cotton harvest

For those interested to see the cotton harvest underway, here are the pictures I promised. The cotton harvest was finished as of Monday. The cotton fields have been driven over (but not crushed) by a weird cotton truck that sucks the cotton from the pods. I'm guessing. I can't think of how else they would be able to do that without mowing over the plants. Look above at how much cotton is left!

Here is the picture book story of how the cotton is pressed into bales that are the size of small houses. The green box-trucks lift up and pour the cotton into these yello crates that are also pulled by trucks. The tilted one just finished pouring the mounds of cotton into it's bin. Then the three sticky things (do you like how educated I sound?) press the cotton into the yellow bin for a box and the truck starts to move away as a cover for wind protection is placed on top:

When the truck pulling the yellow bin slips away from the cotton block, a worker (the black worm looking thing standing on the back of the yellow truck) makes sure that the cover is secured over the cotton block:

Then the block is left for people like me to go up and touch!

Here is me touching it, especially for this picture. My hand looks so funny because I'm pushing so hard on it! It's all white and red because it is such a thick block. Those machines sure are powerful.

The cotton laying on the ground afterward is all dirty and solomn looking because it has been left to blow away. I wonder how much was picked when people were picking the cotton. The machines probably aren't as efficient, but at least people aren't getting arthritis this way. This concludes the picture-book story of how cotton is harvested! Oh. now go on and check your shirt's tag to give your own little salute to this fluffy plant called cotton.