A few years back my uncle sold his dairy farm, he kept the farm, but the dairy left. Dairy farming is a very labour intensive and time consuming way to make a living. Upon selling the farm my uncles hands began to look for other things to do. These things included junk dealing. The man buys things (usually junk) from one person and sells them to someone else making a small but worthwhile profit with the exchanges. He also finds fun things that he keeps and fixes, like a three-wheeled ATV, various snowmobiles, antique children’s toys, you name it. While junk hunting one day my uncle came upon a small piece of real estate for sale. It was an old Mill.
The Mill is timber framed on a stone base and previously, in a forgotten time served its nearby region as a flour mill. It has stood for close to 150 years, it has burned twice. In the recent years before my uncle acquired it it served at as grist mill producing grain for small livestock operations. It was still functioning in that manor up until Sept of 1999.
It sits on a picturesque forest stream just out of view from the concession. The millpond is located on the other side of the road. The water flows through a culvert under the road into the mill.
Two or three months later there was an industrial equipment auction near Niagara Falls, my uncle was in attendance. He placed a bid on a decommissioned hydroelectric turbine. A week After that he had it in his dry shed and over the course of a winter brought it back into original machining tolerances and began to retrofit it into his abandoned flour mill. A generator was purchased and an arrangement was made with township and with ontario hydro.
The Mill has been in operating in its new state for close to 10 years now. At the end of January I will meet with my uncle, at his mill to discuss, draw, measure, and photograph it. I also hope to get a better understanding of the retrofitting process. I'm excited.
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