Not this Sunday.
Oct. 26th, 2014 07:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sister_luckSpent most of the day deskbound.
A while ago on a grey October Sunday we did manage to leave the house - just in time to catch the last demonstration of a working water-mill.
The mill pond.
The wooden water wheel.
The mill was situated right on the border of two counties - the creek powering the mill being the line of no return, literally, as the farmers from across the creek weren't allowed to use the mill and had to travel several miles to use the services of another miller.
They showed us how wheat was turned to flour between the huge millstones, how the sacks of flour were hoisted up (by water power) to the roof space but I didn't take any pictures upstairs. If you want to know what it was like - it was straight from Max and Moritz' final trick.
The guide was enthusiastic and knowledgeable - he is a descendant of the last millers and together with his Dad started restoring the mill.
There were more than enough gears to power the two sets of millstones upstairs, because this mill also doubled as an oil mill producing linseed oil.
The area is well-known for the cultivation of flax - the plant we get linen from which everyone wore around here before cotton became available.
Turning flax into linen is a very complicated process - retting sounds especially tedious & just a little yucky - and this picture shows you the results of some of the steps:
For the oil mill the grindstones stand upright - an edge mill or kollergang:
Getting linseed oil isn't easy either, because you have to heat up the ground seeds before you can press them:
This needs to be stirred and even that is done by water power!
Once you're happy with the mix, it goes into a bag and between two wooden boards which are then put inside the press:
Then the hammer comes down!
The kid was fascinated by it all.
Official site of the Schrofmühle.
A while ago on a grey October Sunday we did manage to leave the house - just in time to catch the last demonstration of a working water-mill.
The mill pond.
The wooden water wheel.
The mill was situated right on the border of two counties - the creek powering the mill being the line of no return, literally, as the farmers from across the creek weren't allowed to use the mill and had to travel several miles to use the services of another miller.
They showed us how wheat was turned to flour between the huge millstones, how the sacks of flour were hoisted up (by water power) to the roof space but I didn't take any pictures upstairs. If you want to know what it was like - it was straight from Max and Moritz' final trick.
The guide was enthusiastic and knowledgeable - he is a descendant of the last millers and together with his Dad started restoring the mill.
There were more than enough gears to power the two sets of millstones upstairs, because this mill also doubled as an oil mill producing linseed oil.
The area is well-known for the cultivation of flax - the plant we get linen from which everyone wore around here before cotton became available.
Turning flax into linen is a very complicated process - retting sounds especially tedious & just a little yucky - and this picture shows you the results of some of the steps:
For the oil mill the grindstones stand upright - an edge mill or kollergang:
Getting linseed oil isn't easy either, because you have to heat up the ground seeds before you can press them:
This needs to be stirred and even that is done by water power!
Once you're happy with the mix, it goes into a bag and between two wooden boards which are then put inside the press:
Then the hammer comes down!
The kid was fascinated by it all.
Official site of the Schrofmühle.
