Got off to a slow start this morning. Woke up around 6:00 with my nose all plugged up and a throbbing headache. Since it's spring and the wind was blowing all night, and I hadn't had anything to drink last night, it seemed logical to think that my allergies had finally caught up with me. So I popped a couple of pills and went back to sleep for a couple more hours. Next thing I know it is after 11:00 and it is starting to rain outside. Lucky for me it doesn't take long to pick up and leave anymore so I was all hooked up and over at the 'dump' site in less than 30 mins.

    It rained on me, sometimes very hard, all the way down into Virginia. So much for washing the truck last night.... but then it was covered with a layer of green pollen this morning anyway. Took the back roads mostly, as there wasn't all that much of a hurry to get to where I was going. Even then I still managed to get into Fairy Stone State Park before 5:00 p.m. Nobody here when I arrived, I have since noted that there is a camp host trailer on the other side of the campground, but otherwise I'm the only one here. Got the trailer set up with no problem, it even stopped raining for that part of the trip, other than having to do a little extra leveling it wasn't to hard to do. One of the park rangers stopped by to check me out but he told me to just go up to the office in the morning and check in as I wanted to stay for at least a week and he didn't think it was worthwhile to fill out the paper work tonight as well as tomorrow.

    A bowl of chili tasted pretty good this evening as the rain started up again and the temperature started to drop. Right now I'm sipping on a cup of hot tea and listening to the rain on the roof and the thunder in the distance. One really good piece of news is that the roof has hardly leaked at all through these many hours of rain. So I can assume that the duct tape I used the other day has worked pretty well and now I'll be able to figure out a more permanent solution. For today though I'm going to leave you with a few pictures from last week when I visited Glade Creek Grist Mill while staying in Fayetteville, WV.

Glade Creek Grist Mill in Babcock State Park

April 1 and 4, 2013

Looking up river at Glade Creek Grist Mill. Located in Babcock State Park in West  Virginia, this mill is actually a compilation of three different mills from the area. The oldest parts date to the 1850's with most of the rest from the 1890's. It is still a working mill and you can see it run on most Saturdays and Sundays throughout the year.

Another view. You can imagine that this mill is photographed pretty often.

I took lots of pictures, obviously, but couldn't decide on any one photo. Was hoping that some of you might vote for the one you like best.... if any.

One last one from this perspective.

A picture that shows the water wheel and water flume.

A view from under the bridge over Glade Creek.

The wooden water flume that supplies water and power to the water wheel on the side of the mill. Originally made completely out of rough sawn wood it looks like additional metal fasteners were added later to help hold it all together.

 

A close up view of the through mortise and tenon joint that was used to hold the wooden water flume together. Note the addition of a wooden peg that pinned it all together.

The front facade of the mill.

The next few photo's of the inside of the mill are from my visit last year. Here is one of the two grinding stones. This one is for grinding corn and only weighs in at about 1,000 lbs. Inside the wooden vat is the upper 'runner' stone that turns and the lower 'bed' stone that doesn't. Corn is fed in through a hole in the center of the upper stone via the hopper on top. A series of radial grooves in the stone catch and grind the grain as the grooves become smaller and smaller as they near the edge. The wooden vat catches the meal and drops it into a box below the stone.

The other stone set up is for grinding wheat and other harder grains and is therefore much heavier. About 1,200 lbs. What I thought was interesting though was the wooden 'stone crane' with hooks that was used to lift the upper stone off when the stone had to be 'sharpened'. (Re-grooved). Once sharp a pair of stones was good for about 8 years of use before resharpening, based on typical use.

It just amazes me that you can make joints that can produce such power out of wood. This shaft drove a vacuum pump that drew the corn meal up to the 2nd floor where it would be sifted into 4 different sizes and uses.

Finally a little bit of metal in the whole structure. This shaft would go up through the bed stone and turn the runner stone above.

A couple final shots of a couple of the water falls. I tried retarding the shutter speed a bit on these to get more of a flowing water feel.... and then held really, really still. These 3 are the only ones out of more than 30 that even came out. I sure do like digital cameras.