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Charles Madsen
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00:00My name's Mike Rowe. This is my job.
00:06I explore the country looking for people who aren't afraid to get dirty.
00:10That's good, but by good, I mean enough.
00:12Hard-working men and women who earn an honest living.
00:15I want to show you how to cave it in.
00:17Is this really the best place for me to be standing?
00:19Doing the kinds of jobs that make civilized life possible for the rest of us.
00:23Now, get ready.
00:27To get dirty.
00:28Four, three, two, one.
00:31Coming up on Dirty Jobs.
00:32Probably too much explosive near the surface, but we've lost the hole.
00:35The crew and I lay down the law.
00:37It's got me.
00:39Murphy's Law, that is.
00:40I broke the hose.
00:41On a show where the question isn't what went wrong.
00:44Ah, come on.
00:45But did anything go right?
00:47I'm almost certain that's bad.
00:49From things that don't start.
00:53To birds that just don't care.
00:55He's staring you down.
00:57I know, it's giving me the stink eye.
00:59It's looking right through me.
01:00And when we want to get our hands dirty.
01:02Is there anything I can do here?
01:03It's all automatic.
01:04This is killing me.
01:05It's Dirty Jobs, warts and all.
01:07Far enough.
01:08And the only thing to expect is the unexpected.
01:11There's just no way this is going to end well.
01:13Dirty Jobs, warts and all.
01:16Oh, God.
01:16Dirty Jobs, no one's got to see you.
01:18Oh, God.
01:19Oh, God.
01:22Dirty Jobs, no one's got to see you.
01:24Oh, God.
01:25Dirty Jobs, no one's got to see you.
01:28I have a theory.
01:32Now, I can't prove it.
01:34But I'm fairly certain that back in the old days, people were tougher than they are today.
01:40Take John Searles, for instance.
01:42John Searles and a couple of his buddies back in 1862 crawled over those mountains out of Death Valley into this charming piece of real estate.
01:51Where it's 20 degrees in the winter and 120 degrees in the summer.
01:55They came here on purpose.
01:57They set up their tents and they started prospecting for gold.
02:00Didn't find any.
02:01But Searles did find this.
02:03This is borax.
02:04He had no idea what borax was at the time, but being a curious guy, he threw it in his knapsack, went on his way.
02:09Carried it around for 10 years.
02:12Eventually, he figured out that borax was valuable.
02:16So he came back and he staked a claim.
02:18The rest is kind of history.
02:20This is Searles Valley.
02:21Today, it's known as one of the richest mineral deposits on the face of the earth.
02:24Searles is dead and gone, of course.
02:26But the people who live here are keeping his pioneer spirit alive and proving definitively that getting stuff like this out of ground like that is a dirty job.
02:37Of the 86 naturally occurring elements, about half can be found right here in the brine of a 52 square mile underground salt lake.
02:46Seven of them wind up in Searles Valley Minerals products.
02:49And I was ready to get my hands dirty digging them out.
02:52But as the Scottish poet Robert Burns once wrote, even the best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry.
03:01This is the Argus plant right here.
03:04And the job at Argus is pretty straightforward.
03:06Take the brine off of the lake and turn it into soda ash.
03:11It's a huge place and it looks pretty busy.
03:14Lots of opportunity to get dirty.
03:17Rod Jensen is the director of mining and manufacturing.
03:19We're going to pump 10,000 gallons a minute of brine from our lake into this 1 million gallon storage tank where we start the transition from brine to a finished soda ash product.
03:31Is there anything I can do here in the way of a job?
03:34Nothing.
03:34This is all automatic.
03:36Mike, we're pumping our brine from the brine tank into these primary carbonators, injecting carbon dioxide in the bottom and starting a chemical reaction that will begin to build a crystal.
03:47It's going to look very similar to this right here.
03:51A small amount of solids inside a liquid body.
03:54The next step, we're going to have to remove the liquid from these crystals.
03:58What can I physically do here at the carbonator?
04:01Nothing.
04:01It's automatic.
04:03Mike, this is a bicarb dryer.
04:06Bicarb dryer.
04:06Bicarb dryer.
04:07You remember your pre-dryer sample?
04:09I do.
04:10Too wet.
04:10We're going to dry it in here, drive off the moisture.
04:14The net result will be a 400 degree dry product that I call light ash.
04:19You're saying it's 400 degrees inside that?
04:22Yes, it is.
04:23That's why I can't give you a sample to hold on to.
04:25That's too bad because I was really looking forward to having five bottles.
04:30And why is there snot running down my lip?
04:33Oh, that just means you're having a healthy reaction to the sodium bicarbonate.
04:37Is there a job that I can do here?
04:38No, it's all automatic, Mike.
04:42This is the screening operation.
04:44This is the last step of our model process.
04:48How the heck can you breathe?
04:50Something you get used to.
04:51Yeah.
04:52Soda ash.
04:53Oh, God, I'm disgusting.
04:55Is there anything I can do?
04:59Is there anything I can do here?
05:00It's all automatic.
05:02This is killing me.
05:03Like John Cyril's, I'd come all the way to the middle of a desert just to do the dirty job of processing minerals, only to find out that nowadays there's no dirty job to be done.
05:14It's all automated.
05:15We weren't completely out of luck, though.
05:17All the waste from the mineral processing has to go somewhere.
05:20That somewhere was my next destination.
05:27What in the world am I looking at here, Rod?
05:29This is our rope skimmer operation.
05:31We're treating all of the outfall from the plant.
05:34Before it goes out to the lake, we're going to clean it up.
05:36Fly ash, coal dust, and the soda ash and sodium carbonate that scales up the inside of our plant.
05:43I look out here, what I see is one guy with a lot of hair and a broom pushing a lot of stuff.
05:50He'd like some help.
05:59All right.
06:02This was it.
06:03A real job with real dirt.
06:06I couldn't wait to get started.
06:07Can I walk out in here?
06:09Not too far.
06:10How deep is it?
06:10But before I did, my camera crew had to find their positions.
06:14Yeah, Chris, I'd just go ahead and hold on to that position for a while.
06:18You'd be better off sitting down so you don't sink anymore.
06:21And the only positions to be found were in the middle of the muck.
06:25Don't stay still too long.
06:26The way the day had been going, this was just our luck.
06:29We finally found something dirty to do, and we can't even shoot it.
06:33There's just no way this is going to end well.
06:40Doug is stuck in toxic goo.
06:44Brave, but not that smart.
06:46Eventually, Doug and Chris got themselves unstuck.
06:50You'd think after all this time on the show, they'd know how to move around in filth.
06:54Are you Mark?
06:55I'm Mark.
06:56Yes!
06:56Like I do.
06:59You found the settling ponds in Argus.
07:04What is your official title, Mark?
07:06Actually, I'm a maintenance senior tech.
07:08I lost a bet, so I'm in here with you.
07:11I haven't won one in three years.
07:12Whatever's in my eyes is unpleasant.
07:34You're pinching it, Mike.
07:36It's got me.
07:37I broke the hose?
07:48Yeah, it broke.
07:49Hey, man.
07:50Mark, it's the first bit of good news I've had all day.
07:52I think I broke the hose.
07:54That's the bad news.
07:56The good news is this job will be going on for another three weeks.
08:00And the even better news is I'll be long gone.
08:05Coming up.
08:05Anything down there is going to get sucked through the barrel and thrown out there.
08:09The camera shoots us.
08:11Fire.
08:12And we take some shots at the camera.
08:15If this thing is still working.
08:17And later.
08:18Oh, yeah.
08:19Wow.
08:20On a day when nothing goes as planned, driving is an adventure.
08:24Even when the trip is just next door.
08:27I'm so glad nobody watches this show.
08:29Up to this point, we'd struck out on the processing plant.
08:41The camera crew had almost sunk in the waste skimming pond.
08:44And I'd broken what was probably a very expensive sucking hose.
08:48But all was not yet lost.
08:50It turned out there was one more thing for us to do at Ciro's Minerals.
08:54It only happens one day a year.
08:56Let's hope it doesn't blow up in our faces.
09:01Well, that'll get your attention.
09:04We're out here in the middle of nowhere blowing stuff up in the desert.
09:07This is Arzell.
09:09What did we just see there, Arzell?
09:10We have a big Jim and Minerals show out here.
09:13This is our 65th year.
09:15And we drill holes.
09:17And we set off dynamite to break up crystals.
09:20And we'll blow them out for people to pick up at the Jim and Minerals show.
09:24Earlier this morning, several holes were drilled into the salt, exposing the lake underneath.
09:30Kind of like ice fishing with dynamite.
09:32This is Jim Fairchild, our manager of technology.
09:35Jim, Mike Rowe.
09:36How are you?
09:37Good to meet you.
09:37We're literally blowing gems right out of the earth here.
09:40Crystals.
09:41The person in charge of blasting is Gordon Coleman.
09:47It's a nitroglycerin-based seismic explosive.
09:51It's one-pound canisters.
09:53We're going to put 100 pounds in every hole, and everyone has to be screwed together to make a 100-pound charge.
09:59It's a right-hand thread.
10:00Yeah.
10:01Oh, you're screwed.
10:02You've got to throw 33 of these together to make one string.
10:07We'll do three of those for each hole.
10:11I think I'm going to cross my thread.
10:14We want to point the noses toward the hole.
10:16Uh-huh.
10:16Nose toward the hole.
10:17This is a 50-grain detonating cord.
10:1927,000 feet per second.
10:21It's like five miles in a second.
10:23What we're trying to ensure is what we call intimate contact.
10:27I think I've just achieved it with Arzell.
10:30As we get the nose in, we've got to stand it up pretty tall.
10:34Okay.
10:36Okay.
10:36Yeah?
10:37All right.
10:38Okay.
10:39Oh, perfect.
10:40Good, good.
10:41Good job.
10:41Good job.
10:42Okay.
10:43I just missed it.
10:44Here we go.
10:46Done deal.
10:48Now to tie a clove hitch?
10:50You bet I do.
10:53Your guiding variety electric detonator.
10:56No, she's a beaut.
10:59And one into each terminal.
11:01There you go.
11:02All right.
11:02Okay.
11:03It's on.
11:03Five.
11:04Now, do you always start at five?
11:05Can you go from three?
11:06I can go from ten.
11:07Let's go from seven.
11:08I've never heard anyone go seven.
11:09Seven.
11:10Six.
11:10Six.
11:11Five.
11:12Four.
11:13Three.
11:13Three.
11:14Two.
11:15One.
11:15One.
11:19Earth moved a little, didn't it?
11:21Man, I hope that's what it was.
11:22Boy, look at that.
11:23The earth moved all right.
11:24A little more than we wanted.
11:26What happened is it was probably too much explosive near the surface.
11:30Now we can't get the drill rig backed up to put the blowpipe in.
11:34So we've lost the hole.
11:36Normally, they don't blow holes in the ground here.
11:38And the one day a year they do, normally, the holes turn out to be just the right size.
11:44As far as my trip to Cyril's minerals was going, so far, so bad.
11:48So what do you do?
11:49Go shoot a few more holes and hope we don't blow it up like this.
11:52You have to abandon this one.
11:54Since we were giving it another shot, so to speak, the Dirty Jobs crew decided to try
11:59another shot as well.
12:01The camera under a piece of wood with rocks on it.
12:05That's what we did in the salt mine, basically, right?
12:07No, we were a little further away then.
12:09Those were better cameras.
12:10This is what we did at that rock quarry where I actually destroyed the deck and the camera.
12:15Yeah.
12:17So this is a 40-foot hole full of dozens of pounds of dynamite.
12:21This is a camera.
12:22And this is the last time you will ever see me on this camera.
12:26Ever.
12:27Seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, fire.
12:39I'm glad we reduced it.
12:41No kidding.
12:42That looked just nice.
12:43Man, this whole thing shakes.
12:46That's kind of what you want.
12:47Yeah, that's seismic energy.
12:50Okay, everything looks good and clean.
12:52We know all three holes went off, so I'm going to sign the all clear.
12:57There's your little camera.
13:01Uh-oh.
13:03Look at that.
13:08What do you say, little fella?
13:09You still working?
13:12Huh.
13:13That it still works.
13:14Man, these things are tough.
13:16Coming up.
13:17So we're on the lookout for birds, right?
13:19Yes, we are.
13:20Saving birds from a salt lake is a job that's not automated.
13:24The trouble is, neither are the boats we're saving them with.
13:28Now that might be a little bitty problem.
13:32And later.
13:32This is a whole mill.
13:33It's very small.
13:34It does about a ton an hour.
13:35A lesson in rice milling.
13:37This one came from Canada.
13:38This one actually came from China.
13:40The lower machine is from Japan.
13:42And international relations.
13:44We could all get along like Campbell's rice mill.
13:47Exactly, exactly.
13:56All right, so this is Dan.
13:57And Dan's operating the derrick right now, right?
14:00Yeah, I'm just raising the derrick.
14:01Okay.
14:02And I'm beginning to see why the hole we blow up wouldn't have worked, really, with this rig.
14:09No, you have to have a clearance to get on it.
14:12The hole is a little big.
14:13Two connected pipes are lowered into the hole.
14:17They use air pressure to create a vacuum that sucks 900 cubic feet of brine per minute to the surface.
14:25When it's not sucking up and spraying out crystals, this rig and three others like it are drilling wells
14:30and then pumping brine out of Cyril's lake and into the processing plant.
14:35That's good.
14:36Slide head right.
14:37Slide foot in, other direction.
14:40Slide head left.
14:41We're there.
14:42Everything in here is about to come flying up through here and out through that top part.
14:45Anything down there is going to get sucked through the barrel and thrown out there.
14:50Is that our poor little camera I see again?
14:54Whoa.
14:55Man, that's tweaking.
14:56Shut it out.
15:24Man, that's what we're doing.
15:26Man, that's the kind of day it was.
15:43Even when we tried to break something, it didn't go the way we thought it would.
15:47Let's see what we sucked out of this thing.
15:49Jim, anything good?
15:50This is borax.
15:51We solution mine that, recrystallize it, and a lot of it goes into fiberglass, like glass insulation for a house,
15:58textile fiberglass for curtains or for tires.
16:02And some crystals in here are thanardite, which is sodium sulfate, and that's used in making detergents.
16:08The crystals are parts of much larger formations underground.
16:12The dynamite breaks them up into smaller pieces you see here.
16:15So 51 weeks a year, you guys are basically mining the building blocks for some of the most basic everyday items we need.
16:24Basically, yeah.
16:25And one weekend a year, you're just blowing it all out here on these flats so people can crawl through it and find crystals.
16:31You got that right.
16:32Every year, the gem-o-rama, as it's officially known, attracts thousands of visitors, many of them gem collectors and amateur rock hounds.
16:44But it also draws geologists and other kinds of scientists who come to gather some of the best and most desirable evaporate mineral specimens in the world.
16:54Once the brine is skimmed of harmful chemicals, it's pumped to a 1,000-acre holding pond called Cyril's Lake.
17:04But though the water is clean, it's still salty, and that's a problem for birds, which means another dirty job.
17:11Once upon a time, salt was the most sought-after mineral on the face of the earth.
17:16It was more expensive than gold.
17:18And before we created the ice machine, it was pretty much the only way humans had of keeping their food preserved for long periods of time.
17:25Today, here in Trona, salt is not as expensive as gold, but it is pretty much everywhere.
17:32Obviously, the effect of salt on my pants is, we'll call that Exhibit A.
17:39Here's Exhibit B, and the reason I've come down to the shore, that's a loon.
17:43And loons and western grieve and all kinds of other birds that fly over here sometimes look down and see the lake
17:49and figure they'll stop in maybe for a snack or a rest, and unfortunately, the salt gets on them.
17:54And that's a big problem.
17:56Fortunately, we have a solution.
17:57The solution is Bambi.
17:58Hello, Bambi.
17:59Hi.
18:00How are you?
18:00Fine.
18:01Excellent.
18:02What is your official job, Bambi?
18:03Wildlife rehabilitator.
18:05And what does that mean precisely in this part of the world?
18:08Catch the birds, rinse the salt off.
18:10Yeah.
18:11Hydrate the birds.
18:12I've been hearing explosions ever since I've been here.
18:14I just heard another one.
18:16What is that exactly?
18:17Propane cannons.
18:20All around, propane cannons are going off randomly to scare the birds?
18:24Yeah.
18:24It helps deter them from landing on the lake.
18:26But it doesn't always work, does it?
18:28No.
18:30In the processing plant, everything was automated when we didn't want it to be.
18:34And now, the one thing we do want to be automated...
18:37It's not starting.
18:39...isn't.
18:40Oh, is it supposed to start?
18:42Yep.
18:42Where's Rod when you need him?
18:44Eric, it's not starting.
18:47Awkward.
18:51Got it?
18:51Yeah.
18:52Go ahead, push up, sir.
18:53Alrighty.
18:54Thanks, Eric.
18:55Bambi, I've never felt safer.
18:56So we're on the lookout for birds, right?
19:01Yes, we are.
19:03During the wind like this, we normally find them up by the shore.
19:06Our winds usually blow this way.
19:08And so, first thing in the morning, we get out and we check the shorelines.
19:11And that's what you do every morning?
19:13Every morning.
19:13365 days a year?
19:15365 days a year?
19:16Yep.
19:17It looked like we were ready to save some birds and get dirty.
19:20I should have known better.
19:23I've been on like six of the seven oceans in the world.
19:27Big ones, anyway.
19:29If it ends for me out here like this...
19:30It would almost make sense.
19:35No, we can do.
19:36We can hijack another boat.
19:42Very exciting.
19:54Oh, is the key in the arm position?
19:55No, f***.
19:56Oh, wait a minute, now it is.
20:00Go, Ryan, go.
20:04Power cooking.
20:06Looking for sick and wounded birds.
20:17Now that might be a little bitty problem.
20:21Things get wet.
20:21They don't work too well out here.
20:29That's it, boys and girls.
20:30Top dries off a little bit, yeah.
20:32Or, we steal that boat right there.
20:36Sure.
20:37Lorraine!
20:39I basically see how it works now.
20:41It's like musical chairs, except they're boats.
20:43We got caught by a wave.
20:46No, here we go.
20:49Turn us more.
20:51Maybe we can find some sick birds to help us.
20:53Oh!
20:55You really got...
20:56Once we'd saved ourselves from drifting helplessly, it was time to focus on saving other creatures, namely the birds.
21:05Abby, I think I got it.
21:08Where's those net?
21:12Come here, buddy.
21:13Oh!
21:14What do we got?
21:19An eared grebe.
21:21Spell that?
21:22E-A-R-E-D, grebe, G-R-E-B-E.
21:26Eared?
21:27Eared.
21:28Yep.
21:28Yep.
21:29Huh.
21:29The skin on this bird feels anything like ours.
21:33That can't be good.
21:34Needs a little bath.
21:36Coming up.
21:37When handling a red hawk, what is more dangerous?
21:40It's talons.
21:41And the beak, though, can also rend and destroy open a vein.
21:44When you're having one of those days, is reaching into a cage for a hawk really the best way to end it?
21:50Everything I do is for them.
21:52Can I reach in here?
21:52Can I grab my feet?
21:53Come on.
21:56That's good.
21:57Hold it right there.
21:58There you go.
21:59That's great.
21:59I can't believe that.
22:00There are very few people who have ever done that in one time.
22:04In the middle of almost everything going wrong, when you get one thing right, it can bring you to your knees.
22:10I won.
22:11I really do think you ought to take this truck with you.
22:13It's you.
22:21So, we finally rescued a bird.
22:23And it only took three boat motors to do it.
22:28Abby treats several hundred birds every year at this rehab facility.
22:36Nope.
22:36You're going to hold him.
22:37I'm going to hold him.
22:38I'm going to stabilize him.
22:38You're going to stabilize him.
22:40Ow.
22:41I'm trying to help you.
22:43And while you're stabilizing him, you're going to take his temperature.
22:46Ow.
22:47Do we go down the throat or up the...
22:49Cloaca.
22:50The old cloaca.
22:52Okay.
22:52Okay.
22:54And if you blow a little bit, it'll move the feathers around.
23:03This is weird.
23:04I'm blowing on a bird's bottom and I'm going to take his temperature.
23:07Do you have anything smaller?
23:08Now I'm just you.
23:08You don't really do that.
23:10I'm sorry.
23:12You're a bad girl.
23:13You're a bad baby.
23:14You made me blow on a girl's bottom.
23:15You guys wrecked three of my boat motors or two.
23:18That's a good point.
23:19Yep.
23:20There it goes.
23:20There it goes.
23:2591.9.
23:26Is that good?
23:27Mm-hmm.
23:28Okay.
23:28So what we're going to do now is you're going to pull a small blood sample out.
23:32And that's the vein right there?
23:33That's the vein right there.
23:36Oh, look at that.
23:38I'm going to say look at that.
23:39You can't see anything.
23:40You can see that though.
23:40And now for his drink of water.
23:46It won't be easy to get it down his throat.
23:48Oh.
23:49Oh.
23:49That's good.
23:50Now probably just about 10 cc's.
23:53That's probably.
23:53That's about it?
23:54Yeah.
23:56Well, there we go.
23:58He's all right with this?
23:59A little bit of dried salt?
24:00Or is that just gray hair?
24:01That's not too bad at all.
24:02And when you put him in the pools outside, it'll rinse right off.
24:08Just let him go?
24:09Uh-huh.
24:09All right, buddy.
24:11Sorry about all the indignity, but it's for your own good.
24:16You got anything I can let go?
24:17Anything I can release?
24:19We can take that hawk out.
24:21You got a hawk?
24:23Let's release a hawk.
24:24When handling a red hawk.
24:26Grab hold of its feet first, and then most likely its neck.
24:30Most likely?
24:31Yeah.
24:32What is more dangerous about the...
24:34It's talons.
24:35It's talons.
24:36And the beak, though, can also rend and destroy, open a vein.
24:40Yeah.
24:40All right.
24:42Just give it multiple targets in case anything should go awry.
24:46I think it's staring you down.
24:47I know.
24:48It's giving me the stink eye.
24:49It's looking right through me.
24:51Look at the look.
24:52He's indignant.
24:53Everything I do, it's with the...
24:54It's that.
24:56You gonna reach in here?
25:00Gonna grab my feet?
25:04When I pull this open, this is gonna fall down.
25:06You know what that is?
25:07That's distracting to me.
25:09Do you wanna take it down?
25:11No, I'm just looking for a built-in excuse that might somehow better explain what I'm fairly
25:16sure is gonna be a dismal performance.
25:17Should I have...
25:24Should I have goggles or anything?
25:26Nah.
25:27You're good.
25:28What, like a hockey mask?
25:30No.
25:30I got a ski mask in there if you wanna put it on.
25:33It's not the same.
25:33I like to put one on him.
25:38Hey, look, a mouse.
25:39There you go, there you go, there you go.
25:44There you go.
25:45And then just put him right in his box there.
25:48Mm-hmm.
25:49Bring the wings in so he doesn't, um...
25:52I don't know how without letting go of the neck.
25:53There you go.
25:54There you go.
25:55There you go.
25:56Okay.
25:56There you go.
25:57There you go.
25:58And then just let go.
26:00All right.
26:00That is it.
26:01That was no big deal.
26:03It had been a long day.
26:04Little had gone the way we'd expected.
26:06But at least we were going to have a big, satisfying finish.
26:10A hawk soaring away on desert winds.
26:12And I'll tell you what, if I were a hawk, this is where I'd want to be released.
26:17Hey, buddy.
26:23Oh, yeah.
26:24Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
26:26Let's just let him go?
26:27What do I do?
26:28Yep.
26:28Just let him...
26:29Awesome.
26:29Set him up on the rock.
26:30Okay.
26:31I'm putting you down.
26:33It's windy.
26:34Okay.
26:36Big finish.
26:39Oh!
26:39Oh, I'll be honest.
26:44I was...
26:44I was really expecting something a bit grander.
26:49I think we can do better.
26:57You're free.
26:58Go.
26:58That's what...
26:59Oh, jeez.
27:00Oh, no.
27:00Grab him.
27:01Hey, buddy.
27:02Hey, buddy.
27:02That was your grand finale.
27:08Too windy.
27:09It's too windy to release a hawk?
27:14One day I'm going to host a show where the bird flies majestically off into the sunset and
27:19I go home fulfilled.
27:22Today is not that day.
27:25I can't even release a bird on my own show.
27:29Coming up.
27:30Oh.
27:30The mistakes and missteps just keep piling up as I make an unscheduled stop at a rice farm
27:39in South Carolina.
27:40I haven't done anything yet except get everything stuck.
27:42And lend a helping hand.
27:45Is that a shovel?
27:46It was one.
27:47Combine lots of dust with a biting cold December morning and you have some idea of what harvesting
28:00cotton is like here in South Carolina.
28:03It's the kind of work we love to feature on Dirty Jobs and that's why we flew out here.
28:09Unfortunately, through a series of delays, we missed the harvest.
28:13Keeping our wits about us, though, we traversed the South Carolina countryside in search of
28:20an alternative story with a similar dirty quality.
28:23We found it here at Scuffle Farms, an operation that grows and processes a grain that's a staple
28:28in the diet of billions of people.
28:31Rice.
28:34Scuffle Farms is big, something like 24,000 acres.
28:37A fella could get lost if he didn't know who was in charge.
28:40That'd be Campbell Cox.
28:41How are you?
28:42Good, good.
28:42This would be a combine, right?
28:44Yeah, this is the head that goes into the rice fields and harvests the rice.
28:47Now, rice in South Carolina, I don't know a ton about farming, but that doesn't seem
28:51like a natural thing.
28:53Well, it is.
28:54Really, it's the history of it.
28:56It came to South Carolina in 1685.
28:59It was the first place in America that rice was grown.
29:02So, how much of the farm here is dedicated to rice?
29:06And is it paddies?
29:07Yeah, it's flooded paddies and we have about 200 acres here.
29:11Because the rice has been brought in from the fields at this point in the cycle, right?
29:15Right.
29:15Well, the goal is to take this rice, which sounds like, you know, it goes through every step
29:21of the cycle right here on your property?
29:22Every bit of it.
29:23Everything from the seed that we plant to the rice that we ship out to the consumer.
29:28Step one involves my favorite tool, the shovel.
29:32And we're going to have to shovel this rice down to the middle where the auger will take
29:36it up into the back of the truck.
29:39And it's good to do it to start with because it does warm you up and it gets you started.
29:42You really are a glass half full kind of guy.
29:46Why is that?
29:46Well, you're an optimist.
29:48Well, I think if you're a farmer, you have to be an optimist or you wouldn't be a farmer
29:51very long.
29:51The tractor powers the auger.
29:54First, you have to start the tractor.
29:56Just jump up there and fire it up.
29:58Go ahead.
30:00Oh.
30:04We may have to jump this thing off.
30:07Negative, negative, positive, positive.
30:09Right.
30:12Got to get yours up, Taz.
30:19Contact.
30:21That's good.
30:23That's good.
30:24Unless you want to end up in the truck, you don't want to step in there.
30:27What you want to do is you want to keep moving this grain down towards the middle.
30:31Now, this rice is brown.
30:34Yeah.
30:35Yeah.
30:35That's the outside layer.
30:36It's just the husk is still on it.
30:39And it's real sharp and abrasive.
30:41It doesn't slide well.
30:42That's why you have to shovel so much.
30:43The husks are so abrasive that the auger wears out twice as fast with rice as it does with any
30:49other grain.
30:51We've got a truckload out there.
30:53You think you do?
30:54Oh, good.
30:55Yeah.
30:55I didn't have the time because there's two people in here.
30:57That's good.
30:58I normally slow people down.
31:00No, no.
31:00You sped us up.
31:01I think that's a good load right there.
31:03Oh, yeah.
31:10Wow.
31:15Nice.
31:16Ah, come on.
31:39I'm so glad nobody watches this show.
31:54A little bit more than that when it's ahead.
31:57That's great.
31:58Come on.
31:59That's good.
32:00Come on.
32:00Come on.
32:01That's good.
32:02Hold it right there.
32:03There you go.
32:03That's great.
32:04I can't believe that.
32:05There are very few people who have ever done that one time.
32:09That's pretty daggone impressive.
32:11I think you ought to take this back there.
32:13I've won.
32:14I really do think you ought to take this truck with you.
32:16It's you.
32:17I've never had to cooperate like that with me.
32:19I felt as though there was a moment.
32:21It was.
32:21I don't want to overstate it, but where I felt like I became one with the machines.
32:26This is the whole mill?
32:27This is it.
32:28It's very small.
32:29It does about a ton an hour.
32:30When we start selling more than a ton an hour, I'll get a bigger mill.
32:33What we did was we bought all these pieces of machinery separately.
32:37This one came from Canada.
32:39This one actually came from China.
32:41The lower machine is from Japan.
32:45And I think the greater is from Iowa.
32:48This is the UN.
32:49Well, you know, if every country in the United States worked in concert as well as this mill,
32:54we wouldn't have any problems.
32:55If we could all get along like Campbell's rice mill.
32:58Exactly.
32:59Exactly.
32:59Okay, so basically the rice goes to Canada, stops by China, whips down to Japan, and then
33:06shoots over to Iowa.
33:07You got it.
33:08You got it.
33:09All right, here we go.
33:20The auger pulls the rice straight up to the seed cleaner.
33:23Here, bugs and foreign matter are removed.
33:28Husks!
33:29All removed.
33:30Yeah, this takes the husk off.
33:31Inside this machine, two wheels spinning in opposite directions remove the husks from
33:36the rice.
33:37When it's here, the husk is coming out, and then the gravity table.
33:42Gravity table.
33:43The gravity table separates the rice that has slipped through with husks intact and returns
33:48these grains to the de-husking machine.
33:50Next, the rice is ready to be polished.
33:53This is the polisher.
33:55It polishes it between two rocks and a thun.
33:57The brand that's removed in the polishing process looks a little like sawdust, but Campbell
34:03tells me it actually tastes pretty good.
34:05It's actually delicious.
34:06I know.
34:06It's like candy.
34:07Finally, the finished rice is poured into these enormous tote bags.
34:11How often do you check it for color, et cetera?
34:14I usually do it about three times during the milling process, which is one tote, which is about three
34:20times an hour.
34:21Because I'll notice as I look in here closely, some of the rice is bright white.
34:27Right.
34:27Some is sort of an A-crew, others bone, you might say.
34:32Correct.
34:33But.
34:34This is a good point, is that we don't bleach our rice.
34:37Most companies, they put bleach in it to make it all white, and that's why it's all the same color.
34:43Right.
34:43You know, it's kind of like the old thing where, you know, you're eating scallops and they're
34:47all the same size.
34:48Yeah.
34:48You know, that kind of thing.
34:48Yeah, right.
34:49Yeah, how'd that happen?
34:50Yeah, it's a miracle.
34:51Miracle.
34:52Why are we so concerned with what our food looks like?
34:54I don't know, other than I think that people have this expectation that if it's pretty,
35:00it's good.
35:01You realize how hard I've been working the last couple of years to try and get that exact
35:05opposite notion out into the mainstream?
35:08Well, it needs to be out there, and I think it's coming.
35:10I really do.
35:11Beware of anything too pretty.
35:13Exactly.
35:14Like Campbell.
35:15Exactly.
35:16You're just too pretty.
35:16I know, I am.
35:17So what we have here then are two tons of whitened, dehusked, debugged rice.
35:24Where does the tote go exactly?
35:27Well, we need to take it to the packaging room next door and hopefully package it and
35:32box it and sell it.
35:34I'm hoping that maybe something mechanical and hydraulic will aid in us moving two tons
35:39of dead weight.
35:39Yeah.
35:39Oh, yeah.
35:40Yeah.
35:40I got a fork left.
35:42Coming up.
35:43Mike, Mike.
35:44Oh, boy.
35:46We got a mess.
35:47My day at the rice farm just keeps getting better.
35:50Typically, at this point, we just wrap it up and head back to the hotel.
35:54And better.
35:55This is a job that I can absolutely...
35:57Uh-huh.
35:59That gets you the first time.
36:00I was going to tell you, this thing is just so tight in here, it's just unbelievable.
36:12Unbelievable.
36:14It doesn't seem possible what I've done, Campbell.
36:16Yeah, it is.
36:16Just back up just to where you touched the truck.
36:18We're going to cheat a little bit.
36:20Yeah, let's cheat.
36:22People need a license for these, right?
36:24Yeah.
36:24Like in the real world?
36:25Yes.
36:26I mean, you can't just get on a forklift and cruise around the warehouse.
36:28No, you go to school for this, yeah.
36:30The heck am I hung up on?
36:31Cut it hard.
36:32Huh.
36:33How'd I do that?
36:34I haven't done anything yet except get everything stuck.
36:37I really have never seen it done like this before.
36:39That's unfortunate.
36:43Now back it up.
36:44You know something I've just figured out?
36:46What?
36:48We could move baby out.
36:49The truck?
36:50Yeah, just drive it outside.
36:52Then you'd have all that room over there to play with.
36:54More room you know what to do with.
36:56Oh, yeah.
36:57Scuffle Farms produces gourmet rice.
37:00A two-pound bag sells for about $8.5.
37:04Which means the rice I'm moving here is worth $8,500.
37:08Mike, Mike.
37:11Now you got a job.
37:15I'm almost certain that's bad.
37:16Oh, boy, we got a mess.
37:20Now what are we going to do?
37:22Well, typically at this point, we just wrap it up and head back to the hotel.
37:28It's getting very late.
37:30Oh, my gosh.
37:31Oh, Campbell, I'm sorry about that.
37:33That was my fault.
37:33I should have told you to tilt it back before I did.
37:36Probably should have tied it up.
37:38We could have tied it up, couldn't we?
37:40Well, can't cry over spilled rice, so.
37:43It sure is pretty and white and de-husked, though.
37:48Campbell tells me the value of the rice that was spilled is about $3,000.
37:52A little bit more.
37:59Oh!
38:00Looking good, man.
38:01Looking good.
38:02All right, that's cool.
38:03You know, we really didn't lose as much as I thought we were going to.
38:06Yeah, that's good.
38:07Set it down right there, Mike.
38:08Shut the whole thing down?
38:09Yeah, set the whole thing down.
38:11Set that down.
38:12Oh, not shut this off.
38:13No, no, no.
38:14Set this down.
38:15What a difference between set and shut.
38:17Shut and shut.
38:17Yeah.
38:18You're setting pretty.
38:19I'm shutting up.
38:20That's good.
38:23Right there, you're going to hang it up the top of that packaging machine behind you.
38:28Way up there?
38:29Yeah.
38:35Far enough.
38:37Was that a shovel?
38:38It was one.
38:39Straighten it up.
38:41I'd tilt it back just a hair, though, because you didn't know.
38:43Yeah, what could possibly go wrong?
38:44I don't know.
38:45It does have a tendency to fall forward.
38:48I think I've got to raise it up a bit.
38:49Yeah, now you have to raise it.
38:50Raise it all up.
38:57We'll need a lift.
38:58All right, ho.
39:01All right, ho.
39:02Yeah, perfect, Mike.
39:03That's great.
39:04Yeah.
39:04Okay, now you can back straight up.
39:11The rice flows from the bag into a funnel and down to the packaging table.
39:16Mike, this is Janet and Lena Mae Jackson.
39:19Hi.
39:20How are you?
39:20How are you?
39:21How are you doing?
39:22Good to meet you.
39:23So this is the entire processing department?
39:27This is the whole department.
39:29This is the vice president and president of packaging.
39:31Well, why don't you go do something managerial in nature, and I'll see what I can learn from the ladies.
39:36Good luck.
39:36All right, I'll take it.
39:37So it was Janet?
39:39Yeah.
39:39And Lena.
39:41Lena.
39:41Lena Mae.
39:42Yeah, just call me Lena.
39:43Lena.
39:44Mm-hmm.
39:44Or you can call me Nana like my boss name does.
39:47I can call you Nana?
39:48Yeah.
39:48Why does your boss call you Nana?
39:50His little son, I raised him from a baby, and he couldn't call my name, so he called me Nana.
39:57You raised Campbell's son?
39:59Mm-hmm.
40:00I worked with him about three years before they got married.
40:03You were here before Campbell's wife?
40:05Yeah.
40:06My goodness.
40:07All right, now we got ourselves a story.
40:08And you, so you're her daughter?
40:12Yeah.
40:12You're handling the bagging.
40:14Yeah.
40:14And she's obviously handling the sewing.
40:16Yes, put it under there, pull the level.
40:18I love it.
40:19Just hold the bag.
40:20This is a job that I can, that I can absolutely do.
40:23Uh-huh.
40:25That get you the first time.
40:27That's what happened the first time.
40:29And I did that the first time when I started.
40:31Got it.
40:32Okay.
40:33How many of these would you, uh, would you do in a day?
40:36Ooh, boy.
40:37Yesterday we did 96 cases.
40:39Yeah, 96 cases.
40:40How many bags in a case?
40:4212.
40:4312 in a box, 96 boxes.
40:45Mm-hmm.
40:45That's 960 plus 12 plus 12 is 24.
40:48960 for 24 is.
40:50984 bags?
40:52Mm-hmm.
40:53It's like a thousand bags?
40:54Yep.
40:55In a day?
40:55I think I got the bag thing down.
40:57That's my foot thing.
41:02Oh.
41:03You're getting pretty good.
41:04How long will it take you to get through that whole ton of that stuff?
41:08That whole ton there.
41:09By two and a half hours, we'll have half of it done.
41:12How long with me here?
41:13Well, we'll be here until 1 o'clock tonight.
41:19Well, there it is.
41:19That's, uh, that's Nana's recipe for Hobbit John.
41:22Yes.
41:22Yeah?
41:23And Campbell, this has got to feel pretty familiar to you.
41:25How many times have you sat around eating her cooking over the years?
41:28Oh, gosh.
41:29I think every good meal I've ever had.
41:31Thanks for having us out today.
41:32Yeah.
41:32I appreciate it.
41:33It was a lot of fun.
41:34It was great.
41:34It really was.
41:35Sorry about the rice on the floor.
41:36No problem.
41:37Daddy.
41:38Maybe I should come back tomorrow.
41:42I need to show you something.
41:46It isn't pleasant.
41:47And it certainly isn't pretty.
41:49But it is real.
41:50As many of you know, we depend entirely upon your suggestions for our dirty jobs.
41:55And as I've mentioned in the past, lately, those suggestions have been few and far between.
42:01Consequently, and it pains me to say this, Dave Barsky has taken a pledge to eat a crock of jam every day until those suggestions begin again.
42:14So, please, discovery.com forward slash dirty jobs as quickly as you can before it's too late.
42:44I'll see you next time.