Mississippi...the hospitality state

Cotton! (pic from Google)

On Wednesday, we drove toward Jackson, Mississippi, through the Mississippi Delta, a very flat area consisting mostly of cotton farms. If you've never seen cotton growing (like we hadn't), it looks like white wildflowers on brown leaf-less stalks as far as the eye can see on both sides of the highway in some spots. 



We camped near the Ross Barnett Reservoir at Goshen Springs campground, a very nice place in Brandon, MS.


James and Joy

On Thursday, we drove into Jackson to visit the Old Capitol Building, which has been renovated 4 times (!) since 1839. It was interesting to read about the changes in laws throughout the building's history, like the passage of the Married Women's Property Act, a first in the country at the time (1839). Afterwards, we had a very tasty lunch at Basil's Restaurant in downtown, right across from the Governor's Mansion.

  

Next, we headed to James and Joy's house in Canton. Let's just say that Mississippi hospitality begins at the Foy house!



Cotton Picker (pic from wikipedia)

They took us on a tour of their farmland and their son's new house (gorgeous!), and then to their neighbor's cotton farm! So much fun!

James explained that the cotton grows on leaf-less stalks because a defoliator is sprayed to kill off the leaves. This is done so that when the cotton is picked (by machine now, of course) there is less 'trash' in the cotton, like leaves and such. We hopped out and picked a few handfuls of fluffy, fresh grown cotton, then headed down to meet the Sumralls, whose cotton we had been raiding.

See the mechanical foot at the end?

That's what does the smashing!

They were working on repairing one of the two cotton pickers, giant machines that look like a Zamboni with a fork in front. The fork is actually a bunch of little rotating fingers all on a rotating drum that separate the cotton from the plant so that the picker can vacuum it all up.

Standing in the

cotton squishing machine

Once the picker is full, the driver empties it into a catcher attached to a huge tractor. Once the catcher is full, it's then emptied into a cotton module builder, which looks like a giant bottomless construction dumpster with a mechanical foot to squish the cotton down into a huge block.

One of the Sumrall sons, Jeremy, was working the controls on the module builder and he invited us up to see. Joy climbed up and then promptly jumped into the cotton, so we, of course, followed. What fun!!!  

Ken with a module of cotton

Next, James took us to his brother's farm to show us a bunch of turkeys, a bin full of skittish little quails and a small mob of crazy looking guineas that his brother raises. Apparently, turkeys can climb because we saw one walking around on the barn roof. Occasionally they even show up and harass Joy in her driveway! 

We headed back to the Foy's house for drinks, a tasty dinner and wonderful conversation. A big thank you to James and Joy for a fabulous day!