thresher

it's saturday and i have errands to run...but nowhere i need to go is open yet so i decided to start threshing the rye so there is some progress for Jean and i...lacking a threshing room and yoked oxen to trample the grain i am reduced to taking individual ears, crushing them, and teasing the grain out of the husks by hand ( i actually use both hands but i had to take photos )...it is something of a tedious process and time consuming as well...a simple task, it leaves a lot of room for thought and i was thinking to myself as i was working " why would anyone do this? what would make people go to all this trouble?" agriculture is not a pastime for the indolent...even the amateur back yard stuff i am up to...it is time consuming, physical at times, and worrisome ( i am watering and wondering what the critters are up to behind my sleeping back )..the answer i keep coming back to is one that has been well established in anthropological circles ( but not agreed on...they never agree about anything...except that human universals could only be based in biological need and function, not in any sort of "human nature"..there is room for debate here ) for a while...they were hungry...population pressures outpaced carrying capacity for foragers and they started growing food to feed themselves...social stratification soon followed...a devil's bargain...the upshot is that about forty rye ears rendered 1 1/8 pounces of grain, chaff, and awns...the grain will have to be winnowed yet...that will have to wait for a breezy day and someone else to work the camera.