Trimmin'

     Here in Owyhee County the farmers are getting ready to harvest their onions. And just like young recruits into the military, these onions need a trim.

     Enter the Onion Topper. It's a nifty implement that turns this:

     Into this:

     As you can see, most of those dried up leaves are gone.

     It's a pretty simple process. First, these flap wheels push the onions onto a conveyor chain. A conveyor chain functions just like a conveyor belt, but the gaps in the chain allow round things like onions to be lifted up a shallow incline, amongst other things.

     Here you see the side of the machine. That big roundy piece on the left is a massive fan. It blows air down that square conduit. There's a fan on each side of the machine.

     That air comes underneath the chain and blows strait up. (That's the other things conveyor chains are handy for as air doesn't blow very well through belts.) The air carries the leaves so that they stand up, where a sickle bar (Which I have highlighted in yellow, since it's so dark in there.) cuts them off and the air blows them out the back.

     The onions, now ready to enter the marketplace with their professional leaf-cuts, just slide out the back in nice neat rows.
     It won't be long till that bright shiny onion up there is on it's way to the sheds. But there's still a few things that need done in the mean time. I'll do my best to tell you all about it.