December 20

Tonight's sunset, on the shortest day of the year, near the Lubbock-Hockley County line.

FM 1585
Lubbock County, Texas

October 11

Did you ever wonder why some of the cotton was shaped like loaves and some of it was round?  Here's an explanation, by guest blogger Melinda Williams Chapman, who lives on a cotton farm near Lorenzo, Texas:

The loaf shaped ones are what most everyone is making. They are built in the module builders. The round bales are something that is new in the past couple of years. There is a cotton picker that John Deere makes that actually makes these inside the picker as you are pulling the cotton. When the round bale is made it is wrapped in a plastic wrap and then dumped in the field where ever you happen to be. Case also makes a cotton picker that does the same thing, but the modules are square and look kinda like half of a regular module. These are very expensive and there aren't many out there yet, especially in this part of the country where we run cotton STRIPPERS instead of cotton PICKERS. It does save on equipment and labor costs though. Stripping cotton to make the big modules requires a stripper, a tractor to run the boll buggies (which is what the stripper dumps the cotton into) and a tractor to run each module builders (which is what the boll buggy dumps into) and someone to run the stripper, the tractor for the boll buggy and the module builder. With the new cotton pickers you could conceivably strip cotton alone. Steven has talked about buying one of the new module building pickers, but is waiting to see if John Deere will make a cotton stripper that will do it instead of the cotton picker. Cotton pickers are generally used where the cotton grows tall. The row units are tall and have little fingers that turn on a vertical shaft that actually "pick" the cotton out of the burr. Stripper row units are short and made to harvest shorter. Those row units have brushes that "strip" everything off of the plant and then they have what is called a burr extractor that separates the burrs from the cotton before it is blown back into the basket. Gins are having to modify how they move the round modules to get them into the ginning process. Our gin at Lorenzo has 1 farmer out here who has one of the pickers that makes the round modules and they had to figure out last year how to move the modules without spending a ton of money on equipment to handle just one farmer's cotton. 

And so now, thanks to that fine explanation, you know!

Arnett Gin

Hockely County, Texas

October 7

If you need something to do, here's a suggestion.  Start in Lubbock, and take highway 114 west.  Just past the county line, on the north side of the road there's a junk store.  (It's in the community of Hurlwood, if you want to spot it on a map or Google Earth or something.)

Anyway, the junk store has all kinds of junk - in fact, it may have the very best selection of junk in all of Hockley County.  Stop and take a look around.  You'll be amazed.  There are old signs (like the one in the photograph) and poles and posts and more miscellaneous crap than you could ever hope to see in one place.

Route guidance (correct as of earlier this afternoon):  there is a 1975 New Holland combine out in front.  It'll be the only 1975 New Holland combine along this particular stretch of road.  That's how you know you are at the right place.  Unless someone bought the combine; the price seemed pretty reasonable to me ($2500), but what do I know about combines?*

photographed 5.22.2010

*  Very little.  The sign that said "1975 New Holland combine, $2500" was actually quite educational.

July 29

The morning sun shines bright on the gin across the field.

Corner of FM 1585 and US 385
Hockley County, Texas

June 29

FM 2646
Hockley County, Texas

June 8

Hockley County wheat field

May 12

When I left home this morning, I was planning on scouting out an interesting word or two on a wall somewhere in Levelland in order to continue the little theme week I had going.

But when I drove through this interesting weather system, I decided that the theme week was over.

There were these bands of clouds and mist and then a band of sun then another one of clouds and mist - it went on like that for several miles.  Maybe it was similar to driving through Saturn's rings?

Lovebird Road* and FM 1585
Hockley County, Texas

* Really.  That's what it's called:

May 6

OK, so the road's official name is "Hawk Road" but in my (feeble)(increasingly) mind, it is called "that dirt road with one tree."  I guess that wouldn't fit on a sign very well.

FM 1585, where it intersects That Dirt Road With One Tree
Hockley County, Texas

March 11

...and then, only a few minutes later, it started to snow.

FM 2378 on the Lubbock-Hockley county line

March 9

The fields are slowing being transformed from rows topped with the stubble left over from the cotton harvest to newly-plowed rows ready for this year's crop to sprout.

FM 1585
Hockley County, Texas

March 1

 

It rained all night, and a good part of the morning, making travel on unpaved roads a sloppy proposition.

Along FM 1585

Hockley County, Texas 

February 25

Some oil tanks on FM 1585.

Hockley County, Texas

February 1

 

This little wood house is at the intersection of FM 1585 and FM 169; when I first noticed it several months ago, I vowed that I would be ready to take its picture the first time the light was good and there was no traffic behind me, so I could safely pull over.

Today was the day.  

It worked out pretty well, except there was a truck behind me (I lost the bet that he was going to turn onto the busier road) and I had to drive almost all the way to Ropesville ("Ropes" in the vernacular) before I found a paved road that I could use to turn around.  There were plenty of dirt roads but they were still pretty muddy from last week's storm. 

I figure this shot cost me an extra ten miles - but give the way things are spaced out here, that's not really too much, I suppose!

Hockley County, Texas

photographed 2-1-2010