For the past seven weeks I have been working on a graduate student research project at school. This has required me to attain a certain level of proficiency with the Thomas-Wiley Laboratory Mill. Basically, I take bag numer one of Calf Startena. I pour said bag into the hopper. I turn on the mill, which basically sounds like a jet engine firing up inside of a tunnel. The six blades of death behind the steel doorpanel rip, shred and mash the feed into sawdust. Dust which blows everywhere. It gets in my hair, my eyelashes, my eyebrows, my clothes, my sunglasses, my watch, my shoes…everywhere. After grinding I have to take the mill apart and blow out all the debris with a air compressor hose, thus sending even more clouds of glorious dust spinning into the air.
Each of these samples takes 15 minutes to grind. Multiply that by 12 samples per calf with 23 calves = 276 samples = 69 hours = 2.875 days of grinding. However, this work is so utterly depressing and lonely and boring and just downright dirty, that it took me about six weeks. Heh…
But, glory be to God…I AM DONE FOREVER!!!!!
