At this point it was 12:10am and we were starting to get a little nervous because no one ever breaks curfew. So we called Katie, called Basil, and called Daniel (a friend of Basil’s to see if he knew where they were). Katie and Basil didn’t answer, and Daniel didn’t know where they were.

Five more minutes passed and we were starting to get nervous. On top of the nervousness, one of the older detasselers found out what was going on and she was not happy. It was probably the same reaction your mom would have if she found out that you broke curfew being out with with a boy. ALWAYS ASSUME THE WORST. While she was upset about Katie being out with a boy, the rest of us were starting to wonder if something bad had happened. By now, basically all the girls were in the kitchen for midnight cereal and knew about the Katie situation.

Now, Katie was 30 minutes past curfew, and we were getting extremely worried. Shana, Jaida, Annika and I were just about to go seach the windmills for them when at 12:35am, Katie and Basil roll up. We were so relieved! When we explained to Katie how worried we were and that everyone was inside waiting to see if she was alright, she was almost in tears for embarrassment and for feeling so bad about the whole thing. Turns out, they both hadn’t had their phones on them so when they actually did check the time… it was well past curfew. Lesson learned, don’t miss curfew.

So this blog is going to be a little different than the rest… It’l be more of an explanation of something I greatly love, and something that brought all the girls together at the end of the day.

At the end of the day, everyone is tired and groggy for the most part. Despite that, many of us would stay late at the boys’ shed playing cards or other games. To make sure that we would still be able to function in the morning, the older girls established a curfew of 12:00 am.

So around midnight every single night, the girls that I hang out with and I would come rolling into the girls’ place. However, being that we are girls and loooove chatting, every night we arrived back at the house, we’d dig out the cereal, grab a seat, and talk with each other for at least a half hour. My personal cereal of choice was usually Cinnamon Toast Crunch, but they had all the cereal your parents would never let you eat as a child. There were five of us that started the gathering of late-night snacking: Katie, Annika, Shana, Jaida, Lacie, Heidi, and I. After the first night of midnight cereal, we couldn’t not do it again, so the late night munchies routine was started.

Slowly, as we continued our midnight cereal tradition, more and more girls started to join us. Either they thought we were really cool and wanted to join our gossip group, or they just really liked cereal, because eventually ALL the girls were gathering in the kitchen every single night for our midnight cereal with us.

As more people joined, the talks grew longer and the friendships grew stronger. Midnight cereal was definitely something that we all looked forward to at the end of all the longs, exhausting days of work. Partially because of the talks, but for me, the excitement was mostly from getting to eat cereal. 🙂

You might think that working in the sweltering heat, torrential rain, lightning storms, and freezing drizzles would not be fun… Well you are 100% correct! It is NOT fun at all. Hard core stinks. It honestly makes you wonder who in their right mind would ever sign up for this. There was one field in particular that seemed made everyone feel that way… the cursed field.

The first time we got to the cursed field we started working, it was raining, and we were miserable. After a while, it got even windier and rained even harder. It just kept getting worse as the day went on. Eventually I could hardly see the tassels because the wind was blowing the corn stocks and leaves all over.

That’s when I started thinking, “What if I can’t hear the whoop?” and “What if everyone leaves without me and I’m stuck in the corn in this storm?!”

Then after a couple minutes of half-panicking and half jogging through my row, I FINALLY see someone coming to dig me out, meaning someone starts on the row that I am finishing so we can get done sooner. It was Lacie, a veteran detasseler that always looks out for everyone else. I was sooooo relieved.

Once she reached me, we full out sprinted out of the corn to the bus because the wind and rain made it absolutely MISERABLE and hard to even look up. At that point, it was raining so hard that it actually kind of stung. After getting to the bus, we tried waiting out the storm for a little while. The storm wasn’t letting up, so after waiting for about 30 minutes on the bus, the crew leader gave in and we got to head home.

That’s not the end of it though. We had to go back to that field the next day to finish first-timing that field. Halfway through that day, we see storm clouds slowly moving. However, they weren’t actually moving slowly. They were quickly engulfing the sky around us. That’s when we started seeing the lightning.

I was also alone when this happened, so again, I started to mini panic. Then I heard the whoop, which, again, made me extremely relieved…except for the part where I was on complete opposite ends of the field from the bus. I walked as fast as I could while trying to still spot tassels. I ended up catching up with Katie Beth while she was making her way out of the corn also, which made the situation a little less stressful. We got back to the bus, soaked, again, and excited for snacks and warmth.

While waiting out the the lightning and rain, there were those who wanted to finish their rows despite the situation. Most of whom were the older guys. The lightning grew closer, but they continued to work while the rest of us sat on the bus. That is, until there was a lightning strike less than a mile away that shook the bus and made everyone jump. That got the guys moving. Every single one of them was at a full sprint back to the bus. It was quite amusing for those of us who were already within the comforts of the bus.

We waited on the bus for about an hour until we got the all clear to head back into the field… for the third time. By then, we were all tired, cold, and just wanted to be done. We managed to finish the field and finally retreat back to the house for the final time that day. (:

At detasseling, pranks are a big deal. Like a BIG deal. Brainstorming pranks was one of the first things we did when all the girls arrived. Throughout my time at detasseling, there were three big pranks… two of which were from the guys, and one being revenge from us girls.

Prank #1

Before I go into full story mode, you need to know a couple things. First, the bus always gets parked at the girls’ house at the end of the day. Second, we always leave our gallon water jugs outside to dry and to get filled in the morning.

Us girls knew that the time of being pranked would come soon. It was inevitable. So, in the middle of the night when all the girls were sleeping, a handful of the guys crept over to the girls’ place. Somehow, they had a HUUUGE roll of saran wrap and used it trap a ton of balloon in the back of the bus. After that, they proceeded to saran wrap the bus. The entire bus. For a finishing touch, they duck taped a little rubber duck to the front of the bus (which remained there for the rest of the season).

After wrapping the bus, they proceeded to steal roughly half of our jugs, including mine, and saran wrap them to a tree. Mind you, some of the guys are over 6′ so they could reach pretty high, which made retrieving the jugs nearly impossible without a ladder. It was a hassle for the girls to clean up before leaving that day.

Prank #2… and Retaliation

Being that some of the guys had been detasseling for years before, they were well aware that pranking was a huge deal. As a result, one of those guys had been collecting rubber ducks, of various sizes, all year, totaling up to over 300 little rubber ducks and one huge blow-up duck.

Yet again, they waited until all the girls were sleeping (2-3am) and made their way over to the girls’ place. They filled the entire main level with ducks. Ducks on the ceiling fan, all over the kitchen, table, bathroom, and to top it off, they stuck the huge duck in the middle of the dining room table. Remember, that’s 300 ducks worth, so they were EVERYWHERE. It was about 4-4:30am when they were finished and back to their place.

Little did they know that we were also planning a prank that very night. At 5am, almost all of the girls woke up to a house full of ducks. We decided to use that to our advantage. We took as many ducks as we could carry, including the massive blow-up one, and headed to the guys.

This is where the girls FINALLY one-up the guys.

As the boys were sound asleep upstairs, we took all the tables and chairs from the shop, moved them outside, flipped all the remaining furniture, and saran wrapped the ping pong table and spike ball net.

After the tables and chairs were out, we filled all their water jugs and put them on the stairs blocking their doors to the upstairs. To add the cherry on top, we managed to get the keys to one of the guy’s car. We pushed the car into the shop, filled it with ducks, and shoved all the cushions from the couches into the backseats.

We then saran wrapped the massive duck to the top of the car and all the doors shut. After we finished with the car, we hid the keys and continued to scatter ducks all over the place. Once we were done, we headed back to our house and slept peacefully knowing the guys would wake up to a pleasant surprise. 🙂

After training day, detasseling didn’t seem that bad. However, I was much mistaken about the amount of effort this job took.

On our first day alone, we all loaded onto the bus ready and eager for our first day of work. I was nervous, but it was an excited nervous at the same time. I filled my gallon water jug and packed my backpack with some snacks and was all set to go! The bus ride there went by fast, and by that, I meant I slept the whole time because I am NOT a morning person.

First of all, the process to remember and write down which rows you go into is pretty confusing at first. Especially when you have one person tell you this, and another telling you to do the complete opposite making EVERYONE confused. So finally, after we got our rows all figured out, we started our first round alone.

My FIRST Round Alone…

One piece of advice we got right before we went in was, when you come across a bare part of the field, make sure you walk straight across it to your same row so you don't end up in someone else's row. And you want to know what happened when I got 50 yards into my first round? Well I'll tell ya. Someone did exactly that and ended up in my row. 

Of course they were like 100 yards away and all I could see was their hat, so I couldn’t ask them to figure it out. Me being me and already nervous about messing up, I started to question everything. Did I switch rows?? I’m not even half way through my round yet and I’ve already messed up. How am I this bad at walking in a straight line??? Now you may think, well why didn’t you just switch to a different row? Well its complicated and that would mess it up even more. So, I asked another detasseler if I was in the right row, or if the person way ahead of me was.

We finally concluded that I was not the one who messed up. But man was I NERVOUS. I paid super close attention the rest of the time. And once I caught up to the guy who was in my row, we got it figured out and he went back to his row and all was well for the rest of that round.

Overall, my first round wasn’t bad. It just took me FOREVER. It seemed like an eternity before I reached the end of my round. But then again, I didn’t want to be the sucky first-year that had horrible rounds. The rows were also pretty good. The corn wasn’t super tall, and the tassels were pretty easy to pull. At that point I had the naive mindset that the day could only get better from there. I was trying to think positive… that didn’t last long.

The Rest of The Day

The first two rows were about the same, but after that we were going to the other side of the field and it was muddy. When I say muddy I mean reeeaaally muddy. You would walk around with 5 extra pounds of mud on your feet. Along with the mud, the corn got taller, and there were spiders. I HATE spiders. With a passion. They freak me out. So that was not fun when I’d come across them just chilling on a tassel.

By my third row, I wasn’t in the midst of all the first-years anymore. I got stuck next to the experienced second or third years, which meant that I would not be able to keep up. Basically I would be alone in the corn. I couldn’t even see any orange anywhere, which is extremely disappointing. Like super duper disappointing because seeing at least one orange hat is reassurance that you weren’t left in the corn to survive on your own. I did not get that reassurance at all. I felt completely alone, (even though I really wasn’t).

When you’re walking for hours on end in a cornfield with no one in sight, you think… a lot. What about, you may be wondering? Anything and everything: How long have I been out here? Am I the slowest person in this field? What if everyone finished without me and is just chilling on the bus right now? I hope I don’t see another spider.

I’d finally reached the end of my row and started back down the other to complete my round. After I’d been walking for a really, really long time, I’d seen maybe 2 people. Bother super far away. I was getting kinda nervous. Plus, the corn was getting tall. Like really tall, especially since I’m only 5’4. I’d had to extend my arm as high as I could above my head to be able to reach the tassels.

At that point, my thoughts were basically all negative: I can’t believe I’m doing this right now. I’m never going to finish. What if I’m out here til dark? What if the crew forgot about me and I’m stranded in this cornfield in the middle of Iowa?!

After the longest round of my life, I finally made it back to the field edge. I looked around and realized that I wasn’t left alone in the corn! There were people on both sides of me. That was a relief. After a couple more rounds, (I stuck with another first year for the rest of the day), we all packed up and headed back to the house.

For the first day in the field, it’s a training/refreshing day. All the first-years were paired up with one third-year or two second-years to train them. Honestly, when I first got to the cornfield, I had absolutely no idea what we would be doing. I knew that we were pulling tassels, but I didn’t know the process or even what a tassel looked like. When I looked at a corn stock, all I saw were leaves. No tassels. As a result, on training day, I definitely pulled more leaves than tassels, that’s for sure.

For training, I got paired with Elizabeth. She’s basically a pro. She’d detasseled for I think six years. So Elizabeth showed me the do’s and don’t’s and made my first day a blast. But the process was definitely long and frustrating. She would walk about 15 feet away from me and tell me how many tassels were between us, and I would have to find all of them. I didn’t get half of the tassels most of the time. I honestly thought I was going to be the worst detasseler ever. FINALLY, after almost a full day of training, I could kind of decipher what were tassels and what were leaves. Which made me feel a little better about having to go into the field alone after training was complete.

Once you’re fairly trained in, you do a round with your trainer. A round is when you walk in between two cornrows, pulling tassels on each side of you, down the field, and then back in the next two rows over. So in one round, you detassel four rows total, each round being roughly 2/3’s of a mile. After that first day, we were ALL beat and ready for a nap. But overall, it was definitely a success.

Many people might think, “who in their right mind would go live with 50 strangers for 3 weeks?” Well, I would! Except not everyone was a stranger. Along with me was one of my best friends, and cousin, Katie Beth. We were both first years, meaning this would be our first time going down to this crew to work. Along with Katie and me, there were a few other Wisconsinites that we knew who would be going down to detassel also. It was a relief knowing that there would be a few familiar faces there.

I drove the four hours down to Iowa with Katie Beth over to the twin cities and eventually down into the vastness of corn, Iowa.

Soooo, my first day I was kind of a hermit. Didn’t know anyone, meeting everyone was EXTREMELY overwhelming, and there was definitely some first impression judging going on. You see someone, meet them, and create this whole image of who you think they are in you head. Let me tell ya, I WAS WRONG. So so wrong. Little did I know, every single judgement I made would be completely thrown out the window after our first day of work. You would see someone at their lowest point, because that’s where everyone was, at at the end of a long day’s work. No one cared that their hair made them look like a wild animal, or that they smell like a wet dog. At the end of the day, all anyone is thinking about is food, and clean clothes. But I’m getting ahead of myself… before I get to our first day, I have to fill you in on the do’s and don’t’s and everything in between!

The RULES

After everyone arrived, and got settled in, the older detasselers started filling us all in on the house rules, routines, traditions and what to avoid at all costs. After that we got informed about the field safety and uniforms. We didn’t technically have uniforms but there’s a dress code in the field. You have to wear safety glasses, gloves, close toed shoes, and a shirt that covers your shoulders. We all were given bright orange long sleeves and a bright orange hat with a net over the face to protect us from corn rash and cuts from the leaves. The good thing about the hats is that we all personalized them by writing our names, nicknames, or adding some sort of drawing to them. And of course we all had crazy bandannas to wear under our hats… That was probably my favorite part of the uniform, even though they weren’t mandatory.

Along with the dress codes, there were a bunch of other rules that we had to learn too. No horse play, running, tackling, throwing anything, or messing around of any sort. Following those rules was a must… most of the time… some times… okay, in reality we hardly ever followed those rules. You always had to watch your back, because when there wasn’t anyone watching, you would be table topped, or corn-dogged… And not the kind where someone knee’s you in the butt. This type of corn-dogging is when someone full out tackles you in the corn. I can tell you first-hand, being the victim is not fun with either of those, especially when it happens in a super muddy, wet field and you have to continue working when you’re caked in mud. But it is fun to get revenge!

The WHOOP

Even though there were many rules to be “followed,” there were definitely many fun times while working. My absolute favorite thing about working in the field is the “whoop”. It is ESSENTIAL to know what the whoop stands for and when to use it. The whoop is unique to the Peck Cru as it is something they came up with many years ago. The detasselers in the field whoop to warn the detasselers of “stranger danger” (basically whenever there was a safety inspector so we could be prepared or stop goofing around), or it was used to let everyone know to exit the corn, whether it be the end of the day or because of weather. It’s super funny to listen when their is 50 some people scattered throughout a field whooping as loud as they can. If your are curious as to what exactly the whoop sounds like, follow this link to see a video I took of my crew whooping to let everyone know we were packing up for the day. 🙂

The CHORES

There weren’t many house rules except the obvious, be respectful and responsible, but the biggest non-obvious rule was do your chores! I mean, that’s kind of a given. You can’t expect one house full of 25 girls to run on it’s own. We each had a different chore every day, and it was listed on a chore sheet. You did NOT want to forget about your chores. Not that there were a lot of consequences, but you did not want to be disliked by the 24 other girls that you have to live with.

I think there were 20-ish chores to be done, and some were easy and took maybe 30 seconds, and others were not so fun. The hardest chore was probably cleaning the bus… we use a school bus to transport all the detasselers around… and that might not sound bad. You just walk through and pick up the garbage, do a little sweeping. That was not always the case, especially when it was rainy and 50 people walk onto the bus dripping, with mud caked on their shoes. Let me tell ya, trying to clean the bus while attempting to scrape/wash the half inch layer of mud off the bus floor is not fun. Not even close. If you got really lucky, Greg would just let you leave the mud because it was near impossible to clean.

The rules and chores may make detasseling seem like a lot of work on top of the actual work, but as you will soon find out, the fun times make it all worth while.