Cotton Harvest 2013

We are off and running!

   The first field was a little disappointing. It looked better than it picked out. The second field is much better.
   Harvest is a combination of hope and heart attack. You always hope for a good harvest. This is the result of a year's work. There is a lot riding on this. Then there are the heart attacks. G. Gordon Liddy described a helicopter as /ten thousand nuts and bolts trying to fly in different directions at the same time. That would describe a cotton picker. One broken bolt and everything stops. The first night, right at sun down, the hydraulic pump froze right as the basket was being raised to empty the cotton. So, we were dead in the water for that night, and the next day. There were no replacement pumps in the area. I had to drive up to Modesto to pick one up. [ The navigator in the phone got me lost, but that is another story.] We got the pump on and found when the pump froze it sent a piece of shrapnel through the radiator. Arrrrrgh! Hope and heat attack.

But , it sure is pretty to see those cotton modules lined up as the day begins.

Counting Chickens…

By Paul H. Betancourt

Copyright October 2012

                  Right now we are watching and waiting for the cotton to open up. This time of year, my banker will ask what our yields are going to be. My father –in-law will ask what our yields are going to be. It is easy to start doing back of the envelope calculations trying to figure out how we are going to land this year.

            There is a famous saying about not counting your chickens before they hatch. Things look good so far, but until I get the last bale picked and ginned I won’t know how the year looks.

            Years ago I had a field that was picture perfect. The cotton was open all the way to the top, all the way across the field- it picked 1006 pounds per acre. A few years later I had a ratty looking Pima cotton field. The neighbors teased me, the banker asked what the fiddle happened to the field, my father-in-law shook his head. That field picked over 1800 pounds per acre. You couldn’t tell by looking.

So,  it’s just another reason you have to build up patience on the farm. You just gotta sit and keep from counting those chickens, or gotten bolls before they hatch.

 I hope you all have a great week!