Friday, November 6, 2009

A Cotton Pickin' Good Time

What does it mean when the fields of cotton are this white?

It's pickin' time!
Here's Lance picking some cotton right behind one of our chicken houses!

This is the view from the cab looking down into the picker heads.

When it's this time of year, even darkness doesn't slow us down! The only thing that does is when the dew falls. If there is no dew, we can pick all night, whoopee!
Nope, not an alien spacecraft, just Lance's picker.
When the picker basket is full, it can hold 3-4 bales of cotton. 1 bale weighs 500 lbs.
And it gets dumped into the module builder.
Not all of it makes it into the builder, as you can tell by the pile of cotton and blue bucket here.
This is what the inside of the builder looks like after the cotton is dumped.
And I use these levers...
To work this tramper, to pack the cotton.
When I'm finished packing, we pull the builder forward with a tractor. It leaves a nice, tarped cotton module behind. Each module is about 15 bales of cotton.
Then we call the gin, and they come pick it up in a module truck.



Then it's time to start again!

8 comments:

  1. wahoo....isn't it great to be making progress in the field!!!!!!!!
    I love the way a cotton field looks when it ready to be picked!

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  2. That is very cool! I bet those fields look awesome right before they are picked!

    ^^^^WAVES^^^^

    Robin :o)

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  3. The cotton gathering end has come a long way. My family used to pick cotton in Texas back in the 40's before I was born. Glad I missed that.
    Debbie

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  4. Yep, looks like a cotton-pickin' good time to me! The corn is getting combined here right now. Things finally dried out enough for the guys to get back in the fields.

    Love the cotton-pickin' tour! Thanks!

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  5. wow, how educational! thank you so much for sharing! i am forever amazed at how young you all are and it looks like you are very successful on your farm. very inspiring!

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  6. what a great post. you are living the life that I would love to live with my family. My husband loves to farm but it has always been small - but he would love to be able to do it in a big way. what better way to raise a six year old then on the farm. right now my husband is in the field getting a last cutting of hay.

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  7. Love the cotton-picking lesson.
    I remember "way back when" my grandparents raised some cotton. I was treated to a lesson in the field on how to pick --- my back hurt then, and it hurts now just thinking about it. LOL

    Glad to see things have progressed. :-)

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  8. My husband's family used to go back to OK where they came from, & help their kin HAND pick cotton, stuffing it into those long old bags they dragged behind all day long. He swears it never would get full.

    Have a lovely day. Come enter our TRIPLE GIVEAWAY, if you haven't. TTFN ~ Marydon

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