The air around my part of the countryside has been dusty and
noisy with the hum of combines and cotton pickers. First it was the remnants of a dust storm
blowing in from Colorado
with winds that pulled tin off of barns and blew a tree down in my yard. We haven’t had rain in weeks, so the soil is
very dry which makes it very dusty in the fields while combining soybeans and
I rode my John Deere to the fields behind my house and took
several pictures of the soybean fields being combined by the Wrights. They were
working into the night trying to beat the rain.
The outside of combines haven’t changed much over the years expect the
addition of cabs with makes it easier to stand the dust. Now they don’t have to stop to unload the
beans into a transport hopper. Trying to
unload a combine into a moving wagon while still cutting the beans and staying
in the row takes a lot of skill. The insides now have computerization, GPS and
technology which reduce wastage. As I
rode around the outside edge of the field, I noticed that my fuel gauge on
empty. Checking the tank, I only had a
little diesel left in the bottom funnel coming out of the tank. I was sweating all the way home, as you don’t
want to run out of diesel. The last
time I did, I thought I’d never get it started again.
On our dairy farm most of the tractors were older models and
only the last one Dad bought had a cab on it.
These early models had a lot of trouble with the filters clogging up and
the air conditioner breaking down. My
uncle used to ride around with the windows opened until a tree limb broke them
out.
Friday Neal, Shane and Todd Isbell were picking cotton, followed by a
tractor bush hogging and another tractor with a planter sowing winter
wheat. I took a few pictures and started
home and got to thinking there was something new with the cotton picker. It was making these large round rolls that
were scattered around the field. I
didn’t see any of the pods that I’d seen in the past. I had to be nosey so I turned around, parked
my truck on the side of the road and walked into the cotton field and was
greeted by Neal Isbell who explained the new technology in cotton pickers. This one can do the same amount of work in a
day as two pickers. It picks the cotton, rolls it and when it gets to a set
size; the combine will wrap it in a protective plastic and then drop it out of
the back like a hay baler.
Back a hundred and fifty years ago, all cotton was picked by hand and
hauled to the gin by mule and wagon. It
would take one hundred workers picking all day to pick ten bales of cotton.
This new picker can pick around 220 to 225 or so bales a day. If measured in the olden days, it can do the
work in one day that it would take 2500 workers to do. Mr. Isbell offered to let me ride inside the
picker. I had my good work clothes on instead
of my farming clothes and at first declined, and then took him up on his
offer. The dirt I got on them is the
good kind of dirt and will wash out. First we watched the unloading of the bale
from the back of the picker. They were
getting one with each up and down pass in the field. The new method eliminates the pods which sit
in the fields getting wet and dirty lowering quality until they can be hauled
to the gin. The expense of a packer for
pod production is also eliminated. A large fork is needed for the back of a
tractor to lift the roll on a tractor trailer. He excused himself to go and
pick the bales up off the field as the tractors with the bush hog and planter
where close behind. Mr. Isbell said that
they were getting two bales to an acre this year. A good year.
Shane Isbell was driving the picker and held my camera while
I climbed up the ten foot ladder up to the cab. I got settled in the spare
seat, door closed and we were off. Shane
said that they used to farm a lot of acreage in Muscle Shoals, but sold it for
progress and bought property in Cherokee, so they have further to travel each
day from home to get to the fields and back to the gin. He said that his Dad, brother, he and three
hired hands work about 3000 acres. As I
watched the cotton go into the spindles I noticed the large fire extinguisher
mounted outside of the cab and mentioned that the Wrights had a picker to burn
up while picking cotton on property they were renting for my Dad. He said that it’s easy to start a fire in
this dry weather, usually a rock feeding into the spindles causes a spark and a
quarter million dollars piece of machinery can go up in flames.
After we made the rounds, I got off and took some more
pictures of the loading of the bales on the tractor trailer. As the sun set over the mountain west of the
field, the work of picking, bush hogging, and planting continued into the
night.
Farmers don’t have the luxury of an eight hour day.
On the home front, the hooligans found the Santa hat that I
used for making their Christmas card last year and somehow snuck it out of the
garage when the doors were opened. When
I got home the next afternoon, the end of the driveway looked like someone had
bush hogged a cotton patch. White cotton balls were everywhere. When I walked into the front yard and saw all
of these pieces of red material all over I finally realized what it was. When I started gathering up the pieces, the
fun started again. Come chow time I
finally was able to pick of the pieces.
We had a killing frost two weeks ago. A few of my re-blooming iris had just started
blooming and have managed to survive the frost. I picked all of my green
tomatoes the afternoon before and wrapped them in newspaper. It really makes a ham & Swiss sandwich
taste better. Coming home in the dark after the time changed back to standard
time and not being able to get out in the garden after work is depressing. Saturday’s temperatures are going to be in the
seventies, so I have a long day in the garden planned.
