Cattle Squisher

In the field the students affectionately called one of the features a Cattle Squisher. I giggled at the time, "knowing" it was actually called a Squeeze Chute, but I am the one who has been schooled. Squeeze chute may be a more modern name in the United States. As early agriculture station brochures found in the Internet Archive suggest a variety of names including squeeze chute, cattle crush, AND cattle squisher.

Normally I do not suggest using Wikipedia a location of source material, but whomever had done the historical section of the article Livestock Crush has done a lot of work. There are various images of historical crushs (or travail in French). Some are situated outside of blacksmith shops.


My favourite image from Wikipedia:

"2008.04.18.VorrichtungZumBeschlagenVonOchsen.DorfmuseumMoenchhof.33" by Anton-kurt - Own work. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org

 

Up San Emigdio Canyon, at Dominguez Flat is the location of the early settlement. An early 1900 description includes in the list a blacksmith shop. So far archaeologist have not been able to find the supposed blacksmith shop. Perhaps if they find the old location of a crush / squeeze chute, as used for shoeing both horse and ox, the shop could be relocated. Something to think about for latter.

Helping with Older Stuff

My husband is also doing his PhD at the same time. Even though I also had a ton of work to do, his thesis is due at the end of the month. As any good partner, I am helping him out a bit.

Generally, incised stones are the stuff of my other half, but in the last few days, I have seen some VERY cool artefacts. Which is a big thing for me to say, as I have spent the last four years tuning out anything to do with incised stones beyond polite conversation. Your head can only retain so much information, and I feel very selective about what I retain. I need all I can for my own work, even then I often forget things.

One of the interesting things I have observes is the use of one of his caves during the contemporary period by native peoples. In the volume they are glossed over because they contain 'modern' artefacts. In one is a label for a bag of tobacco dated between 1880 and 1960, within a cache of some very amazing artefacts. YET there is no mention of continued use of the cave during the early historic period! Granted the cave was excavated in the 1970s, but that is no excuse! 

I could rant on for ages, but I think I will pin that for latter.

Gratuitous Incised Stone picture from the Monograph from one of the sites my husband is studying.