Tuesday, October 7, 2008

The Shirt On Your Back

This is not a sunset. Hey, for a buck, I can get up real early, as long as it is legal and moral. I have seen several of these in the past week.


I thought I would show those north of the Mason Dixon line where their shirts come from. I realize none of the folks in Dixie are interested. On the left is the buggy that brings 3-4 bales of cotton to me from the picker. I am controlling the machine on the right, cotton module builder.

Well, if you twist the buggy too much an axle may pop. Here we are early Monday morning replacing one that popped Saturday night. Did all of this in about an hour. Oh how nice modern tools are, like aircompressors in the back of a pickup truck. This would have taken 4 hours when I was a kid on the farm.




Here is the broken one.







A shot from my viewpoint. Stuff is fluffy and ready to come out of those bowls



My cousin doing some "bossing" as the cotton is dumped into my machine.








The operation in a picture. 2 6 row pickers, a buggy getting loaded, can't see it, and the module bulder.







Here comes the white stuff. I got to be ready.
















Here I go to work. Pushing and compacting the stuff. I can get 12 bales of cotton packed in here, sometimes more. We used to dump 3 or 4 loose bales in a trailer and run o the gin, and sit, waiting to get it off. No more. The gin comes to us. They pick these modules up right in the field.










Here is a short module. Maybe 6 bales in here.
So, there you have it. With 2 6 row pickers we can grab 100 acres in a day, more or less depending on problems. Even fixing a broken axel Monday we still got 100 plus acres. Good days and not so good days. However, never a dull moment and we eat very good. Our food is brought to the field and we feast everyday at lunch. I will grab a shot of what Kathy brings us everyday. You can not buy what we eat in a resturant. She is one great cook. Always get to work before 12 noon.
So, now you can see where those cotton shirts come from. I have another job title for my resume.
See ya later. Thanks for checking on us.
Dan









1 Comments:

At October 9, 2008 at 3:58 PM , Blogger Travels of Gerald said...

Hi Dan;

That cotton patch sure dose bring back a lot of old remembers, However; we done it different we pull a cotton sack behing us as we pick the cotton as we move down the rows.

 

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