Autumn is when the Cotton "Blooms"

We have discovered that, along with soybeans, sweet potatoes, and tobacco (gross), we are surrounded by thousands of acres of cotton. We have never seen cotton growing, so when the countryside burst wide open in a storm of white over the last few weeks, it was magical and amazing and looked just like snow.

This field is behind my husband's office, and we've gone twice -- once to get the first photos at sunset, and then again a week later at sunrise when Jack Frost had come to town. The fields went from cotton bolls to snowballs. 

It has a very complicated history for sure, but we all still need cotton. Now machines run through the fields picking all of this pretty fluff and packing it tight in cubes and rolls to head to the factories where our pretty, pretty fabric is made.