Time Traveling: Days 3 and 4

Good morning, my friends. The craziness of the week continues today with a trip to the grocery store. Our list is long, and I'm dreading it. Oh well. This too shall pass. And this busy week shall pass. 

There was no time for sewing yesterday, although plenty was accomplished. I might have spent a little time on it late in the day, but I was tired by then. The drive across town was every bit as awful as I expected it to be, taking much longer when I was delayed for ten minutes while a train crossed the road. My GPS had me turning the wrong way on a one-way street, and so I went around the block, only to find an ambulance parked in the middle of the road. That delayed me for another little while. I needed to make a stop at the grocery store before I could head for home. 

So, it was a sight for sore eyes when I arrived home and noticed sunflowers blooming in the vegetable garden.

Of course, I grabbed my camera and went to explore. This is the Procut Gold Lite sunflower.

The Joker sunflower is blooming as well.

It was cloudy yesterday with cooler temperatures. I used the better light for a picture of the purple hydrangea. To its left is some volunteer catnip. Smitty likes to hang out here nibbling on the fresh catnip.

Here's a closer look at the flowers.

The dahlia may open just a little more, but it looks pretty full now. It's about three inches in diameter.

Fuzzy Wuzzy is starting to open as well.

My stop at the grocery store was partly to pick up a few more beets to supplement what I harvested from the garden. The larger ones are from the grocery store. There wasn't time for canning them yesterday, but I cooked and skinned them. Loading them into jars and processing them should be a pretty quick job for today.

So let's travel back in time to last Thursday. It was to be the hottest day of our trip, and so we decided to do some sight-seeing, putting off boating until later in the evening. Our plan was to drive 30 miles to Pomeroy, Washington, where we could see the Pataha Flour Mill. This was the day I surprised myself by looking up a "quilt shop near me," and actually discovering something! Well, f*ck a duck.

We headed out early. As always, we admired the undulating hillsides of the Palouse.

We saw a few barns along the way.

What surprised me was the number of barn quilts we saw. This one is on the side of an old schoolhouse.

Sorry for the blur on this next one.

This one was on the side of a business.

Pomeroy, Washington, is the only incorporated city in Garfield County, Washington.

This is pretty much the whole town in a single picture.

At the far end of that road was the Garfield County Courthouse. It was built in 1901. It is one of only about 20 courthouses in the country where the statue of Justice at the top is not wearing a blindfold.

We stopped at a street corner for the picture of the courthouse. The street was lined with hanging baskets of petunias. When I got out of the truck for the picture, I was greeted by this fellow. It's hard to say for sure, but I think this might be an Anise Swallowtail.

We were early for the quilt shop. At first, I thought it was a shop selling quilts, but no fabric. We stopped in again on our way back and found the fabric portion of the store open. I'll tell you about the quilt shop in tomorrow's post.

It was a hot morning, and we were a little early for the flour mill to open. We got ourselves some iced coffees and then browsed a few gift shops. I didn't see anything I couldn't live without, but I liked these little fur baby charms.

When it was time, we headed just about a mile out of town to the Pataha Flour Mill. 

The information given to us at the campground said this: "The mill was built in 1889 and restoration began in 1988. The mill is home to a gift shop, restaurant, and museum.  A fascinating place to wander, the 3 story mill is chocked full of history and is worth a visit! Well, count me in! Here's what the structure looks like from the outside.

Inside, we found this information.

Here's a cut-away image of the workings of the structure. Below that, you'll find a series of pictures identifying the features of the cutaway. I'd be hard pressed to tell you how it all works, but perhaps the explanatory signs will help. They were small to read, and so I've cropped them into pieces to make them larger.

This next photo shows the mill pond in relationship to the mill. A sign inside informed us there was 200 feet of elevation change for water to reach the mill by way of a flume.

And here's one last bit of information. Sorry about the bright flash. It was very dark inside, and I had to use it.

So let's just take a walk around, but please watch your step.

Mike was in heaven here with all these huge wheels and giant drive belts.

This is an enormous axle.

I took so many pictures in here it wasn't even funny. I'm only posting the ones I can describe.

These next machines were identified by the letter "R" in the cutaway image above.

This was where the flour was bagged.

Mike was interested in the thickness of the walls of this safe.

It was located in a very messy replica of an office. I'm embarrassed to say I've actually used a typewriter that looks like that. Yes, I'm very, very old. I'm even older now than I was when I wrote those words.

And now I'm even older. You are too. You'll be even older when you finish reading this post.😬

This is the tachometer, identified by the letter "E" in the cutaway above.

And check out this sewing machine. It looks very industrial.

There was no information about this, but its "Speedbinder" name would indicate it had something to do with binding...flour sacks, maybe? You can see a roll of binding in the image below. There are also two tall thread spindles there.

Think about the dust generated by the mill. Mike told me that the dust can create static electricity that can result in explosive fires. It doesn't seem as if this bucket "fire extinguisher" would have been of much use.

The workings of the mill ran from the basement to the third level. As we stood on the third level, I took this picture looking down.

The mill is also a museum. I enjoyed seeing the various flour sacks.

There were also other unrelated collections. Here is a wall of branding irons.

There were antique children's toys.

And zillions of cameras of all kinds. There were at least four whole walls with nothing but cameras.

A few antique quilts.

This one should have been displayed better. The sign said it was made in 1855.

We had lunch at the restaurant. You'll notice there are no prices on the menu. That's because you can pay whatever you think the meal is worth. Mike had "The Rigsby" in the middle of the menu. I had the 

wrap hidden under the bright flash glare.

And then we headed back to the quilt shop where I picked up a regional print. I absolutely promise to tell you about the quilt shop in tomorrow's post. 

It was mid-afternoon by the time we made it back to the campground. We waited until the sun was lower in the sky before heading out on the boat. It was the hottest day we encountered on our trip. 

The next morning, we headed for home. We were able to get the boat out of the water with much more finesse than when we put it in, fortunately. The harvest was just getting started. (Indeed, the woman at the quilt shop told me her "better half" was hard at work on the harvest.)

It's hard to describe the vastness of the Palouse. There is grain growing in every direction all the way to the horizon as far as the eye can see.

We crossed over the Columbia River twice. The second time brought us across the state line into Oregon. Home, sweet home.

There was a fire on the Washington side of the Columbia Gorge the week before our trip. We could see some of the burned out area as we passed by. You can see a few browned trees in the image below. It doesn't appear the fire did as much damage as the one on the Oregon side back in 2017.

Nevertheless, it was disconcerting to note the smoke on the Washington side, just a few miles down the road. I never heard more about this, and so we're assuming it didn't turn into anything.

And now Tiny House #28 has been released. I'm officially behind on these. I'll just keep working away at them an hour at a time until they're finished.

So I'll be heading out for my grocery shopping trip soon. After that I have a housekeeping chore, flower pots to water, and beets to process. I'm still hoping to have some sewing time later this afternoon.