Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2012 11:04 AM
Subject: Our first cotton angel

Hi Everyone,

I was at the cotton field this morning when a car pulled up and a tiny young lady got out and put on her work gloves and went to work!!  She is still there working!!!  I sent a photo from my phone to your phone with her name.  Can you believe she drove from Giles County Tennessee to Lawrence County Alabama to work in the hot steamy cotton field!

She is a wonderful person.  I hope she will be in touch with you so that you can know her.  Jimmy and I were so touched that she came such a long way and is such a hard worker.  She is devoted and she is one in a million.

Love you guys,
–Lisa

P.S. when I left the cotton field this morning with my pillowcase pick sack, I drove straight to the Trinity Post Office to get them to weigh my pick sack!  I walked in covered with sweat from head to toe and carrying a pillow sack with a lump of cotton in it.  I’m sure they thought I was on Meth or Crack or something.  I picked 2 pounds and 9 ounces of cotton this morning.

Don’t laugh.  Imagine bending and stooping and sweating and gnats up your nose and ants biting your legs and stinging weeds with thorns..  It ain’t pretty work, that is for sure.  Jimmy informs me that he was paid $3.00 for picking 100 pounds of cotton.  Oh my god it makes my back hurt to think about it…..

Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2012 9:15 AM
Subject: Re: Cotton Info

Hi Erin,

Thank you for your sweet email.  I am glad the little cotton bolls arrived safely.  Isn’t it just the neatest thing to look at them?  When a boll bursts open inside are sections like an orange when you peel it has sections.  Each of these sections inside the boll contains a lobe of cotton and deep inside that fluffy white nest are the seeds.  The cotton plant certainly works very hard to protect her little seeds.

While the birds are all around me in the field eating the seeds from the weeds,  no little bird can get to the Cottons baby seeds.  I have seen the most beautiful gold finches and the irridescent indigo buntings and of course my number one little friends the barn swallows.

The little deer has a tiny surprise that I didn’t know about until I saw her tracks in the sand the other day,  and alongside her tracks were the tiniest little baby deer tracks I have ever seen!  So “Doe Lin” as I call her, out little cotton field deer,   has a little baby!

Yesterday I feared that hurricane Isaac would send heavy rain.  I took a pillow case for a pick sack and headed to the field.  I picked until I fell over from exhaustion.  My little pillow case not even half full,

I had to quit.  I was sure I had 2 or 3 pounds of cotton.  I came home and headed immediately for the bathroom scales to weigh myself holding my sack of cotton.  I then sat the cotton sack on the counter and got up on the scales expecting great things,  and the dayum scales said the same weight.  I was exhausted and covered with sweat and I told those scales in a very loud tone just what I thought of them.  Jimmy came in the house at that moment and heard me and came to see what the problem was.  He laughed so hard I thought he would pass out…  This morning he announced that our kitchen table is not a cotton gin and he would appreciate a space to eat his breakfast…  Our kitchen table has a beautiful fluffy white mountain of cotton on it.  I have heard of cloud 9 and now I believe I have it right here on my table!  I promise to keep you all posted.  Right now the cotton field has the first boll open on about 60 percent of the plants.  The first boll is the lowest to the ground and was the first to bloom and develop. The third level of bolls on each plant are the largest and healthiest looking.  When we get to the point that those big bolls are wide open,  we will want to pick.  Keep you fingers crossed that the rains do not drench our beautiful cotton.  We are just days away from picking a beautiful mountain of white fluffy organic cotton.

Best wishes to all of you,
-Lisa