Among the buildings I have shown you, this one is unique! It was hard for me to believe at first, but one day when I stopped into the Walter's Falls Feed Mill to buy our birdseed I got into conversation and was astonished to learn that this was one of the only water-powered feedmills left in Ontario! Not only that, but we could get a tour around it. I promptly requested one for my little photography group, and we went there in the summer of 2014.
Stepping into the mill itself was like stepping back in time. There was a constant loud whump-whump-whump from the machinery and I wondered just how it all worked.
When we arrived for our tour one of the staff took a few minutes out of his time to show us around, and we started at the mill pond. This was a surprise; you can't even see it from the road and it's quite large.
Here the pipe leaves the mill dam and heads downslope to the mill.
There's a standpipe just before the mill to provide a pressure relief valve. If pressure builds up, water simply rises in that stand pipe. At the end of the day when the mill shuts down, this provides a safe outlet.
These are the millwheels. The water spins the bottom horizontal wheel; that wheel spins the top vertical wheel, which runs all the belts in the mill.
I managed this shot with a flash, showing the two big wheels.
Believe it or not, these are all wooden teeth, each made out of hard maple, and fitted separately into the wheels. Every morning before turning things on the miller greases these gears and tightens each tooth to be sure they're ready for the day's work.
It's from here that a series of large and small belts run the machinery. The actual grain being ground is of course all out of sight inside the pipes for safety.
A series of these chutes enable the mill to grind and bag its different products - including the birdseed we bought. Below are the final products, all stacked and ready for purchase.
I had quite an interesting time retrieving these pictures for this post, as I don't have the original files. My only copies are from my original two posts in early October, 2014. So I saved the images from those posts 'backwards' so to speak, to my photo files, then I was able to edit them, mainly to brighten them to create better images. I tried dropping them in the post initially, but that didn't work. Saving them to my photo file did. The ten year old photos are saved!
Excellent work on reposting photos from old blogs. I've sometimes been able to do so with cut/paste. I love seeing how watermills work...there are many waterwheels next to them in our area...or once were. Nothing like having falling water, either by making a dam, or just using the height flowing downhill in a chute to provide power. The Europeans who settled early in the new world had to envision many watermills which became the hub of the beginnings of our civilizations. Without grinding of grain to make flour, there is little set on the table but vegetables and game. Without cutting of lumber in lumber mills, it's a very slow process to build buildings.
ReplyDeleteThis was a fascinating tour of the mill, and I learned a great deal of information I didn't know before. Thank you for taking the time to redo these pictures. They are wonderful.
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing how long that the old machinery lasted, wooden or metal. Unlike things that are produced these days.
ReplyDeleteGood work with the photos!
You did a great job saving the old photos. I have not been as successful!
ReplyDeleteFascinating, and what technology all well before any digital help. Very astute and clever men who designed and then manufactured all those working parts that had to fit together perfectly.
ReplyDeleteWonderful place. Those wooden gearwheels are also present in almost every watermill and windmill I've seen here; they are a safety feature apparently - if the mechanism jams the wooden teeth just pop off before the whole mill is wrecked.
ReplyDeleteThat was a treat for you then and for us now.
ReplyDeleteNice photos of a fast disappearing technology.
ReplyDeleteWell done finding the photos! This was a treat.
ReplyDeleteI just came across this post wile doing some research for a Mills of Ontario photo project. Nice work FG, glad that you could recover the photos.
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