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Thursday, October 25, 2012

Cotton picking


What a production this was.  I have seen cotton picking from a distance all of my life, but have never watched the process at length.



I heard this equipment before I saw it.  When I looked out, some of these were already lined up here and there was a convoy coming down the road.

Three cotton pickers (the red ones)
Two dumping trailers (some of these are my names for them)
Two module packers
A triple bush hog
A fuel truck
A couple of other trucks with misc stuff on them.  (Probably maintenance supplies.  Farm equipment is always breaking down.)
About 10-12 men
A few pick up trucks.

I figure they just move from one field to the next.


The three pickers started around the field.  The two "dumping trailers" followed them around, ready to receive cotton when the picker got full.






The picker raises up and dumps the cotton into the trailer, then continues on with picking.



The trailer then raises up and dumps the cotton into what I call the module packing machine.


That thing on top moves back and forth from end to end of that box, packing down the cotton.


This is what it looks like now.  Looks like a lot of waste, doesn't it.


Six of these modules are still sitting there.  The cotton is very, very densely packed.  I found on the internet that a module can weigh up to 16,000 pounds.

I am curious to see how they pick them up to get them to the cotton gin.

Today, I have errands to run near a cotton gin.
Maybe they will be processing and I can complete this series.

If you are just tuning in (and are interested) click my "cotton" label below to see more.



Sharing with:

Rural Thursday
with
Nancy @ A Rural Journal
and
Lisa @ Two Bears Farm










19 comments:

Kerri Farley said...

VERY interesting.....and it looks like a LOT of work.

Elizabeth Edwards said...

i love seeing the process of the cotton picking. i've seen the monster bales ... what i wonder is what is the next step... would love to see that as well. wonder where you have to go? (:

Lisa @ Two Bears Farm said...

WOW, you could practically build a house with that stuff!

MadSnapper said...

i am enjoying this series a lot. i looked carefully at each photo twice, dragged hubby in here and we went through them again. amazing how they do this. wheni was a child the cotton fields in GA were full of people with bags picking cotton. and it made their hands bleed, very difficult work. my favorite pic today is the cotton picker in the middle of the cotton field. hope you get something good at the cotton gin

Janet said...

OH, I have got to get out in the cotton fields around here for some photos!

carol l mckenna said...

Fantastic post and photos ~ so informative ~ Wow! ~ ( Creative Harbor) ^_^

Sonya @ Under the Desert Sky said...

Wow! Thanks for sharing the process. It's pretty impressive.

Anonymous said...

Now, that's a ho-lotta cotton! I've never seen it like that & always wondered how it was done now-a-days... very interesting & I'll tune in to see if you get shots of them picking up these 'blocks' =)
Great post

Rose said...

I have loved seeing this...we were in Georgia a couple years ago and I finally got to see cotton growing.

Anonymous said...

Fascinating series!

Anne Payne said...

Amazing photos! It's always an adventure living in the country. We have cotton fields around here but I have never seen them during harvest time.

Cranberry Morning said...

Amy, I LOVE this post!! Being from the North, I'm used to fields of corn and soybeans. This is such an informative post with (naturally) gorgeous photos to accompany it. Thank you for the cotton pickin' lesson!

Brian King said...

That's rather impressive! I've never seen the process before. Hard to believe cotton could weigh so much.

Meghan said...

I went with my son's class to a cotton farm a few years ago. It is amazing to think that all this work used to be done by (bleeding) hands. Aren't machines wonderful?

Gail Dixon said...

Whoa! Thanks for taking time to photograph the intense process. Had no idea it took this much equipment and work. Fascinating!! I really enjoyed the pics--especially the 3rd one down of the huge field of white.

Betsy Banks Adams said...

Loved this post.... I have never seen cotton being 'picked' either --so this was SO interesting...

Remember in the olden days when PEOPLE used to pick cotton by hand???? Times--they are a-changin!!!!!

Hugs,
Betsy

Kathy said...

It's very similar to a hay baling operation. Some of my aunts picked cotton as adolescents. One of them had the reputation of being able to pick over a hundred pounds in a day. I understand she often came home at night with bleeding fingers. Today's mechanized world is a far cry from what it was just a few short decades ago.

Nancy said...

Pretty neat to see Amy -- such a foreign process to me. :)

~Lavender Dreamer~ said...

You took some wonderful photos! I love seeing these big fields of cotton!