In High Cotton

 

I took a road trip recently through

the southern US.  Somewhere in Missouri

I looked up and the fields seemed to have

a haze or mist over them, I realized it was

a field of cotton.  The first I have ever seen!

 

 

In the South, you will often hear

that one is "in high cotton".  This

means they have good luck, good

fortune or prosperity.  Some say

this goes back to the days when

cotton was picked by hand and if

the cotton was high, the pickers

did not have to stoop as much and

it was much easier to pick.

 

Isn't that cotton flower just beautiful?

 

 

This is what the cotton boll looks

like while still on the plant.

 

 

These are some bolls we found on the

ground showing the boll closed, slightly

open and just about to burst.

 

 

Then the cotton bursts from the boll.

It reminded us of "cotton" candy.

 

 

This shows one of the seeds in the cotton.

Prior to the cotton gin, all the seeds needed

to be removed by hand.  It is very hard to

get the seeds out of that fiber.  It would

have been a very time consuming process.

 

 

There are still over 18,000 cotton farmers

in the USA.  But we are not the biggest

producers.  China and India are ahead of us.

 

 

This is a cotton picker in the field. 

 

I wonder how the meaning of the phrase

"cotton picking minute" changed, once the

chore was done by machine?

 

 

We saw these huge bales of cotton

lined up in fields through state after state.

 

As a quilter I work with cotton everyday, I

suppose you could say I've taken a cotton

to it...