Posted By FarmerJ on November 16, 2008

The date is May 15, 2008.  The time is, oh, 7:00 p.m.-ish.  Darling Husbie and I are in our empty garden plot trying to stick a few seeds into the ground before leaving for twelve days.  I was a little less than enthused about planting seeds at that particular moment ~ I still had ten lists of to-do’s that needed completed before we left…that, and the amazing Nebraska sky was threatening a wonderful thunderstorm.  Nonetheless, Husbie and I planted our first three rows of popcorn on Prairie Farmstead soil.  His job was to make the hole; my job was to drop in two seed kernels; and his job was to cover the hole back up.  We didn’t have to worry about watering.  That amazing Nebraska sky took care of that for us.  Husbie was right, too.  We returned almost two weeks later to find little popcorn babies three and four inches high already.

Fast forward to this past Thursday.  The girls and I took advantage of a beautiful November afternoon and ‘cleaned’ the popcorn.  Darling Husbie had harvested the corn from the garden and removed the husks in late September.  I sewed [actually, I'm not sure my feeble attempts at pushing needle and thread through cloth can be categorized as sewing, but...] mesh bags using some lovely purple tulle left over from our friends’ wedding to store and hang the cobs in until they completely dried.  Well, it was finally time.  Husbie shelled the corn from the cobs by hand ~ and he earned the raw, red skin to prove it.  He put a pair of gloves on half-way through the first bag, but I think by then the damage had been done.  He toughed it out, though, like he always does.  Seeing just how abrasive those corn cobs can be makes me especially appreciative of those rolls of Scott 1000!  We fed the shelled out cobs to the Log Monster, aka the wood stove.  A mild flavor of sweet revenge for the pain they had caused my Lovie.

Husbie’s pan of gold along with a few more cobs that need shelled.
He’s about 3/4 of the way finished at this point ~ the bowl is 7″ deep.

I read over at Ten Things Farm of a nifty technique to easily clean away the unwanted corn silk, pieces of cob and other little particles that end up in the bowl along with the good kernels ~ it’s called winnowing…which utilizes the movement of air to blow away the impurities.  Splendid!  If there is one thing we have here in Nebraska, it’s the movement of air.  In fact, sometimes there’s a little too much movement of air.  We’ve been having several days of sustained winds at 25 – 35 mph with gusts up to 45 mph.  Trying to winnow popcorn in that kind of air movement could be downright problematical ~ as in, my kernels would end up in Kansas!  But, luckily Thursday brought with it a calm breeze of 10 – 15 mph winds and it was time to cease the moment.

I used two colanders to pour a few cups of kernels at a time back and forth ~ good, heavy kernels fell into the colander sitting on the table while the breeze whisked away all the little pesky stuff.  It worked like a charm!  I only lost a few good kernels due to a couple of surprise gusts which were a little stronger than ideal winnowing conditions.  I thank you, L at Ten Things Farm.  If not for your tip, I would most certainly still be painstakingly sifting and sorting!

When the colanders came to rest and the kernels settled, we ended up with a bountiful harvest of 9.75 lbs of fresh, homegrown popcorn ~ all from a hasty planting of three rows approximately 15′ long.  Yes, there is much talk of expanding the popcorn plantation come spring time!

Now for some kettle corn, caramel corn, buttered popcorn, popcorn balls, popcorn shrimp, shrimp gumbo ~ no, wait, I got off track…

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