Cotton Harvesting in the USA

Although it is now in the month of December, our winters have been dry enough and mild enough to be able to wait and harvest this cotton later than usual. Cotton is my favorite fabric to wear. I like to see it growing , see it harvested.. years ago the farmers and those who worked for them would take a large burlap sack and carry it behind them down each long row in the heat of the fall and pick each boll of cotton by hand.. Can you imagine how hard that was to drag that sack and fill it with these cotton bolls from daybreak to night? The farmers chilren at 9 years old had to help on the farm and also pick cotton to be able to feed the family.

My newborn humming bird!

I lay down in the yard for hours to get this photograph of the newborn ruby throat hummingbird. This precious little female sat down on the salvia stem and it is amazing how light they are.. The mother bird had two babies, a female and a male. I could hardly lie there and contain my excitement as I waited hours for these shots of her sipping salvia on a hot and humid day in August!

Flowers and butterflys!

Peas from the garden!

Summertime is fresh pea time. Here are some white peas, in the hull, shelled and then blanched and put up for the freezer. Too much work goes in to this endeavor 9 hours total from picking by hand in a hot field to shelling, to washing, to blanching.. but when winter comes and you have a special occassion and a meal with these will be so appreciated and some hot cornbread from the oven to go with them

Our little wild buck!

We had two sets of twin fawns born near here last fall each set comes with their mother each day from across the highway through the woods and down around their trail each day, many times twice a day to feed on corn, bread, or fruit and fresh water daily for them. I know they love watermelon ..so I put one out and this little boy, buck deer had never had a watermelon..he loved it!

Just things that make you smile!

From a man and his cat named Bro, to butteflys on cone flowers, to a beaverpond, burros protecting the baby calves in a pasture from coyotes and predators, to flowers, cats and more Chesapeake Bay, Maryland with fresh crab cakes and good food and it summertime!