Faith, Folklore, and Friends

We had such high hopes for our sweet potato crop this year.  Last year, we only had one bed full, and this year we planted two. We just ate all of last year's crop a few weeks ago. The sweet potatoes started out so well this year; the vines quickly spilling out of the bed. We pulled off the vines, and Hub started digging. (That is turnip greens in the upper right corner.) Our granddaughter, Adrienne, and her fiance, Nicholas, came to help us. Remember how well they started?  Here in Northwest Alabama, it stopped raining about mid-July.  We  had very little rainfall in August and September, and it is dry as a bone here.  Although we watered the sweet potatoes regularly, they suffered from lack of rain. There were many potatoes, but most of them were small.  The wheelbarrow below is our total crop this year.  Disappointing, but still enough to enjoy for a while.   We will try again next year.

The fields are white, literally white, in North Alabama now. The farmers here plant cotton every year.  Some years, they earn enough to make them want to plant more.  Other years, they curse the day they put the seed in the ground.  My parents raised cotton until I was a teenager.  I remember going to the field to help pick cotton, although I'm sure my contribution would not have been missed.  I did learn a lot, however, about dirt and desire and delusions and disappointments and dreams. Modern stories tend to romanticize cotton picking.  Obviously, the tellers of these stories never knew how one's back would threaten to come apart from the strain of bending over and pulling a heavy pick sack all day long.  Or, how the day would start out cool, with dew wet leaves that made the  cotton fiber stick to your hands, especially in the raw areas where the sharp cotton boles had taken the skin. Or, how the noo...