Nary a Butter Churn to be Seen

Somebody came to look at some structural aspects of the house this morning, to give me some advice on whether or not I need to add any supports from the basement.  The answer.  No.  Yay!  Extensive leaking from the 2nd floor bathroom into the 1st floor bathroom means I'll need to replace the floor in the bathroom - but I knew that, and it won't stop me from doing some work on the kitchen this spring.  Then I gave him some eggs and went antique shopping.

There is so much history around here (for goodness' sake - the town I work in was incorporated in the 1600s), that there are now many, many antique stores promoting the reuse of various and sundry items from the past 350 years.  I could strike off in any direction and spend a full day wandering through junk stores, I mean antique stores.  Today, I went a 1/2 hour south, partly because there's a really good pizza restaurant I had a hankering to visit and partly because I had seen some stores from the outside that I wanted to take a look at the inside.

It was a mixed afternoon.  Exploring new places tends to be that way.  And as Melanie predicted, I saw not a single butter churn.  (I did see several butter presses though.)

It wasn't a total loss.  Here's what I got.

When you open it up it looks like this:

And when you take out the center piece it looks like this:

It's a grinder.  I've been told it's a sausage grinder.  But I was also told it will do very well for ... apples.  Now all I need is a press, and homemade apple cider here I come!

PS.  I did a search on No 3 Nourse Mason & Co and found this item in an 1860 catalog.  The company was based in Worcester, Mass.  I doubt my item is that old - but it's neat to see the history of it!