The Ripple's Latest Scoop...

You heard it here first. Tomorrow, July 25, 2018, a Wednesday, preliminary work begins on the replacement of County Bridge #155 over Riley Slough. This project has been in the works for three years. Work was postponed because another County bridge replacement up north somewhere was deemed a priority, and because the County is fueled by our tax dollars, there just weren't sufficient funds to upgrade two bridges at once.

This morning Gladys and I stopped to take photos of the County work order and the rustic cabin that was home to the Kevin Olson family for twenty some years. As we pedaled on, I heard hammering beside the last outbuilding to the north. Standing behind his work van, a young man was pounding away on some sort of construction. The Ripple has a nose for news and I smelled some now. I asked the worker what he was cobbling together. "A temporary power pole," he replied between blows. Further queries revealed the stanchion would provide interim power for a construction company who employed him. "A crew is coming in tomorrow to demolish the house and these outbuildings," he replied. "I guess they're going to replace the old bridge. They'll need a power source while they do the work."

Call it Karma, if you believe in such a thing. Turns out the photos attached to this post will be the last ones taken of that quaint little bungalow perched on the shady north bank of Riley Slough. Tomorrow it will be hauled off in splintered shambles. From its forlorn appearance and unkempt lawn I knew it must no longer be occupied. The cabin was always neat and trim, flowers in window boxes and hanging baskets, the lawn close cropped...a sign that someone cared. Now just a few odds and ends in the carport and a faded American flag give testimony to its former residents. There's just something depressing about an abandoned home.

Three years ago this October, Kevin Olson and property owner Ginger Mullendore met with Councilman Dave Somers to discuss the fate of the bridge and its impact on her property. Kevin, tenant and current resident, who has seen the property change hands a time or two, was most concerned as the proposed bridge approach would pass only two or three feet from his doorstep. The Ripple was on hand to record the meeting (The Meeting at Bridge 155, 10/6/2015). Somers listened to their concerns but as the County's right-of-way had been breached, there was little he could do to find a solution. As part of the bridge replacement project County engineers had decided to straighten out the "dog leg" blind corner on the north bridge approach. To adjust the "kink," the County would realign the bridge approach by moving the Upper Loop to the west. The real estate required to effect the move would include part of the lawn of the old Victorian home on the south bank of Riley and nearly the entire front yard of Kevin's cabin.

The Ripple has frequently referred to the Tualco Loop as the Tualco Valley Speedway and for good reason: its many straight stretches.

I'm afraid the engineers' "safety measure" will have unintended consequences. My fear is that by straightening the stretch of road between the Upper Loop and Lower Loop intersection Valley speeders, namely motorcycles, "crotch rockets" and testosterone fueled hotrodders will have a quarter mile more in which to accelerate before they reach the next section of straight roadway stretching from the south bridge approach all the way to the Tualco Grange. The 35 mph speed limit is already a joke for the many scofflaw speedsters passing through our Valley and having nearly a half mile of straight road will serve as an invitation for them to "see what this baby will do." What has been a leisurely passageway through a scenic, pastoral Valley will now become an unregulated, unpatrolled race course, putting all who live in and commute through the Valley at risk.

Livestock that Wriggles...

Even though you're farmin' just one slim acre, there are the routine morning chores. I tend the chickens first, release them from the coop into the run, make sure they have food and water (old farm tenet: "Feed and water your animals first, then go to breakfast"). After they're flushed from the coop, I check their food supply, watering "trough," and scatter about the run a handful or two of hen scratch and sunflower seed. Then it's on to the potted plants, see to their irrigation needs before the day heats up. Perhaps I'll hoe a weed or two....

This summer, however, I've added one more task to the morning's routine. I mosey past the chickens out to the willow tree and gather a bundle of leaves, this season's growth, lush and tender, pasturage, you might say for my summer's strange experiment: tending caterpillars, a project that began when my environmentally sensitive friend Nancy L brought me a large moth she found clinging to some new construction she had going. Instead of dispatching the moth in the deep freeze overnight, I left it in the jar in which it came. Next morning I was dismayed to find during the night the moth had tried to escape its confines (Moths? Creatures of the night? I should have known better...) and badly frayed one of its forewings. Before its escape attempt the moth deposited nearly four dozen bluish- green eggs on the bottom of the jar. Thus began my ongoing project.

A bit of research turned up a website for PNW moths (Plate III) and as I knew my specimen belonged to the family Sphingidae (sphinx moths), it took little time to find the moth among its cousins. My bug was a blind-eyed sphinx moth (Paonias excaecatus), a misnomer because the moth wasn't sightless (most likely named for the eye spots on the hindwings). More research revealed the moth's host plants were willow, cottonwood, and poplar, helpful information should the eggs prove viable which at this point I had no way of knowing. (Sometimes under stress the unmated female will lay eggs, her last ditch effort to reproduce.)

Checking the jar each morning became routine. Four mornings passed. The eggs remained unchanged, cemented to the bottom of jar as deposited. Day five I noticed a few eggs had lost their color, were white, translucent. Curled next to the shells and not much larger than a point 12 font  comma were a half dozen larvae. I had read that a caterpillar's first meal is usually a portion of the egg case from which it emerged. Nonetheless, I headed for the pussywillow bush for some fresh leaves for the 'pillars' main course. Over the span of a week the other eggs hatched and I had some three dozen little wrigglies to tend.

I wasn't sure the little hatchlings would feed on the willow. My Pennsylvania friend Ron who has had considerable experience rearing moths suggested I include some cherry and apple leaves as well, both of which I added to the willow. Whether the tiny larvae were feeding on these provisions I had no way of knowing until a couple mornings later I noticed tiny specks of "frass" (caterpillar "poop") on the bottom of the jar. Next, ragged little notches in the young leaves of the willow, which, I learned, were the preferred browse of the larvae; the apple and cherry leaves were ignored.

The caterpillars' voracious appetites put me in mind of Eric Carle's children's book The Very Hungry Caterpillar, whose principal character's gustatory behavior was represented by larger and larger holes in the cardboard pages. The larvae consumed handfuls of fresh leaves daily, leaving only twigs and stems behind. The stage where they were able to escape through the toothpick holes in their saran wrap ceiling lasted only a few days. I soon had to transfer them to a larger container and chose a gallon bucket covered in tulle netting. The growing larvae continued to consume quantities of leaves and sometimes required two feedings per day.

In the early stages of my caterpillar tending I remained in contact with Ron, asking his advice on how best to tend the fast growing larvae. The larval stage of the moth, as with most insects, is the second of four stages in the metamorphosis cycle (egg, larva, pupa, adult).

My moth species, Ron told me, pupates in the ground (unlike butterflies that pupate above ground, hanging by an integument beneath a leaf, twig or stem); the sphinx moth larva burrows into the soft soil at the base of the host plant and there evolves into a pupa or chrysalis.

In order to accommodate the larvae's subterranean rite of passage, I had to provide a third container for their convenience and chose a wooden nuc box in which I had received a small colony of honeybees this past spring. I filled the bottom with five or so inches of loose compost, an excellent medium for whatever burrowing they needed to do. First supplying the larvae with a bundle of fresh willow leaves, I transferred them to their third container.

(Note: In the world of Nature infant butterflies and moths have an astounding mortality rate: less than one percent complete the cycle from egg to adult. In addition to the whims of weather, floods, fires, parasitic wasps and parasitoid ichneumon flies ravage eggs, the larvae, the chrysalids, the latter two literally eaten from the inside out by the ravenous larvae of the parasites.

It was my intent to boost the survival rate through human intervention by providing the caterpillars a secure incubator. As some of these parasites are tiny themselves, I worry that some might enter the nuc box through the small gauge ventilation mesh. As things stand, whether for lack of food or water or natural mortality, some  larvae have already perished; only two dozen or so survived for the third transfer.)

As of this posting there are fewer than a dozen of the fat grubs feasting on the leaves, and I have yet to see any deceased wrigglies lying on the soil. It is my hope the others have burrowed in, exchanged their soft exteriors for the carapace-like shells of the chrysalis. When the last larva has disappeared, I'll store the box in the shed, hopefully protecting any chrysalids from marauding parasites. This fall I'll sift through the compost and retrieve whatever (if any) chrysalises lie beneath the surface. I'll follow Ron's instructions: "Layer them in paper towels in a large container, mist the contents once in a while and be sure to include something for the adults to climb and cling to while their wings inflate and dry." I'm crossing my fingers that the fall harvest will include at least a pair of pristine sphinx moths, wings unfrayed, to join their mother in her collecting case. The surplus, if any, I'll set free in the Valley night.

The Memorial Strawberry: A Sweet Legacy...

Two years ago this past May farmer Tim Frohning left our Valley and this life (The Valley Loses another Farmer). In attendance at his memorial  along with a standing room only crowd were a thousand strawberry plants (outside in the parking lot), one of the farming projects Tim was unable to finish. Guests were encouraged to take a four inch potted plant to celebrate a farmer's life. I chose two, one for my daughter who was unable to attend, and myself.

In a vacant spot in the garden, at end of a short row, I watered in the little start. If you're a gardener, no need to tell you about the strawberry's penchant for self-propagation: one plant becomes a patch by summer's end; come season two, the patch has doubled. As the patch expanded, it became an aggravation to till around and weed. I vowed to contain it in a raised bed, a permanent patch I could easily tend and cover.

This spring, two seasons later, I finally tackled the job. My finished project was a 4' x 4' square made from 2" x 12" stock, the joints tightly lag screwed in place. The four foot square was the perfect size for the four foot wide heavy gauge plastic mesh pieces I knew would be necessary to protect the crop from the berry farmer's nemesis: those thievin' robin redbreasts. After I filled the bed with compost and garden soil, I dismantled the patch. Tim's solitary strawberry had runnered off three dozen or so offspring. I chose twenty of the most vigorous plants and set them in the raised bed, watering in each with a liberal dose of fish fertilizer. I was able find foster homes for most of the remaining sprouts; the rest I tilled under.

The plants bloomed and the fruit set. As soon as the first berries blushed pink, I put the bird barrier in place...just the perfect size to protect the raised bed, the cover easily peeled back to access the crop. From three of four pickings I've treated myself to fresh, sliced berries with my morning's dry cereal and had enough fruit leftover for a homemade strawberry-rhubarb pie.

My little patch, its berries recall the memory of Tim Frohning, that mischievous twinkle in his eye, his quick wit, hearty laugh, and gift for helping others. Perhaps it's only imagination but for some reason these strawberries seem extra sweet to me, maybe because of the work I've put into the patch, but I suspect it's the memories of Tim that enhance their sweetness....

Goji, Goji-ing, Gone...or so I Thought...

My brother Kevin has a penchant for horticultural exotics. On his forty acre "experimental" farm in Orting, Washington, (Chippingtwigfarms) you'll find a curious variety of strange plants: bamboo, kiwi fruit, several species of pussy willow, borage (?), horseradish, paw paw, persimmon. Berry esoterics: Aronias, honeyberry, high bush cranberry, goumi berry, jostaberry. The 'Twig farmstand also stocks the more conventional berries in season: blueberries, raspberries, thornless blackberries, blackcaps (NOT thornless), currants, red and black. Then cruising the cutting edge of the envelope, brother forges on with mulberries, elderberries (an elixir for winter's coughs and colds: black elderberry syrup, "winter's tonic,"one might say). And lets not forget the figs and gingseng.

My three brothers and I have gardening in common; each of us, however, gardens at our own level. Kevin, whose goal has been to have a farm stand from which to market locally grown organic produce, gardens more on a commercial scale. The other brothers three are more backyard gardeners with gardens scaled down to family size but always with an excess to share with the neighbors or the local food bank. We pride ourselves on the produce we can lay aside for the winter months...an ant vs. grasshopper sort of thing. Whenever we find a new variety of vegetable, berry or fruit, it's been a family tradition to share our gardening discoveries with each other.

And that's how three years ago at our family Christmas Doin's thanks to Kevin's plant exotica I was given the gift of the Goji. I had never heard of a Goji bush but the novelty of the plant had its appeal. A little research in a seed catalog touted the Goji as: "renowned in China for centuries (should have been the first red flag--excuse the pun) for a nearly boundless list of health benefits (a Goji berry a day keeps the Dr. away")... "...the fruit ('These sweet, super nutritious berries') are high in anti-oxidants and contain more beta-carotene than carrots." "Wow!" I thought, "Only to step into the backyard garden for "a virtual shelf of vitamins, minerals and health aids" and armed with this stunning information, in mid-March I planted the eight inch sprig.

As so often happens in life, beneath the good news, lurks the bad. I should have read the "small print" that followed, especially the sentence that said: "The plants have a dense, spiny, vining habit, and prefer well-drained soil with full sun exposure." The Goji and the garden's sunny, "well-drained" soil hit it off immediately. By summer's end Goji had grown to a sizable bush. A few delicate star-shaped flowers bloomed, sprinkled here and there among the vines. Flowers, yes, but not a single berry. After all, I thought, it's just the first year.

Next spring I pruned the bush back to the ground, only to learn later the Goji fruits on last year's growth.  Goji responded to its bushwhacking with a vengeance. To encourage it to climb, I built a trellis which the spiny tentacles soon covered. Mid-summer pruning did nothing to deter its prodigious growth. By fall Goji had commandeered a sizable portion of the garden, claiming ever more real estate by snaking its spiny feelers every which way.

Wherever the tendrils touched down, Goji established roots, cloned itself like the principal in a sci-fi movie. More blossoms than the year before, yes, but of those little red nubbins of health...not a sign.

On our slim acre I have certain expectations of the plants I tend. All I ask is for reasonable payback. Seems only fair for the watering, pruning, and weeding attention I lavish on the plant, a gardener's quid pro quo, you might say.

For the plants that fail to produce, I'm hanging judge and executioner, and I soon built a solid case against Goji: three years and no"super nutritious berries,"only healthy exercise from pruning the thicket and rooting out the baby Gojiis that sprouted willy nilly like mushrooms. We, Goji and I, had developed an adversarial relationship. Because of its invasive tendencies I referred to Goji as "the bush that ate the garden."

"Goji," I decided, you gotta go," and moved the thicket to the head of my list of spring pruning projects. Come "G" day, I honed the pruning loppers, grabbed a shovel, a new pair of work gloves and went out to do battle. I soon realized my task was like untying the Gordian Knot. The spiny vines were so enmeshed, I had to cut away lengths of vine, unraveling each section by section until I freed it from the grips of its fellows. Finally after an hour of bushwhacking, Goji's trunk hove into view. Shovel at the ready, I moved in for the kill. But Goji, as in the old pioneer saying, had "set down roots" and was not about to relinquish its stubborn grip on the garden's "well-drained soil."With much grunting (me) and roots popping (Goji), we went at it for a quarter of an hour. One final decisive thrust of the spade and with a loud pop, I severed the last of the tap roots and yanked the root ball free.

It was a hard fought battle and out of respect for Goji, I decided to commute its death sentence: instead of the burn pile, give it a second chance off the property on the right-of-way across the road. It would prove a formidable foe against Riley Slough should it flood come fall. It'll serve as a verdant dike, I thought.

Here's the sequel. Big Goji was gone, but all summer long infant Goji remembrances popped up here and there, testimony to the vast root system still lurking in the "well-drained" soil. I extended my hoeing routine to grub out these less than fond memories. Come fall, I thought I'd eradicated Goji's next generation, so imagine my surprise when just the other day I noticed a suspicious type of foliage masquerading as a currant bush: Goji had returned: the gift that keeps on giving.

As brother Kevin shared, there are two varieties of Goji: a summer variety and a late summer. The latter will flower, set, but the fruit will never mature because of our short growing season; however, if you are so inclined to give the Goji a go, be sure to ask your local Master Gardener: "Is this Goji right for me?"

Bees in Blossom Time...

                                       
                          A cherry blossom is wilderness enough if you're a bee.
                                                                                       Charles Kuralt

May Day and my little six tree orchard is a buzz with bees. Just days ago the trees were in stage "pink," buds swelling, blossoms clenched like springs waiting to be tripped by the sun. Today every tree is a canopy of white, each blossom inviting a bee to ravage its nectar and pollen. It's a  symbiosis older than the hills: bees take the pollen and nectar to nourish their brood, build a strong population that will harvest sufficient stores to winter the colony over until next season. In turn, the bees set the fruit that produces the seed to propagate new saplings, and thus the cycle continues. Each blossom must be "kissed" by a bee several times before the fruit is set.

I was raised on an apple ranch among acres of apple and pear trees. Each year my dad, a longtime orchardist, kept a bloom chart in early spring, the figures of which were computed by a special thermometer that recorded the day's high and low temperatures. Dad would check it every evening and reset the instrument for the following day. Although the numbers and degrees escape me, the general idea behind the routine was to record all daily temps over a certain benchmark. When the tally reached a certain number--so many degrees beyond the benchmark--the apple and pear trees would be in full bloom. The accumulated degrees told Dad when to order the honeybee colonies for pollination. This was a long time ago and my memory is fuzzy on the numbers, but I believe Dad said in order to pollinate the season's crop, four colonies per acre of producing orchard were required.

It was always an exciting time when the bees arrived. We kids quickly learned to stay clear of the stands of bees for a day or two as they tended to be cranky from the jostling of their hives and suddenly finding themselves in a strange land. But upon discovering the many acres of beckoning blossoms, the bees quickly set to work with a purpose and dismissed any curious child who may have strayed into their space. I remember my dad saying that when the orchard was in full bloom and the temps in the upper 70's, the bees could set a season's crop in just one day.

May first, May Day. Today I welcomed more honeybees to our one slim acre, a "nuc" hive from Old Sol Bees in Rogue River, Oregon, a replacement colony for my daughter's hive that didn't survive the winter. A nuc (short for "nucleus") is a small colony with an established laying queen, her attendants and a mass of brood, capped and ready to emerge, soon to be a honey producing hive and gives the beekeeper a head start on the season's honey crop. In early afternoon I transferred them to their new home. The day was warm and sunny. No sooner had I set the hive lid in place than the field workers began orienting themselves.

These bees came from out of state, a long ways from home, but bees are genetically imprinted for orientation. Long before Google Earth and GPS bees were finding their way to and from their hive regardless of whatever strange, new location in which they might find themselves. In less than two hours these bees transported from a nearly a thousand miles away had located pollen sources and were already at work packing it back to their new home.

As the bees flit forth and go about their business, I'm thinking: applesauce, apple pie, apple butter, apple cobbler, apple cider, apple slices for the grandsons, apple/quince preserves... cherry pie, cherry cobbler, cherry jelly.... Remarkable creatures, those bees....

I Must Protest! From the Editor's Desk...

Since its inception one tenet of The Ripple's loosely structured mission statement was to avoid topics political. Some readers might think this post hypocritical

in that respect. However, I prefer to view the following post as a health issue subject because it addresses the health of all Americans, in particular our country's school children .

I grew up in the 1960s, a decade of social turmoil that was an amalgam of burgeoning civil rights movements, the war in Vietnam, and a counter-culture whose anti-establishment mantra was "Tune in, Turn on, Drop Out." The conflict in Vietnam was insidious, an all consuming cancer at all levels of American life. Our evening meals were spent watching news feeds from the killing fields: napalm fireballs, helicopter gunships, fire fights, medics treating blood soaked wounded, blood soaked themselves, flagged draped caskets. Casualties mounted; the daily "body count" became as routine as today's stock market report. Enemy soldiers were shot and killed before our very eyes...before we had dessert. In May of 1968 I followed a U.S. Army bus for miles to my hometown, unaware the entire time it was carrying the burial detail for my twenty-year old brother-in-law who did not survive the Tet Offensive.

Yet I never participated in a single protest march. I never joined peers who laid their bodies on freeways, splayed out, snarling traffic. Never once did I think about joining the radical groups that commandeered campus buildings; blowing up buildings was the farthest thing from my mind. I never marched; never carried a sign. I still have my draft card. The first year I taught, four college students were shot and killed on the campus of Kent State U, their lives taken by young Americans much like themselves. The difference being one side wore National Guard uniforms and carried rifles loaded with live ammunition while the other was armed only with words and perhaps a few rocks. You might say I was in survival mode of another kind in those days, studying to pass the next midterm or final exam, struggling to buy groceries, pay the next rent bill or quarter's tuition. During those years of fury and ferment my only protest was against a landlady who refused to fix the leak in our apartment roof.

For thirty-one years I taught in the state's public schools. Toward the end of my career I became aware of  unsettling changes nationwide, especially those that spilled over into my line of work. There was the bomb threat that shut down my high school for a day.

Then a couple of lock downs which, thank god, proved false alarms. Unbeknownst to me a student in one of my classes had a loaded handgun in his backpack.

Fortunately the handgun was later discovered and the student subsequently suspended...a loaded gun concealed in a backpack in my classroom for an entire period. Sometime later a student holding a handgun threatened a colleague in the school parking lot. And a former student was gunned down in Colorado, shot to death in a dispute over a parking space. One year before I retired, the Columbine High shooting occurred, the first high school mass shooting in the Nation's history. For the first time in my career I felt a twinge of fear when a colleague warned me a student whom I had reprimanded in class said that I "...had better watch out." As retirement approached, I told people half jokingly: "I hope I get my gold watch before I get a lead slug."

And then the incident at Sandy Hook Elementary School. School children, many of who had yet to lose their baby teeth, massacred in the sanctity of a public school classroom. This is inexcusable, I thought. These were children. But nothing was done. Those who had the power to do something...anything...those who most certainly had children of their own, any of who, but for good fortune, might have been in a similar elementary school classroom, turned a blind eye to the carnage, the blood, the loss of young lives, the future of our country. And on and on it continued....

And continues yet today. And so I decided to attend my first protest, the March for Our Lives event held over the weekend in Seattle.

I hand printed a sign and joined my daughter and thousands of others who marched nearly two miles ("plodded,"in my case) in support of kids at risk from gun violence. I didn't chant. I didn't cheer. I didn't sing. I held my sign high and let it speak my message. I marched for some sanity in a Nation fraught with gun violence. I marched for its victims and those yet to become victims. I marched for the students I had taught, thankful they never had to flee their classrooms in terror, leaving dead classmates and teachers behind. I marched so the message raised by today's youth will continue to resonate. I marched for them in the hope they effect commonsense change. I marched for the young boy holding a sign that said: "When I grow up, I hope to be alive...."

The Day's Grind...

                                 
                                  Some folks say a tramp won't steal
                                  But I caught two in my cornfield. 
                                  One had a bushel,
                                  The other had a peck.
                                  One had a roastin' ear tied around his neck.

                                        Lloyd "Cowboy" Copas

My dent corn, the entire fifty foot row of it, produced a good yield this past fall. Last year was a crop failure, due in part to a poor choice of seed corn. This past spring I planted a row of "Earth Tones" dent, a short season shelling corn that produced nearly two ears per stalk of mottled, earth tone hues. A year ago I received a corn grinder for a Christmas gift but because my corn crop failed I had no chance to try it out. In late September I shelled out over two gallons of variegated kernels and set aside the cobs for fire starters. Now that I had corn to grind, I was anxious to put my grinder to the test.

The journey from seed to meal was not without adventure, the first of which involved some pesky resident blue jays. As soon as the seed sprouted, the jays would pluck out the sprouts, cast them aside and feast on the kernels. To discourage the blue bandits, I placed a few short stakes down the row and strung mylar tape just above ground level. I knew the jays were after the seed, not the sprout and once the seed had sprouted to six inches or so, it would not be worth their effort to exhume what kernel remained. The strategy worked and over the summer the corn thrived. In fact most stalks were twelve to fifteen feet tall.

As the ears matured, I shucked and brought them inside by the wood stove to dry, which led to the next challenge: shelling the ears. My friend Jim Tunnell happened upon an old corn sheller at our local fair a few years back. He reconditioned the machine, made a few adjustments, and put the contraption to work. Jim also had a grain grinder and made his own flour and cornmeal ("Corn Prone," 3/23/2015). He kindly shelled and ground some of my corn crop that year, but Jim has moved to a different part of the state. The sheller and grinder went with him.

My brother improvised a corn sheller from a short tube of two inch PVC. He set a couple of screws in the tube, screwed them in so the tips protruded a short distance inside. Using an electric drill as a power source and an improvised drill bit on which he impaled the cobs, he spun the ears inside the tube where the set screws dislodged the kernels. Simple enough to build-- if you're handy. But tinkering is not my strong suit, so I resorted to the Old School, hands on method: grip and twist. I would "start" an ear by plucking loose a few kernels at the base of the ear. Then a strong grip with the left hand and repeated twisting with the right, I shelled the corn into a gallon plastic bucket. A dozen ears at a time was about my limit. And my hands were sore for only a day or two after each session. (For you manual corn shellers out there, having a good football game tuned in makes the task far less tedious.)

I discovered the "grip and twist" method yielded a considerable amount of chaff and bits of cob. To remove this excrescence, I went Old School again, waited for a blustery day. Come fall in this neck of the woods one needn't wait long for a stiff breeze to roll in from the southwest. The process is called "winnowing," and you don't have to be handy to put it to use. Holding the grain bucket a foot and a half above a five gallon bucket, I slowly poured the kernels and let the wind work. The chaff drifted away downwind while the heavier grain cascaded into the five gallon bucket debris free. Three or four transfers later and my corn was free of chaff and ready for grinding.

I assembled the grinder, followed the instructions step by step (by the way, if you're not handy, instructions always are) and readied it for action. My brother has a year's experience on me and gave me a tip or two.

He advised that a light grind for the initial run would make successive runs easier. After each run I tightened the grind plate's adjusting screw and cranked the crushed kernels through the auger another time. I experimented with the first hopper, a series of four runs, but found the grind was more like flour than meal.

I backed off the pressure until I found a courser grind to my liking. For the remainder of the first bucket I did a three series run and was satisfied with the result. The final run of each proved a workout. Even in the cold shed I broke a sweat on number three. I felt like an overweight hamster laboring away on its treadmill. Turning the crank proved quite an aerobic workout and my muscles ached for three days after.

My afternoon's sweat session produced nearly five quarts of fragrant meal. The result proved to be an earthy, gray color, I'm sure very much like the mortar and pestle ground product early Native Americans prepared as a foodstuff. And just as those peoples looked ahead to the next harvest, I've already set aside enough seed for this season's cornmeal crop.