My milling anniversary I spent Saturday, Sunday, and Monday grinding wheat and corn and answering questions and frying up hushpuppies at the West Point on the Eno gristmill. It was the festival weekend - and last year's festival was when I wandered into the mill and decided I HAD to come volunteer there.

So a year later and I finally got to see the big stones in operation. Do they ever put a noticeable drag on the waterwheel! I got to smell burning stone :-/ and learned to set the stone distance right, wrestled with the belt/shaft mechanism, poured sacks and buckets of corn, choked myself on flour dust, talked 'till my throat was sore, drove everyone nuts with my 'bright ideas', teased the youngsters, sifted grits, sacked meal, and just generally had a great time. Milling is one of those arts which can be learned to a rough approximation quickly but which teaches you something new every time you think you've got it down. It's so cool to run a handfull of grits across your palm and really notice whether they are too meal-y or too bran-y or juuust right. It's also wonderful to walk into the mill and feel at home there with the clacking belts and stones, and to walk under the belts with bucket of corn in one hand and remember to duck around the moving belts, even when bone-tired :)

As fun as it was firing up the big stones, I appreciate the Meadows Mill even more than I did before - it's the one I'm leaning on for this picture. What a reliable, sweet piece of machinery.

It was HOT, which is why I am beet-red in this picture, which was taken on the hushpuppy-frying day (Monday). I took some more pictures, most of which are of fellow workers or people enjoying my hushpuppies, but if anyone really wants to see them, they're here.    ¶ 7:20 PM