The grain cleaning machines of Cedar Isle Farm

October 1st, 2010 by Admin


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Meet the Clipper. She was built in the 1920s and needed quite a bit of work done before she was in working order. As the largest machine on the farm, the Clipper is able to move the most grain per hour; having her around greatly speeds up the job.

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In this shot you can see where Jim has rigged up pipes to catch the chaff and weed seeds that flow out of spouts on the side of the Clipper.

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A series of screens with differently shaped holes each filter out particular types of unwanted material. One with round holes (marked RH in the photo above) filters out weed seeds. A slotted tray removes the chaff.

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The Hero is fed from a large tote bag, which hangs from the tractor bucket (outside the frame). This avoids the need for manual feeding by bucket load, but still requires a watchful eye.

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A modern addition: plywood has been added to reinforce the Clipper's aging hopper.

clean seed

Finally! Clean seed lands in the tote after being fed through the machine. This is the product which leaves the farm and makes it way home to you.

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But what of all that "waste" we filtered out of the original harvest? Not waste at all - this will be used to feed chickens over the winter.

Island event: seed cleaning machinery introduction

April 22nd, 2009 by Admin

If you find yourself in the Victoria area on May 5th, Sharon Rempel of (among many other things) The Garden Institute of BC will be hosting a morning of seed cleaning equipment:

… explore the various types of equipment used to seed, weed, cut, harvest, combine, clean and thresh grain. When we can understand the technology we can start thinking about designing ‘green’ equipment for our ‘local’ food production needs.

May 5, 2009. 9 am to noon. Admission $3 payable to the Society. Gord Taylor and Dave Hopkins from the Saanichton Historical Society will be our guides to the machinery
You can bring your lunch and stay around and visit with the folks after the machinery tour.

Saanich Historical Artifacts Society
7321 Lochside Drive
Saanichton, British Columbia
Canada V8M 1W4
Phone:(250) 652-5522

For more information about the event, contact Sharon Rempel, TGIBC (250) 298-1133, email slrempel@shaw.ca and www.tgibc.org for organization details.