See through

Remnants of cotton in one of the trailers used during cotton picking.

Use my label "cotton" for more cotton pickin'.

A different fall color

The view from my house early one morning last week.  They finished picking the fields here late the day before and the equipment stayed here overnight.

Use my label "cotton" for more cotton pickin'.

Cotton Express

Lots of big teeth.

Use my label "cotton" for more cotton pickin'.

Contraption

Another guessing game.

My, what big teeth you have

The backside of the square

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The cotton report

Contrary to what I had been hearing this year, the cotton crops look great.  Of course, that's to my non-farmer eye.  To me, if it looks mostly fluffy white when you look across the field, it's a good crop.

I hope the weather does what it's supposed to so they can have a good year.

September evening

We didn't have a summer garden this year, but Hubby has planted greens.

That is cotton behind him (not ours).  Most of it is shoulder height, but I understand that cotton is way behind this year due to our cooler, wetter summer weather.  Last year at this time, those plants were full of bolls opening with white fluffy cotton.  There are plenty of bolls out there, but very few of them are opening.  Hopefully, there is still time to get a decent crop.

See last year's cotton here.

 Even the dying Zinnias are pretty.

There is a bumper crop of poke salad along this fence also.

But not as pretty as last year's that you can see here.

Looks out of hand, doesn't it?

That's because it is. :)

And, finally, here is the other side of my friend from the other day.

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Rurality, with Madge Bloom at The View From Right Here

Aligned

Another view of the cotton seeder from previous posts.

Scoop it up

Now we know how these huge modules of cotton get to the gin.

Piece a' cake

Off to the cotton gin.

Use my "cotton" label for the rest of the story.

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.

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Nancy @ A Rural Journal
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Lisa @ Two Bears Farm

Bumper crop?

The sky on Monday

Monday was a day of awesome clouds.

It rained early, then turned into this before lunch.

My husband played golf and I tagged along.  We started out with jackets, but since we walked instead of getting a cart we got too warm pretty soon.  He was down to short sleeves about the fourth hole.

We do not have much color yet.  Small bits here and there.

During the afternoon, it turned into this dark scene, but no rain.
The forecast for tonight is high 30s or low 40s.
That is below our normal for October, but fall is supposed to be nippy!
I like it.

Here's the cotton . . .

around our place.

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Weekly Top Shot @ The View From Right Here with Madge Bloom

The Cotton Saga continues

The cotton is starting to open.

This doesn't look like a lot, but it is just starting.  See all those bolls that haven't started opening yet.

The anatomy lesson for today . . .

 This is one of the four "pieces" of cotton in the boll.  I'm sure there is a name for it.

 There are eight seeds in that one piece.

I've been told that cotton seed hulls are good for your garden and

that you can get a load from the cotton gins, but we've never tried it.

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Rural Thursday

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A Rural Journal with Nancy

and

Two Bears Farm with Lisa