I met with a man at his house in Lubbock, Texas, 2 hours south of Amarillo. I left at 7 in the morning and watched the sunrise over all of the cattle ranches, fields, and the factories. I met with an attorney named Paul who was a "used to be" farmer. He gave me blueberry muffins and introduced me to his wife and teenage daughters. I sat down with him at an oval table and he showed me maps of Lubbock and old documents of their farm water wells from the 1950's. He said that he loved history.
I set off on my little adventure wearing my cotton farm hat that Paul gave me and my camera. He wasn't sure what I needed, but he said he would try to help me all that he could. First we stopped in and met a farmer who was retiring. Paul was interested in some of the farmers equipment and was taking notes so that he could purchase some of his equipment. I was free to take pictures of any of the equipment and he even showed me around in his grain shed. He also showed me Round up ready cotton seed that is $500 per bag.
Then we went off and Paul took me to a local meat shop and a bakery. Then we headed off to the "caps" or the caprock to meet his friend who is an artist and has her Ph. D. in art education. The artist and her husband lived off the side of a mountain. She freely showed me her house and where she is creating her painting studio. She said that she had just published a book. I was interested in what it was about and she told me that her book was about the Art classroom being the most non restrictive environment for students with severe disabilities.
When I meet people like her and Paul I know the world is folding over so that I can get to where I need to be. I am still not sure what it is suppose to mean, but it was not a coincidence.
Then we went to see the retired farmers fields and they were stripping cotton. That is where I met Raymond. He was a farmhand who was running the combine. He drove the combine over to me and told me to jump in. I began taking pictures in the combine. He described to me how some of the machinery works and he said that he could just sit there and the combine will drive itself. Well after one round Raymond was embarrassed that the cotton that he was picking was "measley," , so he stopped stripping that field drove down the road and began stripping in their well irrigated field with big fluffy balls of cotton. It was really funny to me because I can't even get my dad to do that! Next the "ball buggy" came and emptied the combine. Then I watched as the ball buggy poured the cotton into the bailer. The bails of cotton are massive! There are usually 2-3 bail to an acre. I would guess that they are 6 feet wide, 20 feet long, and 8 feet tall.
After that cool experience, we went on to meet 2 cowboy-farmer brothers that farm cotton fields with experimental Monsanto cotton 1219 and drip irrigation. Drip irrigation is the new type of irrigation that is put about 5 in underground and it waters the root of the crops with no evaporation (they put the fertilizer and pesticides right into the roots also). The cotton was the best cotton crop in the entire area. Both of the cowboy-farmers are in the "Protect Water Rights Coalition". The group is about conserving water, but as the farmer owns the water. New Texas law is threatening to take the water rights away from farmers, but they say that they are protected under the 5th amendment and they would have to change the Constitution. Together both of the farmers have spent a little over 1 million dollars in the last 5 years putting in the drip irrigation systems in thousands of acres. If they lose their water rights they lose a lot of money.
Then I went with Paul to his family farm that he grew up on. He currently rents out the land to another farmer. He drove around showing me his pivot irrigation wells and his drip irrigation systems. Paul was very quiet and I think it was because he was angry that the current farmer was not taking care of his land. The one field of cotton was infested with tumbleweeds and was probably not salvageable. Much of the dry land cotton this year in Lubbock was plowed over and all you can see are little balls of cotton sticking out of the ground. The farmers are better off to take the insurance money rather than harvest the cotton.
I also come to find out that Paul has a Playa lake on his property. It currently holds no water. From the reports from 1959 it showed that there was around 60 feet of groundwater and now there is around 10-20. When it rains or the aquifer is full the lake reveals itself. Then, he drove his truck up a big hill and got out and looked out at his land. I knew that he really wanted to farm again. It is just a part of who he is and it was taken away from him. His father was scared for him to take over the family farm because of the risk and the financial burdens over the years. Instead Paul has rented his land to other farmers in the area.
After we drove back to the farmhouse we fed his daughters horses and I met his 80 year old father who had just broken his hip from picking peaches. He was kind and told me to come back anytime.
I thank Paul so much and it was a day that I will never forget.
