Moose and Ink

Nope, just a corn sheller.  One of the crops we grew this year was corn.  In past years, it’s just been popcorn but this year Steph decided to try another variety that will eventually be ground up for flour.  The cobs have been sitting in the basement all winter and Steph decided today was the day to get the work done.

See, the sheller is clamped to the board to hold it steady.  One person then holds the board in a plastic tub while the other person feeds corn cobs into the top.  Cranking on a handle pulls the cobs down and rubs them violently against some knobby plates that tear the kernels off.  Nice and convenient.

In a perfect world, the kernels drop right into the tub.  In reality, they act as though they’ve been shot out of a cannon like pint-sized grapeshot.  The stuff flies everywhere – ricocheting off walls, winging the cat, landing on the other side of the living room, and causing grievous injury to the poor sap charged with holding the sheller steady.

When we weren’t wounding each other or the household pets, we headed out to the fish hatchery to catch a glimpse of the local bald eagles nest.  This is the nest made famous by the Eagle Cam.  In person it’s even more impressive.  It was a lot larger than I expected it to be, probably 7 or 8 feet across.

Oh, if you do check it out?  Don’t leave the site open all day.  It’s sucking a tremendous amount of bandwidth from the college and we’d rather use that for, oh, say, educational purposes.  Thanks.