Cotton Picking Feed Yard

Well actually cotton picking AND a feed yard. Without proper punctuation you'd never have guessed I was picking cotton and probably assumed I didn't like. The feed yard! (Or steak factory, as I have learned to affectionately call it from Uncle Van aka the Cow Doc)


My brain goes straight to Howard and his mother from Big Bang Theory every time Doc tells us one of the tells cows are ready is that the brisket right on their chest between their front legs fills out.


There were so many different cows and colors, I could have/should have done a One in Every Color-Cows post!


Doc is teaching us the key factors in keeping the cows diet balanced. Especially that fiber content is important! And that feeding cows when there's a drought is expensive.


In this picture you can see quite a few cows hanging out in the yard. When Doc started playing the radio in the car all the cows started coming close to listen! I didn't believe it the night before at dinner but now that I've seen it with my own eyes I believe it! Doc says that classical music is best.


Doc also says that's as real a cowboy as you'll get! Aunt Maggie (who is to be credited for all of these photos) hopped out of the car to take a picture of this cowboy and his horse. Only the horse knew that it was dinner time. So from the car we were watching as the cowboy would tell the horse to say hi and push his head toward Aunt Maggie, then the horse would say "Hello, please excuse me, it's dinner time and then try to stick his head in the bucket. This process repeated a couple times until there was really no arguing with the horse.
We headed back toward town by way of the country club and the pool so I could seen were my dad and Aunt Maggie broke all kinds of rules when they were visiting as kids. On the way we saw lots of cotton fluffs! The cotton bowls (sp?) here are more drought tolerant and weather resistant. They stay closed up tighter longer and the fiber is shorter to keep more on the plant longer for harvesting! Aunt Lois asked if they should stop so I could go get some and I said no. The. As we drove on and I kept seeing those temping little fluffs that didn't get harvested last year (these are last years old plants) I could no longer resist. I asked I maybe we could please stop so I could go pick some cotton. If you've never seen me run, that is my typical running style that got me dubbed as twinkle toes when I played soccer as a kid.


I was hunting for the longest cleanest cotton puffs.


Here's one I picked the seeds out of.


And started hand spinning in the car....


and then plied.


See, I'm not so different from cows! Fiber is important to me too!

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