Finished up the last day of dancing at the White Water Whirl early this afternoon. It was a wonderful time seeing everyone and doing some really good dancing. Sundays are always fun times at these weekend dances because that is when the truly hardcore dancers stick around for those last pure moments of fun. The band always seems to be hotter, the caller is more relaxed and by this time you have had enough time to figure out the dancing styles of a lot of the other dancers, so it is much easier to make everything work. Of course, you are also a lot more tired, and today was no different. Still; it was a lot of fun and it will be hard to go for nearly 3 weeks before the next big dance weekend. Will just have to go out and find some regular weekly dances to attend instead.

   Will be packing up and heading further north in the morning. Emma, my GPS, says it is almost 700 miles to our next destination, an RV park just north of  Johnstown, NY. The plan is to take at least two days to get there, but it may actually take longer. There is no real hurry to get there at any specific time so if something interesting pops up along the way it won't be to hard to stop and check it out. Otherwise, life is really good right now. My feet still hurt a bit as do other parts of my anatomy, but a couple ibuprofen and a couple days of rest will make that all better again. Looking forward to seeing the place where some of my ancestors settled more than 200 years ago. But for now I think it is time to go get some sleep.

   Here are a few interior pictures of the Grist Mill I posted exterior photos of a couple of days ago. Sorry they are separated by a couple of days, but didn't get these pictures until yesterday. Will try to explain what is going on in each as best I can.

The main grinding floor. On the left is the grinding stone to grind wheat and the one on the right is the one to  grind corn. Didn't know this but the wheat stone needs to be heavier, 1,200 lbs, versus the corn stone at about 1,000 lbs because of the size and hardness of the seed. The wooden contraption in the middle of the picture is a stone fork or stone crane, used to lift the stones up to either be replaced or resharpened. The stones needed to be resharpened, or 'dressed', about every 8 years. The corn stone is overlaid with a wooden case that helps hold the grain in as it is pushed out from between the stones and feeds it into a meal spout where it can be bagged. On top of it all is a wooden hopper where the grain is fed into the stones through a central hollow called the 'damsel'.  On the back wall just to the left of the corn stone is the metal wheel that was turned to open or close the sluice gate outside in the wooden flume. This allowed more or less water to run over the water wheel and was a method of controlling the speed of the machinery. The large lever to the right of the wheat wheel is what would engage the idler gear below the deck and push it into the path of the main power gear connected to the water wheel.

A closer view of the wheat stone with the metal ring used to lift it off. The complete set up for grinding is made up of two stones, the bed stone, on the bottom, which does not turn, and the runner stone on top that does. Both have a series of groves cut into them which funnel the grain down into progressively smaller sections until it is finally small enough to grind the individual seeds. In the background on the left is the wooden vat that fits over the runner stone. Also note the stone crane to lift the stone if needed.

A closer view of the corn stone. The metal wheel on the floor just to the left of the wooden vat was used to adjust the gap between the two stones and hence how course or fine the grind would be. On the front of the vat was a little wooden cup used to take a sample of the grind to see if it was what the customer wanted. On the other end was a wooden plug to block the hole in the vat. Note the octagonal wooden shaft and wooden gears on the right side of the picture.

A closer view of the wooden gears from the last photo. When the mill was actually in use the grain that was ground would actually go from the grinding floor to the next floor up by means of a primitive hoist mechanism and dropped into a sifting machine. Here the grain was sifted into various grades for different uses. These wooden gears not only supplied the power to lift the grain up to the second floor but also powered the sifting machine.

Here we are back on the first floor and you can see 4 chutes from the sifting machine upstairs. In the case of ground corn you would of had, from left to right, corn flour, corn meal, grits and on the far right, chicken or animal feed. Also against the wall you can see part of the leather belt with metal cups sewn on that was used to hoist milled grain from the grinding stone to the sifting machine.

Below the grinding floor you can barely make out the main drive wheel that was connected directly to the water wheel outside. An idler wheel would of sat above this and been engaged by a lever from the floor above. Power would of been transferred to various turning parts via rubber or leather belts.The twisted belt in this photo goes to the drive shaft under the wheat stone.

This is the main drive shaft where most of the belts for various machines are attached. This big belt feeds the shaft that turns the corn stone to the right.

Here we see the belt from the last photo as it turns around the shaft for the corn stone above.

Noticed that when they rebuilt this mill back in 1976 they left the old knob and tube wiring in place. They did replace the bare electrical wires with ones that had some form of insulation on them so you didn't have as great of a chance of shorting something out accidentally and burning the place down. Reminded me of some of the old wiring in the last two houses I lived in. But of course, it had all been replaced at some point.... or had it?