Hello everyone. Jackson and I went to Lubbock last weekend to see my folks. While we were there, my mom organized a field trip out to the farm for some of her church members who had never seen cotton harvested. Jackson and I tagged along for the ride and to see my Uncle Kenny, the farmer extraordinaire and his family. Surprisingly, it was an emotional flashback for me. I don't guess I had been out there to see the harvest since my Grandparents were alive and it brought back some memories. I logged many an hour on the tractor with my Grandpa and treasure those memories. Technology has changed, but the sense of family was still there and I am very proud of my background and my family.

Here is a pictorial of the process for those of you who have never seen the process either. If you are not interested, I snuck in pix of cute kids throughout. I hope I got everything right. I am sure my Uncle Kenny will let me know.

It all starts with the only brand of tractor worth having John Deere:
























The actual stripping process starts off with the stripper.
This is my favorite picture because of the American Flag.





















This is my cousin Amanda's husband Dan who runs the stripper.




















Bird's eye view from inside the stripper. It has automatic controls that knows where to go. Dan doesn't even have to steer. It also has air conditioning. My grandpa didn't have air conditioning, much less the sealed environment. He often came home so dirty, all you could see was his smile.









































Jackson at Nana's






















When the stripper goes through the field, it scoops up the cotton into the big thing on the back.
















When it gets full, it dumps into the chase buggy.














































Jackson and his cousins
























When the buggy is full, it is dumped into the module maker. When I was a kid, they didn't have module makers, they had huge trailers. My sister and I would play in them and build "furniture" in the cotton, which helped out as we were stomping the cotton down to make room for more.

The tall stickin up things, compress the cotton automatically. This is a new feature my Uncle Kenny put on this year. You don't even need anyone to operate it anymore, unless it needs to be moved to start a new module.






































































































Once the Modules are picked up by the Gin in the fields, they are taken back to the Gin and weighed.














After weighing they are placed in a field until processing.















Cute kid in cotton.





















One of the more impressive things in this whole process is the elaborate names given for the equipment. The truck below, dumping a module is called the "Module Getter". Seriously, it says so on the side, the small white sign.















Jackson on the airplane home. Cheerios kept him busy.























When ready for processing, it goes in this machine which breaks down the modules


























This is what it looks like coming out of the "Module Chewer"





















Then it is piped to a second building to have the seeds and debris removed























Inside this building are about 8 of these machines separating the seeds from the boles of cotton.
















































After separation, it goes to the "Intimidator 6518" to be made into a bale. I am not sure what is intimidating about it except for the price tag. Someone told me the baling system costs in excess of $1million.
























It takes a whole bunch of cotton and squishes it real tight and then bands it. Once banded, it spits it out where a cover is placed over the bale and moved out on a conveyor belt to a waiting flat bed truck.





































































And that is the beginning of your shirt, pants, socks, etc. I think my Uncle Kenny is growing a longer fiber cotton this year which is clothing grade. His fields were beautiful all white and snowy and not a weed to be seen. Uncle Kenny, I hope I did it justice. It was fun to be out there again. I hope we didn't get in the way.
















4 generations of Parks










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more cute kid on airplane






















gotta love the runny nose

























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