Rice Hulls

On the south side of US 290, just outside the beltway, is an old rice drier that has been there for as long as I can remember.  It had fallen into disrepair, was looking pretty shabby, but it recently got a facelift that includes a big electronic sign near the top.  As we headed for Liberty Hill on Saturday, I noticed the sign was advertizing stabilized rice bran for deer feeders.

I’m not a deer hunter, haven’t been in years, but my friends and relatives who do hunt have always used corn in their feeders.  A check on line seems to show that rice bran feeders are growing in popularity – just because I’d never heard of them doesn’t mean they aren’t around.

I may not know anything about rice bran, but I do have fond memories of rice hulls.  Rice hulls are now used in everything from building materials to animal feed, but when I was in elementary school, we used them as mulch in our flower beds. 

In the innocent past, when companies didn't have to worry so much about lawsuits, rice companies would let the public fill their buckets and trailers and pickup trucks for free from the huge piles of hulls that built up outside the mills.  It was great fun to climb those hills of hulls and jump and roll in the soft, shifting pile.  For a kid who had never left southeast Texas, it’s probably the closest I ever came to playing in fresh powder snow.