We drove out to Prattville to meet up with a fellow Mint Hybrid Chick, Paige.  We enjoyed a leisurely breakfast at the Cracker Barrel.  I don’t know what is different about their pancakes, but they are so so good.  And the little gift shop is so full of neat stuff, I love to browse through there.

We headed down to Autagaville, AL to visit Paige’s Family farm.   The boys were so excited to climb up on the big round hay bales (after they tried to push them ;) ).

Weird thing happened right here.  It was so cold, Troy’s wedding ring fell off right here and he didn’t even feel it!  Thankfully, Jalen looked down and said, Dad, your ring fell off right there! Whew!

Here was a cotton picker picking through the field for the second time, getting the cotton that was leftover from the first picking.  I think she said it was stringing?

This is the cotton Gin.  The trucks bring the baled cotton and load it here.

have you ever seen a round bale of cotton? Isn’t that cool?

This is where the cotton is unloaded from the truck. it is slowly moving towards the large box area that will then send it in to the gin.

this is one of the first areas that clean the cotton. it reminds me of a laundry, wash and dry…

this is the portion that removes the seed from the lint of the cotton.

This is like a waterfall of freshly processed cotton floating down to the baler.

Jordan was so excited to receive this fluff of fresh cotton.  He was holding it like it was a puffle.

and Jalen’s bunch of cotton looked like a cloud!  We packed them into two plastic bags and brought them home :)

This is the machine that bales the cotton and puts wire wrapping around it.

Check out the control panel.  see that faded red button on the lower left?  If anything is going wrong, go ahead and hit that, it’s the all stop button!

Here he is giving a sample of the bale.  some goes to the usda for grading and some goes to a warehouse.

this is the warehouse bunch.

Bagging the bale of cotton.  Do you see the iron hanging?  The worker uses the iron to seal the plastic bag shut.

Then the machine pushes it out to the dock.

Paige and I, photo by Jalen ;)  We certainly had a great day! We learned about farming, cotton, and talked crafty goodies.  Paige was certainly a gracious hostess.

Thanks for stopping by!  We are currently flying home (if this post does actually publish as scheduled).  Come back again for a wrap up of our trip and further progress on my Alabama Mini.

Love Love and Blog you again real soon! :)

Joscie, rhymes with bossy!