Local organic farmer Peggy Holmes conducted a three-week series of workshops on making bread, starting with threshing and winnowing wheat and rye reaped from her own fields. She started by showing the Chillis three kinds of grain: oats, wheat, and rye. She discussed some grain terminology, and then we got to work. The first task was to remove the seed heads from the stalks, and thresh them by rubbing them between our hands so that the husks came off. (If we had a bigger harvest to deal with, we would have used a larger-scale method.) We winnowed away the chaff by pouring the grains back and forth in front of a small fan, and were left with a bowl of (mostly) clean kernels.
The next week it was time to grind the grain into flour. This took some serious muscle!
Finally, it was time to enjoy the fruits of our labor and bake some bread. Peggy taught us about kneading and letting the dough rise. Everyone got to try their hand, and we baked some dough Peggy had prepared earlier so it would have time to rise. Later, we baked our risen dough and froze the loaves for future enjoyment. Unlike the little red hen, we decided to share slices of fresh bread with some Green Chillis who showed up that day, even though they hadn't sweated over winnowing, threshing, and grinding the wheat at the earlier sessions... At least they helped knead!