The handle turns a cogged gear that works best when it’s cranked away from the tin funnel-like hopper. The block of wood has screw holes for mounting on the table or wall.

It’s a given that something fits, fills, dribbles, pours, cascades, gets fed, slides through or goes into the conical form. That’s where your collective cerebral chapeaux come into play. Usually logic, reason and common sense are pretty good basic tools to employ in attacking the problem, but we think this time intuition and a ouija board might be of more use.

Is it a pea sheller, a carrot cruncher, a nutcracker, a fabric pinker, a pecan pulverizer, a lime juice extractor, a raisin seeder, a date dissecter, a fig flailer, a cherry stoner, an olive pitter or a cranberry crusher? 

How about a clue? Why not? It has something to do with papers. Agony - ending relief in one month - we promise.
x

Answer to July's "Guess What".?

To all you dumbells out there—including this column—who let a pair of WOODEN dumbells intimidate you, welcome to the club.

We didn’t have the slightest clue either when we first stumbled upon them—so we asked. 

They are an inexpensive homemade primitive answer to a bubble level used in building construction. Only these were used (in Canada) for early mortise and tenon beams in 18th and 19th century barn or home building. By placing the pair (connected by cord) on the horizontal beam, they could tell if it was level when they stopped rolling.

Simple solution to a sometimes annoying problem.*

*Available for acquisition 8/2000