I thought that this would be a one blog post event but there was a lot going on. In the last blog post I wrote about our morning watching cotton being harvested and ginned. After touring the gin we loaded the two buses and drove to the Cardella Winery in Mendota where we had a great catered lunch.
I admired the table decorations. We listened to speakers after lunch. Steve Melanca spoke about the movement he created, “My Job Depends on Ag” to raise awareness of how important agriculture is to the California economy. More about this in a future blog post.
Lydia Wendt of California Cloth Foundry spoke and showed products that are produced from Cleaner Cotton and natural dyes.Lynda Grose spoke more about bringing Cleaner Cotton into the supply chain of manufacturers and designers. 
We got back on the bus and stopped not far from the winery to listen to Dan Munk, a UC Cooperative Extension Farm Advisor discuss cotton production and water use of cotton and other crops. Cotton requires 28″ of water in a growing season. Nut and fruit trees require 48-52″ of water. The western side of the San Joaquin Valley is in a rain shadow created by the mountains and receives only about 12″ of rain annually. Surface water use has been curtailed or drastically reduced over the last few years of California’s drought so people are relying more on ground water.The most available ground water is salty, coming from what was an old sea bed so wells must go down 300-500 feet for clear water. This is not only very costly but now some areas are having to deal with subsidence–where the ground is actually sinking from the loss of ground water. This becomes a major issue when you consider the effects on that on concrete roadways and major water canals. No matter the water source, when drip systems are used filtration systems (shown in the two photos above) are vital to maintain the systems in working order. Back to the buses.The last stop was at Frank Williams and Mark Fickett’s colored cotton field. We learned about the perennial hedgerow that was planted to increase biodiversity and beneficial insect activity. Unfortunately it hasn’t really been tested because since the hedgerow was planted there hasn’t been enough water to plant these fields. Hillary Sardinas also spoke about her passion and recent PhD thesis, the huge variety of native bees that are important components of the ecosystem and provide more complete pollination for cotton crops. She represents the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation (think Audobon Society for insects) and was fun to listen too. I had no idea that we had all these native bees and that they mostly live in ground burrows.Plants along the half mile hedgerow had been labeled for our benefit.I got carried away walking up the hedgerow (right in this photo) and missed hearing the farmer speak about the patch of colored cotton on the other side. I think that it may have planted for our benefit because it is just a small area and it was filled with all varieties of cotton that have been parts of the breeding work that these farmers have been doing over the years. 
We were given bags and were able to pick as much cotton as we wanted to.
This is Dona and me back on the bus. The tour ended about 5 and we drove home. This was a full day and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing this part of the valley up close and learning about the SCP and cotton farming in general.This is the cotton that was packed into my ziplock bag. My goal is to spin and weave it before the next tour.
The tour was a very full day and I took dozens of photos. I’ve tried to narrow them down for this post but there are still a lot.
In most cotton crops a defoliant is applied prior to harvest. 
I was reading up on this and find that, as in most things, it is a whole lot more complicated than that simple statement implies. Dozens of factors are involved in the decision of to defoliate or not, type of defoliant (hormonal or herbicidal), and timing of defoliation (based on crop maturity and desired harvest time with some weather predicting skill necessary).
…where it is hydraulically pressed into modules that will produce up to 14 bales of cotton.
The process was described to us prior to entering the gin but once inside I wasn’t sure which machine was which. There are dozens of machines and tubes are running everywhere. 
In the ginning process modules are broken apart and the cotton enters a dryer which removes excess moisture. It passes through several rotating, spiked cylinder cleaners that break up large clumps and remove soil and leaves. The saw gin separates the fibers from the seeds and l
Now they are back in the ram pen and best buddies. This is one of the photos I will send in for Nash’s registration.
This is Rotor. Both are only 7 months old.
I had not planned to be a vendor here. Instead I was scheduled for a talk about the fiber business. I brought a couple of sheep and fiber, yarn, buttons, and lambskins. Some of Team Meridian Jacobs made the two hour drive here to spin together.
Our neighbors on one side were Shaul’s, who make all the panels and feeders that I use in the barn. I brought a few more pieces home with me.
You can’t make out the geese in these but here is the view with my other camera:
These don’t do the scene justice.
Ringo got the most ewes so he had the pasture.
Saturday was the Grow Your Jeans event that was the culmination of over a year’s planning and work by the 
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