Cotton Picking Time

When I was a little girl in Alabama I had my own cotton picking sack. I must have been five years old and my aunt made me a sack that hung by a strap over my shoulder and dragged behind me on the ground. I'd pick a boll here and there and pop it down into the sack and hurry on trying to keep up with the other pickers. I don't know what happened to my sack but I'd give nearly anything to have it today.

a picture from flicker.com showing the cotton picking sacks.

I can still recall that woody smell of a pile of cotton being prepared for a trip to the mill. My grandfather got sick and no longer grew cotton and I got grown and moved away. Machinery took place of human labor. Although it is much more efficient I still think every child should have an opportunity to pick cotton just once in their life.

picture made by daughter Shirley

In Virginia the fields are getting ready for harvest. We have cotton, corn and peanuts here.

What do you have growing in your neck of the woods? 

picture taken by daughter Marie

All this talk of cotton reminded of an old song about cotton fields. Here is part of it.

                                                    

When I was a little baby,                                              My mother rocked me in the cradle,                                             In them old, cotton fields back home.                                                                 Chorus:                                            Oh when them cotton balls got rotten,                                              You couldn't pick very much cotton,                                             In them old, cotton fields back home.