Where has the time gone? In a tizzy here in Cedar Grove with the temperature below freezing daily for two and a half weeks. Chopping ice for the cows at the pond and watering the chickens twice daily has taken up all my time. Me and Junior decided to second pick our cotton field and we spent the last two weeks looking for a nice older model two row cotton picker to do the job. We got help from Kenneth Cox, a nice fellow who had the One Shot Duck Hunt on his momma's place over in Humboldt, found us a nice one owned by Jeff Hudson, who farms out in Central. It is about 40 miles from here.
The picker was reworked in 2001 by a fellow in Missoura who specializes in the older John Deere pickers. It is a model 9930 and he wanted $7500 for it but since the advent of larger pickers, the market has fallen out for the 2 row types and we got it for $6500. It sports a 135 horsepower turbocharged six cylinder diesel engine, and the basket holds a bale and a half of cotton. Me and Larry went over and picked it up last Wednesday. Larry drove it 40 miles home and I followed in my pickup truck. Top speed is 17 mph. It was a long trip. We have picked for about 16 hrs on the farm and have collected about 4 bales of cotton. Jason Luckey, the cotton farmer, did not leave as much cotton in the field as we thought. We think we will get about 8 to 10 more bales in the 80 acres we have left to pick. Jason came over yesterday to check the picker out and we could see he liked what he seen. Said he would probably buy it from us for a profit, that is if he could get his daddy to go for it. We are going to pick with them next year if they plant cotton on us again. A cotton picker is a beautiful thing.
I am not sure Jr and I will ever sell it. It is paid for and I like looking at it and soon it will be a novelty as all the other 9930's get sold to the cotton farmers overseas. We can drive it in the annual parade celebrating the Cedar Grove Hemp and Methamphetamine Festival, which acknowledges our rich Carroll County heritage of illegal substances, both production and use.
I am going to send out an add for a fund razer for Detroit, but the recent unpleasantness in Haiti has got me thinking they need our money more.
Last thought: Am I the only one who noticed the deep artic freeze over here corresponded with the Climate Summit in Denmark? God is still in charge!
Jack Maybolt, PhD
Cotton Farmer Emeritus, The Urban Poverty Law Center
"You ain't nobody unless you got a cotton picker. People with cotton pickers is folks!"
Mother Maybolt, 1926-2008
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