Threshing about

Threshing is the labour of the month for August.  Presumably it is threshing the grain that was planted in October and harvested in July.  Perhaps it is grain to be ground into flour for bread.  It seems to me an extraordinary laborious process - but one I wanted to try.

First find my wheat (since I haven't grown any myself).  No-one in Brindle appears to have grown milling wheat this year - there's plenty of barley but its low gluten content means its not a first choice grain for bread.  However there's plenty of wheat in Breamore just now being harvested.  Sir Edward kindly let me cut a sheaf from one of his fields, which I threshed (in a pillowcase beaten against a wall).  The winnowing wasn't so easy, there wasn't much of a breeze, so I huffed and puffed to remove the dust and chaff.