I Love Finding Stuff Like This!

   Shew! Is everybody surviving the heat? It's so hot in our house. Ken and I have been grateful for our 'Fun Days' just to have a chance to relax in some air conditioning! Our cats don't seem to be bothered by the heat, and the turtle is probably glad winter is over, and reveling in the warmth. 

  We got our second dose of the Covid-19 vaccine earlier this month. I still want to say that I fully support getting the vaccine so we can kill this virus off. I do have to also say that we had somewhat the same reaction this time as the first time. We both ended the day with fevers, and the next day we felt bad, (but not as bad as the first time.), and slept on and off all day. (Well, I did. Ken had to go to work in the evening.) My fever wasn't quite as high this time, (The highest it got was about 102.8 this time.), but I think I actually had a bit of an hallucination. I was dreaming that Fuzz, (who has moved out again), was here, and that there was a giant screen TV at the foot of my bed. Fuzz was standing behind it, and we were talking about the show that was playing. I woke up, but thought it was still happening. I couldn't get my eyes open though, and kept calling out, "Fuzz! Fuzz?!" It took me a while to realize that I don't have a giant screen TV at the foot of my bed, and that Fuzz wasn't here. I did finally get myself straightened out, and it was at that point that I decided I needed to do something about my fever! I got a wet wash cloth for my face and drank a lot of water!

  On one of our Fun Days recently I found this amazing thing.

It's a miniature wheat thresher!

Threshing machines are used to separate the wheat from the chaff. In other words, it separates the seeds from the stalks and dry, inedible stuff that covers the seeds.

Put the wheat in the funnely bit at the top...I think.

It's slightly smaller than 1/6 scale, comparing it to Tammy World, the doll 11 year old.

Both of them are a bit deep in the grass.

But I'm not going to be too picky. I love things like this. Who would have thought I'd come across a mini threshing machine?

"You put the wheat in here?" Yes. Now step back.

I'm not sure what that little flippy handle does. It doesn't turn all the way, just wiggles back and forth. Fuzz says it opens and closes the hole in the funnely thing.

"Like this?" Will you please?!

There's a handle on both sides there.

The other handle actually turns, making the wheel turn. 

"This handle?" Yes!

If I had some miniature wheat I could really...thresh it? (Yes. That is what it's called.)

"And this paddle thing inside turns?" Yes! Keep your hands out of there!

"Why?"

I think the hole is just so you can see the paddle thing. I don't think real ones have the hole.

The  wheat slides out on this slanted part.

I don't see how putting the wheat in the funnely thing gets it to the tumbly drum thing.

  At first I was  wondering, why did someone make this, and if you went to all that work, why would you donate it to Goodwill? Was it made for a school project? If so, that was one talented school kid. It seems very professionally made, but it's obviously handmade.  Then I figured out that it's made of bamboo, not wood. I found a similar one on line, also made from bamboo. It had some kind of Asian writing on it. (Mine has no writing.) Considering it's Asian origin, is it not a wheat thresher, but a rice thresher? Do they use things like this for rice too? If anybody knows anything about such things, let me know.