It has been a joke told for years in the cotton industry. In fact, each March (if you live in the Mid-South) and April (if you live in Texas) the giggles are heard as people who work in cotton say they are spending their weekend at the gin show. Some of our friends (and sometimes family) have a different first impression when they think of gin. Heck you may be one of those folks! As someone who has a friend…
I love the excitement behind the question I get asked each spring — “Can you get me some cotton seed for my garden?” reminds me that other people would like to see the wonder that is cotton seed turning into a plant with broad leaves, slowly putting on buds that become flowers and ultimately form those beautiful bolls we all think about. (Thanks Kelly for the phot!) And as someone who loves her container garden, I get the joy of…
This is one of those weeks where it is easy for me to wish I was traveling even though I am so excited to have spent the weekend at home. The reason I kind of wish I was traveling? The National Cotton Council held it’s annual meeting this weekend and you know how much I love some of my cotton folks! But it is also a great time to catch up on what’s happening and what the expectations are for…
For days, I check on several friends each time I hop on social media. I have been watching to see how they are in dealing with Hurricane Harvey bearing down on them. First concerns are for the people, but I can’t help looking to see how the farms are doing. Hurricanes have ripped through friends’ crops too many times, I’ve seen farmers prepare for hurricanes and deal with the aftermath. When a friend sent me a message asking me questions…
I have to say, it is unusual for me to listen to a podcast episode and immediately think that not only do I need to tweet out the link, but I need to go the extra mile and write a blog post. In fact, I can’t think of one but Saturday morning Twitter delivered me something unusual and I want to share it with the folks who subscribe to the blog. As I hopped online, I checked the “in case…
There is nothing else like it for me….. seeing cotton fields at sunset is totally unique. The softness of the colors of the sky and the soft textures of fiber tufting out from the rough and rugged plants is captivating. And after a decade or so of having that out my office window and on my daily drive, it is something that truly does call me home. Over the years, if you follow this blog, you have seen more than…
While I was in Lubbock for work recently, I decided to add on a personal night so I could play in a couple of cotton fields! There is something about Texas dryland cotton that has always captured my imagination — heck my first video post shows a really short glimpse at it. The crop is so similar and yet really different from the cotton that I get to see so often as I drive between my current home in St….
This time of year, cotton plants start holding a special kind of allure…. there are lots of beautiful blooms and farmers are getting a good feel for what harvest will bring! And aerial cotton photos especially grab my imagination! My dear friend Marjory and her colleague Lance couldn’t stay in the office any more and they got out on her family’s Walker Farms and started snapping photos. When I saw some of the photos, I had to ask if I could share…
Last week I took several vacation days and while I found lots of time to see some brand new sights in New Mexico that left me at a loss for words, I also saw something so familiar…. something I hadn’t really see much of. I saw a few fields of cotton. With my schedule this summer, I’ve mostly missed the 2016 cotton crop and it sure doesn’t show up here much! But while I was visiting my friend Jay Hill (check…
Not sure how I lost track of this post about two cotton bolls. I started writing it in the fall when my friend Robyn of Robyn’s World first flagged me about a tweet she saw from Tara Ziegmont of Feels Like Home blog. Seems Tara had a small cotton boll from a plant her family grew and wondered what had happened. Here’s the photo and text Tara shared: Joe grew cotton in his #backyardgarden this year. Cool crop, though I…