Challenges on the internet come and go pretty quickly. I remember getting some friends at work to do the ice bucket challenge. This week as Dolly Parton put out a meme that quickly became the latest viral challenge. I had to think about how clearly it fit cotton, my favorite fiber. Next thing I knew, I had a cotton meme!

In case you haven’t seen the Dolly Parton post I am talking about, here you go:

View this post on Instagram

Get you a woman who can do it all

A post shared by Dolly Parton (@dollyparton) on Jan 21, 2020 at 10:02am PST

Dolly definitely has a brand of being able to do it all. She posted that on her Twitter, Instagram and Facebook accounts and brought so many smiles and made people think. The simplicity of showing how she is many things by putting it in the context of prominent, distinctive online networks that offer really different value.

It’s why memes can be so powerful. You can wrap up so many things into a simple image or collection of images with a few words. People can’t help but share in the fun.

Next thing you knew people were calling it the Dolly Parton Challenge and doing various versions. I had friends who did them for themselves, pets, brands they work for and more. And I thought people should know to get a fiber that can do it all too!

Cotton Meme: The Fiber that Can Do It All

If you read Hundred Percent Cotton Often, you have seen article after article about the various strengths of the fiber but putting into a simple format that would resonate on Twitter and Instagram…. I had to really ponder things. Here’s the cotton meme I came up with:

It probably doesn’t need much explanation, but a bit may be helpful. So here’s the thought behind each photo:

• LinkedIn — When it comes to business, cotton has you covered! In fact, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing reports that US bills are printed on 75% cotton and 25% linen stock. And if you look at what you can do with a bale of cotton (about 500 lbs), you could make 313,600 $100 bills!
• Facebook — Facebook is for fun and family. What’s more fun than t-shirts, jeans, digging in the dirt and a big old pair of underwear? Also, when things get a bit more serious, talking about the environment is more fun when you can talk about soiling your undies (to show soil health).
• Instagram — Lifestyle and beautiful photography are what makes the day on Instagram and as that sunset shows and as cotton farmers know, you can get a great lifestyle with the natural fiber AND harvest photos are often stunning!
• Tinder — Looking for love? Well polyester sheets would have you in all the wrong places! Obviously you are going to want some awesome cotton sheets!

Cotton really is the fiber that can do it all! Think I’m missing anything? May need to make a second cotton meme too!

The post This Cotton Meme Suggests You Get a Fiber that Can Do It All appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

I have to do it. Sure, there were lots of suggestions for C words that are important parts of agriculture and in fact, Kim Parsell gave me a whole list!

KentFarms _LA lobbied for cattle (Angus cattle to be clear) and several people echoed that cows would be a perfect choice and others suggested corn. To do an agricultural A to Z without highlighting my favorite fiber — cotton — as the letter of the day, well, it is unthinkable. And I tried. Seriously. There was a great suggestion from Angel Steffan who left a comment pointing to “C is for Cultivation. Not only the land before be plant, but we need to cultivate young minds interest in Agriculture.” That’s a compelling plea.

But I have to say, I started blogging in large part because when I got on Twitter, I settled on the name @JPlovesCOTTON because it was personal (some dear high school friends called me JP) and it connected me to agriculture through the crop I know best (cotton). Cotton is a passion for me as well as a crop — it comes with a great community of cotton farmers, ginners, merchants, warehousemen, textile manufacturers and more.

But remember, less than 2% of Americans farm and when you look at cotton, it comes down to .006% of us are engaged in cotton farming (thanks to Shawn the magnificent at the National Cotton Council for doing that math!) If someone who has a daily awareness of cotton doesn’t make a point of saying COTTON ROCKS, who should I expect to do that? And you can’t forget all the people who buy cotton products whether or not they produce the crop! I’m wearing jeans and a cotton/silk blend sweater today so I am squarely in the happy consumer camp!

Right now, cotton farmers are looking at the weather forecasts and trying to decide when soils will be warm enough for planting. Cotton seeds do better in warm weather — if it is too cool or too wet, disease can be a problem and that leaves the plant susceptible to a variety of problems throughout the season, but farmers want to plant as early as possible as they look to harvest before winter weather or hurricane seasons hit.

Cotton is a big part of this blog — in fact I have a Cotton 101 page devoted to some of the basics of my favorite crop that highlights posts including:

Cotton is not only a great crop, but it makes incredible fabrics! Textile mills have figured out how to make so many different types of fabric out of the fiber. I really love sweatshirts and jeans! Cotton flannel makes the best PJs and sheets for sleeping in winter!

D is for….

Tomorrow (Thurssday) is the day for the letter “D” so what do you think the word of the day should be?

See the other posts in this series by clicking on the logo at right and reviewing the letters, or by browsing the A to Z ag tag archives. You should also feel free to add ideas for upcoming letters!

The post C is for Cotton — an A to Z Series about Agriculture appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

When I tell people I write a bunch of blog posts about cotton, I frequently get a quizzical look or a blank stare. Then when I explain a bit more, that I have worked with cotton farmers for a long time and I enjoy sharing what I’ve learned. Seems some folks wouldn’t think you could enjoy a fiber crop as much as I do this one and the people who grow it. And yet, I’m not alone.

Before I even get started listing them, I need to say I know I will miss some great bloggers who write about cotton. The great thing is I will keep updating this post so the list will grow! The blogs aren’t listed in any particular order either…. it was as much when I thought of them and where the cursor happened to be on the page as anything.

The Cotton Shedd

Tiffany Shedd of The Cotton Shedd in Arizona was brought to my attention years ago because she has such great ideas on decorating with cotton! And almost every time she posts a new creative way to decorate with cotton, someone will stumble on it and send me a link! If you are in the Phoenix area, you may want to watch for occasional workshops she holds where she teaches people to make something like the cotton wreath I have in my stairway. She has a bunch of beautiful greeting cards, coffee mugs, even covers for the iPhone 5 that feature some of her cotton artwork in an online store.

Kissed a Farmer

You may remember reading about Suzie & Daniel Wilde before — she wrote a guest post “A Colorful Life of Cotton Memories on a Texas Farm” for the series of posts I have of people who say cotton is the fabric of their lives. Her blog Kissed a Farmer and the Kissed a Farmer Facebook page She grew up the daughter of a cotton ginner and married a cotton farmer. She’s got the crop in her veins as she works in town touching the crop too! Suzie will be celebrating her blog’s one year anniversary soon.

FarmFresh The Blog

Kelly Whatley and her family have a cotton farm in South Texas. Her blog FarmFresh includes posts about family, football & farming. She’s a really good photographer and does beautiful cotton photos especially — I mean check out these cotton harvest shots! I’m always blown away by the scale of things in that part of Texas…. check out the planting equipment in this post and the windmills here. And I’ll never forget her and her sons taking time to show around Jake’s Flat Stanley…. Jake doesn’t have 4H at his school so it was all news to him.

Tales of a Cotton Wife

I met Aussie Bess Gairns, who writes a personal blog on the Cotton Australia site. She gets a lot of content up too! So much cotton content that she has broken it into these categories — Cotton Dictionary, A Cotton Season, Cotton Plants, Careers in Cotton, Cotton Research & Science, Industry News & Events and Other Things Around the Farm. She also is active on her Tales of a Cotton Wife Facebook page.

The Life of a Farm Wife

Stephanie Miller in Boaz, Alabama has a great blog called The Life of a Farm Wife. There are quite a few posts about growing cotton on their farm as well as posts about the other crops they grow including another Southern favorite peanuts! To help you get a feel for what they grow, she’ has a farming 101 page that highlights cotton, chicken, peanut and corn production. She also shares stories about all the other things that happen in the family…. birthday parties, building a house and more. They also post to their Miller Farms Facebook page.

Across the Branch

I’ve been following Ashlee’s blog Across the Branch for a couple of years having had a friend in Georgia flag it for me. She talks about her family and farm — it’s been fun watching the kids grow up. She has a page that links her “best of” posts on a variety of topics but you know my favorite would be about cotton! She has a great cotton elementary section and I have really enjoyed learning about another crop with her watermelon elementary too!

From the Tractor Seat

I first met Jillian when she was a student at Auburn, she was a sweet girl from the farm who had taken her first plane ride to New Orleans for the Beltwide Cotton Conference. A few years later I met her boyfriend Jared as he thought about planting his first cotton crop. Later they began From the Tractor Seat to tell their farm’s story. You’ll see they are too cute and they are excited about agriculture too! There are a good number of posts about the farm, different things they have going on, etc. few posts they have on cotton are all good ones!

The Road Less Traveled

Georgia cotton Farmer Trevor Smith grows cotton, peanuts and watermelons and now and then, puts his thoughts on his blog The Road Less Traveled. I met him on Twitter (he’s @GAFarmer80) and love that he explained his farm saying “My wife is the watermelon expert, being the daughter of a lifelong watermelon grower. She markets all the watermelons herself, last year over 150 semi loads. We are shareholders in Osceola Cotton Co. in Ocilla, GA, and Tifton Quality Peanuts in Tifton, GA. This helps to add additional value to the crops we produce.” on his about the farm page.

The Cotton Wife

Deciding to write a blog post like this I decided I should search for “cotton farm blog” on Google and loved that I found Jennifer Warthan aka The Cotton Wife. Jennifer’s a farm wife in Virginia. The blog is primarily a photography blog — she does some wildly popular photography training sessions! Looking at the families page of her blog you can tell she does beautiful work and that cotton is sometimes a member of the family!

Cotton Content on janiceperson.com

I figured showcasing the great cotton content all these other cotton bloggers have, I thought I’d remind you I have quite a bit on here too. So if you are interested in the way I organize the cotton content here on the blog, there are a few places you can find it. I keep this Cotton 101 series photo on my sidebar so you can always find some of the posts about the basics of cotton. Some of the great folks who share my passion for cotton have written guest posts. And because I like to write cotton content so often, I have a category where all things cotton are posted. I also have a Twitter list of cotton people to follow if you are on that channel.

The post Top Cotton Blogs You Should be Following appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.