A working mill

On one of the motorcycle forums that Steve follows he found a photo of a really picturesque old mill about and hour and a half from our house called the Cedar Creek Grist Mill. So today on a whim we headed down to check it out (despite the rainy weather). It was fantastic!  It's only a couple of miles off the interstate, tucked in a little valley. 

The mill was originally build in 1876 but after the logging boom ended, it became a machine shop until it was abandoned in the the 1950s or so. Finally in the 1980s renovations started and brought it back to working condition as a mill. The only original components are the turbine and some parts of the wooden structure. In the past, a dam provided the water power, now due to concerns about salmon the water power comes a flume. 

The mill is now open on weekends and staff by a couple of volunteers who told us about the history and then cranked up the mill so we could watch them grind some soft wheat and some corn. The best part - you can take some home!  We now have samples of stone ground hard wheat flour (for bread), soft wheat flour (for pancakes, cookies, and biscuits), and corn meal! I'm all excited to cook with it, but I leave tomorrow morning for Anchorage. But when I come home, I am going to try to bake using the flours.