Cotton harvest is almost done.Huge, mostly green, tractors with cotton strippers on board have roared through the fields, pulling the cotton off the stalks and depositing the bolls into a giant
basket.
The basket is then dumped into an enormous iron "loaf pan" that sits at the end of
the rows. You think I'm makin' this up???
There this loaf pan squeezes the cotton into a module -- a giant loaf of cotton.
Next.....a big truck comes lumbering into the field and by some means of magic, loads the loaf of cotton into the truck and carries it to the cotton gin.
There the loaf disappears into the gin and moments later---- all very mysterious..... it reappears at the other end in small bales of shiny white cotton all in a row.
The bales go away on a big truck. Next time we see them, they are hanging on the rack in a store, looking all cute and colorful and sporting a price tag totally not in line with what the farmer got paid for his part in planting, tending and harvesting said cotton.
And there you have it. For being a farmer's daughter, I sure don't have a very good grasp of the technological aspects of the process,huh?. You may have noticed that?
I may not know "the how". But, I do know this -- my Daddy loved it. I love it too. It's harvest. It's Fall. It's home. Mmmmmmmm
Even the roaring of the cotton gin, now round the clock, until all the "loafs" are baled......comforting, familiar, home.
Gwynie Pie
