Ever wonder why the name of my blog is "The Cotton Patch"? If you are new to visiting me you may not know that cotton is all around me. In fact, the very spot where my house now sits was once planted in cotton. There are so many WONDERFUL memories of my childhood which involves cotton. They are wonderful to me because I was not working.....but playing....in and around the cotton. That was before mechanical cotton pickers. My family and those hired to help would put a strap around their shoulders and this LONG bag would hang and cotton would be placed in the bag. It was so long it drug behind them on the ground. When the bag was as full as it could be it would be weighed, and that's how they received money for the day. The money would be determined by how many pounds of cotton you picked. HARD work but I never heard my folks complain. I really don't think I/WE could do it today. 
This is how the field looks from across my front yard. It's not as "white" as usual because of so much rain. It won't be long before those "mechanical" cotton pickers will have it picked and I'll have to wait for next year to see the white fields. It's this time of year that I love so much. It brings back times I shared with so many special people. Thank God I'm A Country Girl!!!
9 comments:
Wow..thanks for the memories. My daddy and his family picked cotton in Alabama.He always has said it hurts your fingers? I miss seeing those fields.
I think I've told you about my family in Centere Ala?
Many Blessing's
Ann
What a neat story. I always love it when you show the cotton fields around you.♥
I live in the South so I get to see cotton too. Not near my house, but not too far away!
I love this time, too. It is also a sad time for me. Getting old is much harder than I would have predicted. The part that hurts most is that the older people that we grew up with are gone on before us. I miss them. People like Aunt Rosie and Ralph, my daddy, your mother, my grandmother, Defford and Dewy are just a few that I think of often. It makes me sad that my children and now grandchild will not know these people.
The community was great. If a farmer was hurt or sick, the others would pick the other farmers before their own. I really didn't understand this. But what good men they were. There was never any question of whether they would do this. I can remember seeing the rows of cotton pickers side by side. That was an amazing site. I don't remember who was sick or injured, but it didn't really matter.
Cotton picking time was a good time. I, like you, didn' thave to work. But there was a "festiveness" this time of year. For a few weeks the pressure of the weater conditions necessary to get those little seeds to come up was not as hard. We would have picnics in the field. I can remember Thanksgiving dinners in the cotton field. It is amazing how many memories a white cotton field can revive.
I have never seen a cotton plant in person. Thanks for the pictures...that's what happens when you've lived all of your life in NE Ohio!!
Sue, guess who I saw recieve a grant from CBS 42 News on the night news!!!! I'm sure you do know. How wonderful! I know she is a wonderful teacher! I didn't recoginze the name but I sure did recognize her face when I saw her. Tell her she "done good."!
Sue, look at those pictures! That's something I'll probably never see in my life... a real cotton plant! I guess I'll just have to be content with quilting cotton!
Take care, Kimberly
Sue thank you so much for your prayers for my mom. I appreciate them so much and will post an update when I know more about what happens next.
I love your stories of growing up in the cotton fields. I wish it was possible to go back and visit those simpler times. I agree that I don't think we can work that hard any more.We passed many cotton fields this weekend driving back and forth to the NC coast, and they were just beautiful. We also saw enormous bales of compressed cotton under tarps waiting to be picked up.
Oh Sue/Harold:
Your blog stories of living in land of cotton always makes me 'tear-up". You see, I'm from South east Missouri and my parents were farmers/gardeners and so I can just remember all my days of picking cotton by hand.. ( sorta dates ya' doesn't it !!)
My husband and I moved to Michigan and worked 40 years and retired back to our roots in Missouri..
Keep on with your southern stories as I relive my growing up years when reading them..
Blessings,
Maurine
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