On Tuesday, we did our usual drive by the Corn Palace to see if any progress had taken place on the new murals. We hit the jackpot--not only was there progress, they were busy working on it, so we really got to see how it all comes together.
Using nail guns, they put six or seven nails in each vertically-sliced half ear of corn. We talked to Dan and Larry (the guys doing the work and in the picture with Ellen) and learned that they put that many nails in each ear to prevent the ears from curling up as they dry.
The ears are vertically sliced by a machine into which one ear is hand fed at a time. So, it is a long process. The last photo shows the eight colors (other than yellow) sorted into bins.
We had a nice talk with Dan and Larry and they were happy to show us the behind-the-scenes production process. Before we were done, they offered us jobs working on their crew. Their college help (20 students) had gone back to school, so they needed help. The only reason we declined the employment offer is because it had dropped to 40 degrees in Mitchell, SD, that morning and we do not accept employment offers in locations where it is that cold in September.
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