DARELL

Sitting here at GARY, I was waitng for a new student. NEVER SHOWED. Called Greenbay to find out that he decided not to drive. While here, I ran into a friend and his wife Roberta, I spent time with them up in Wisconsin a few weeks back. Here is his PHOTO. Maybe I'll get to add her's later..

MORE OF THE PROCESS

Here are more fotos of the cotton gin process..It gets separated. scrubbed, bundled and shipped to the people who make our cloths, bedding etc., etc, etc.

Today I delivered the cotton seed to the co-op in bobduel, wi. dairy farmers will add it to their feed for it's high protien..

I'm now sitting in Green Bay, at the OC, waiting for a load, doing laundry, and sitting.

I released CHRIS yesterday at GARY. I hope he'll do well. He may be my last student for a while..Got word today that the company is hiring fewer inexperienced drivers. They say they have driver's waiting for trucks...While waiting, they're being paid a minimal amount as long as they remain available. I'm not sure we're getting sufficient loads as well

MORE GIN>>>THE PROCESS

Between the vaccumn and the van is the separating, washing, bailing and blowing. PHOTOS TO BE ADDED!!

MORE GIN PHOTOS

These are from the vaccumn, to the van. The process will be in the next posting. From the truck to the ground to the vaccumn, to the shute to the van. Question??? What do they do with COTTONSEED in WISCONSIN? HINT: They don't plant it!!! ANSWER to follow latter

This last shot is of the seed in the back of the truck. OVER 44000 pounds of it. It takes about 5 1/2 truck bails to fill my van

AT THE GIN MILL

Trivia: Who invented the COTTON GIN? If he could see his invention today... Picked up a load iof COTTONSEED in ALABAMA, going to WISCONSIN. VERY interesting! We backedup to a tube, coming out of the wall of a barn. PHOTOS tell the story of how they operate. It may take a few postings to put them on in some order.

The truck from the cotton field brings and drop the monster bail under a huge vaccumn.. The tractor and rails walk the bail off the truck onto the pavement.

An operator overhead, vaccumns the bail up into a COTTON GIN, where the FIBER is separated from the SEED, and the CHAFF. About one third of the bail is chaff, one third is seed, and one third is cotton fibre.

The fibre is washed and bundled. The seed is

blown into my truck, and the chaff is plown onto a waste pile. SEE NEXT POST!!

PLUMBING THE TRAILER???

PLUMBING is associated with what? Water, Sewer, and OBGY...My student telles me he's "PLUMBING THE TRAILER" when he pins it. QUESTION?? What trade did he come out of??? I hope he remembers not to plumb the trailer when he does his SQT on Monday.

Actually, Chris has been doing quite well. His shifting has gotten consideraby better, as well as his trip planning. I plan to release him on Sunday @ GARY. We're now under load to ALABAMA, and then we'll see how they get us back home.

TALK ABOUT TIGHT

This was a challange. Not only because of the setup, but moreso because i had to leave my doors closed - rather than chance tairing the off.

The dock bumpers left only about 1/2 inch on either side of the trailer. One couldn't judge this tightness from outside the bldg.

NOTE: Is Chris kneling being thankful that it went in...or tying his shoe?

We delivered the load on time in SC after having my PM done in CHARLOTTE. We ended up spending the nught in a hotel, getting the ntruck back in the late morning.

We picked up our next load within the window, but delivered late due to the previous maintenance issue, lousy directions to the shipper, and two detours along the way. Also was where the shipper said we were haling 19500 pounds of pallets, that scaled out to gr8ter than 42000 pounds. We were pulling uphills on interste 75 at 15 mph and less.

Now We're under loqd to Jackson,MN with 3300 pounds of metal.

New Student

Introducing Christopher Mateika, my newest student. I Picked CHRIS up this morning at Rochelle Petro. Picked up a trailer, our first stop for loading and are now relaxing at GARY OC..Our next of 2 stops pickups is in the morning and then down to South Caralina. Chris asks a lot of good questions, and cracking the books.

Now to the good stuff. Last night I had my last opportunity for whitetail before I come home a month from now. Last LIGHT, I got a young DOE. Looking forwards to cooking up the tenderloins.

TIME AT HOME

Spent a few days at home. Got home early on Tuesday, should have ben home Monday. 2nd time in a year and a half. Not bad considering the stories I hear from drivers at the OCs..went deer hunting for a few days. Saw several, including a NON-TYPICAL, MONSTER BUCK. He was well out of my shooting range. Tried a few spots, relocated two stands, saw more than I had shots on. Could of had a shot on a young one, but If it's not a perfect target, I won't take the shot. I don't want to wound it and lose it.

My friend Rick got a nice DOE the opening morning. about 140 pounds big. If I get a digital of it, I'll add it later.

Am leaving out in the morning with a new student from Rockford. Will add his bit to the blog then.

RAY: KTBC&PH