Stripping Cotton

November 7


The bad news is harvest is six weeks behind schedule due to 13" of rain in September and 17" in October. Yesterday was the first day they had been able to harvest since October 2nd. It had been nine days since last rain but still some cotton was under water. The worse news, for Scott was that he was getting docked at the gin, lots of rain is not kind to mature cotton.

For me the good great news was that three years ago when I observed cotton harvest it was August 26 and the high temp was 103º, today it was 72º.

Scott filling the pickup and fuel tank. Was running to town to fill up because it was too muddy by the fuel barrel.

Fueling the cotton stripper.

The business end of a cotton stripper. The brushes strip the cotton and augers move the cotton to the feederhouse.

More fuel required, made two trips for fuel. Hard work being a cotton harvest observer.

Uses two strippers...

...two boll buggies and...

...two module biulders. Would like to try a JD 7760 to get rid of the boll buggies and module builders, but JD does not build it in stripper. Since stripper market is so small (only JD builds strippers) it will be awhile before they update it.

The kids run the module builders, but they had the day off to go to Six Flags. After the second fuel run Scott ran the second module builder.

Put seven picker baskets in a module. The cotton packed a lot better then it does when it is 103º but more then seven and the module trucks can not make it out of the field.

Building modules is boring.

Don't have to work long hours. Wait till noon for the dew to dry and then as soon as the sun sets (5:45p)it is too wet to continue.

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