Cotton

I have been less than inspired to do actual work this week. I am attributing this to my absence from site lately. A few weeks ago we had our Mid-Service Project Development Workshop that took me away from site for a week and then last week I was away while Mom and Patty visited. While I was gone my community was able to cope without me so now I've got to figure out where I fit again.

Since I spent most of this week bumming around I read 2 books, knit my first sweater while watching complete seasons of Gossip Girl, and I also restarted my garden. The garden was a complete failure last time. I am crossing my fingers that something will grow this time!

Today I visited my a neighbor. The Gogo there makes the beautiful baskets that I learned shortly after arriving at site. They also grow cotton on their homestead. Cotton has a really pretty flower before it makes the cotton and the cotton looks just like the cotton balls from the store. I know that sounds really stupid, but I have never seen a cotton plant before. It makes me think back to when I was a child, I seem to remember some campaign to male sure that inner-city kids realized that milk came from cows and not just a carton (or a powder).

I am going to use the cotton to stuff the stuffed animals I have knitted. I thought that using local cotton would be a nice finishing touch to my animals. So today I picked some cotton and then spent some hours ripping the seeds out.. not an easy job, my fingers hurt. Thankfully some of Make's family is visiting and were eager to help me. When we finished I used the seeds to practice the kids counting skills and because I was curious. There were 925 seeds and less than a grocery bag full of seedless cotton. My thoughts as I was picking the seeds was that Eli Whitney should be more famous, how much does a cotton gin cost, what does a cotton gin even look like, and can I buy one in Africa. Its times like these that google images and eBay would really come in handy!

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