Corn Cob Hunting, anybody?!

TinaNWonderland · #1 09/29/04, 10:22 PM

The kids and I went corn cob hunthing today in the field beside the house, since my grandfather has just finished combining. Found 2 sacks full in about 20 minutes.

I have a cool recipe for corn cob jelly I'm dying to try out and we're gonna feed the corn that is stuck to some of them to the chickens and goats. Plus, it was fun since it was a beautiful day here!

I was just wondering if anybody goes treasure hunting in the cornfield? And does anybody have any other good uses for corncobs?

GrannieD · #2 09/29/04, 11:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TinaNWonderland

The kids and I went corn cob hunthing today in the field beside the house, since my grandfather has just finished combining. Found 2 sacks full in about 20 minutes.

I have a cool recipe for corn cob jelly I'm dying to try out and we're gonna feed the corn that is stuck to some of them to the chickens and goats. Plus, it was fun since it was a beautiful day here!

I was just wondering if anybody goes treasure hunting in the cornfield? And does anybody have any other good uses for corncobs?

Our family used them to start the fire in the kitchen cook stove every morning...a 5 gal bucket full behind the stove was one of the kids chores...The jelly was also one of the treats. What we didn't pick up in the field after the picker we got when we shelled the corn for the chickens in the evening while listening to the radio...Good times for the larger families on the farm.. Have fun! GrannieD

uncle Will in In. · #3 09/30/04, 03:45 AM

We done pretty much what GrannieD did. Only we threw the ears of corn out to the chickens, and they had to do their own shelling. When I fed, watered, and gathered the eggs each evening I also went around and picked up the naked corncobs for starting the fire. In hot weather Mon used them in the cookstove to cook quick meals. That way the fire didn't last very long and heat up the house. We had gobs of all kinds of jelly, but not corncob jelly. After the hens tromped around over them for a day, I don't need to tell you why it was never considered.
I spent a lot of days in the cornfield shucking corn wearing a shucking hook on my hand while wearing shucking gloves. I would be surprised if you ever seen or even heard of them. They were always white and made of heavy canvas material. What made them shucking gloves however, was the extra thumb. You could wear them upside down on the other hand when they started to wear through on the original down side. The wagon we shucked into was pulled by horses, and had a bang board on the far side to keep you from throwing the ears clear over the wagon. We didn't waste time looking where we were throwing the ears when we were shucking. A good corn shucker could shuck a hundred bushel a day and shovel both wagon loads into the crib. The horses drove themselves. They would follow the row you started them across the field on, and stopped and started when you yelled giddyup, then stopped when you yelled whoa. At least they were supposed to. My stepdad and I were shucking one morning and the young team had spent all night tied in their stalls in the barn. They had too much energy stored up to stand around very much. They would start when we yelled, but might go 50 feet too far before they would stop. My stepdad got tired of having to throw the corn so far to hit the wagon so as they went past us after he yelled Whoa a couple times, he jumped on the back of the wagon and hurried to the front. He grabbed the lines and used the long ends to whack them across their rear ends. As I stood there they were soon out of sight in the standing corn. I could hear them and see my stepdads head sticking above the corn as they came back across the field about 60 rows away. He was flyin' low. They came on around the field and back to where I was standing. All the rest of the morning, one whoa was all it took to get them to stop!

Shygal · #4 09/30/04, 06:06 AM

Corn cob jelly?

stumpyacres · #5 09/30/04, 08:34 AM

OMG I haven't sone that in years!

Chas in Me · #6 09/30/04, 11:14 AM

Good story uncle will. I enjoy hearing how things were done in other places and times.

Windy in Kansas · #7 09/30/04, 03:05 PM

Uh I hate to be the party pooper, but aren't you supposed to use sweet corn cobs for corn cob jelly? Any I've had was made from them, not field corn.

Michael W. Smith · #8 09/30/04, 04:08 PM

No, I don't go corn cob hunting, I go corn hunting. You would be surprised how even the new, best of everything corn picking machines miss ears of corn. Alot of corn is left when making turns. Just walking around in the field on a nice fall day gleaning what corn you can for your critters is nice. Ask any farmer who has harvested his corn field if he would mind you gleaning what's left. Most are happy to have you get what is left as whatever the birds and other critters miss will grow next year. Might not be too bad if the farmer plants corn again, but if he plants something else, all that volunteer corn is going to stand out!

TinaNWonderland · #9 09/30/04, 10:23 PM

Thanks for sharing the stories of your "corn cob experiences"! I love hearing about the different ways things are done.

Actually, the red dried field corn type of cobs are preferred for making the jelly. That is what is called for by name in most of the searches you do for the recipe on the internet. But you can use different kinds of cobs to get different flavors of jelly. The field corn cobs are supposed to make a jelly that tastes sort of like a cross between apple jelly and honey. I have even heard of someone making it with fresh cobs they had to cut the juicy kernal off of, but I don't know how that would turn out.

The kids and I went back out there today to pick up ears that were still full of corn, and we have almost a whole sack full of shelled corn for the goats and chickens. I think it is neat to have the kids help "Pick off" the kernels, as they say, to get a feel for how things were done in the old days.

Tomorrow we're gonna make the jelly, which should be fun! For the lady that had never heard of it, you boil about 12 corn cobs (dried, rinsed off, and with all the corn removed), then strain it to get about 3 or 4 cups of "juice" aka corn cob water. Then you add sugar and pectin and proceed like making any other type of jelly.

**Ross** · #10 10/01/04, 08:08 AM

Ummm maybe Grandpa needs to do some work or adjustments on the ol combine! While you're offering that dandy advcie ask him what variety of feild corn he grew. Some grow GM types not tested for human consumption!

amelia · #11 10/01/04, 08:48 AM

Do you, by any chance, have an outhouse?