The Cotton Shedd

Fun Ranch Video

 

Farm School

I am loving this post.  The last paragraph really touched my heart.

A Poem Worth Reading

For a long long time my favorite poem has been "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost.  I am sorry Mr. Frost but Mary Oliver has taken your spot with her poem, "The Journey" which I cannot seem to read enough as of late. 

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save. 

© Mary Oliver. Online Source

Interesting Video on CAP & SRP Water

Believe it or not the CAP and SRP were not originally built with public money they were built by farmers working together to produce the impossible - quietly, and on a shoestring, and with great personal financial risk.

If you live in the Arizona desert and like that tap water coming out of your faucet - thank a farmer...

Great little talk about water...

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Citrus farmer Teaches Arizona

Winter Fun

We arrived at the mountain house and found a lot of snow from that big, big, storm...

 

The back porch is a snow cave and the big pile is just from the driveway.  Other houses had more...

 

Proper snowmen have been built in the yard.  Note the neighbor's really big snowman.  They could not let the lowlanders out do them...

 

I really like our snowman herd - they don't have to be fed and watered twice a day.

 

The crew has been doing lots of skiiing and Caboodle and I have stayed at the house and knit, walked in the snowy woods, split some good chocolate and snuggled.  Yesterday on a no ski day, I took an all day sock class.  Because of time constraints the main sock parts were done and not the middles, so I have a sock for a one legged goat.  I learned so much though.  Yarn & More in Pinetop is a great place and June is a wonderful teacher.  I started a real sock for Caboodle on the needles...

 

The quilt was made by Rod's grandmother out of scraps from the clothes she made her children and grandchildren.

Lovely Little Cotton Angels in Great Britian

I had the most delightful email from my British online friend, Maria.   She travelled to the US and brought back some Georgia cotton and made these great little cotton boll ornaments for her tree.  I just had to share.

 

She sends me virtual rain and snow and I send her virtual hot weather.  It would be so fun to actually meet someday. 

It is really fun when this internet thing connects you to interesting folks you would have never met in your own backyard.

Interesting Ag Facts

Here is an interesting site with lots of interesting facts about American Agriculture.  Definitely some myth busters in there.

The Real Farmville

Oddly Entertaining Cotton Videos

No this is not a political video just strange and funny. 

This second one has some really neat historical photos.

Picking Down Under

This Australian video looks so similiar to what we do.  Interesting to think it is half a world away and people do the same thing we do and also think it is really hard work.  We are set to start picking Monday.  It is always a crazy time for all of us as life really just stops and it is all about the cotton.