Windmills

Charming views of old-fashioned technology. Life is sweet and days are bright. We went to look at windmills at a sort of reconstructed town on the Zaan River, called Zaanse Schans.

 Windmills, from the Zaan bridge

Julianne at Zaanse Schans, with wind

Makes you think of the old painters, when times were dark and life was muddy.

Rembrandt (left), van Ruisdael (right)

This kind of windmill was developed over time in a triangle of eastern England, Flanders, and northern coastal France. First mention, 12th century, used any place where there wasn't enough free-flowing water for mill-races. In Holland windmills started pumping the water out of the way, and took on many industrial uses like grinding grain and sawing wood.

How does it feel inside a windmill? Is it so cute in full-swing operation? We went to Zaanse Schans, an open-air museum. It was windy, as usual here it appears. Here is a mill for grinding pigment for paints and dyes, called De Kat, originally built in 1782. 

Swoosh of huge, dull blades slashing down, repetitive, not stopping, answering necessity from the air. A loud whisper from the machine – stand clear, stand clear. The serious sense of raw power, a blind force from the wind. 

Get back, get back, I'm coming!

We stand on the walk near the top. Walkway, rails, and joists tremble and creak. We look down through cracks in the planking dizzily. The dark skirting of the mill is old thatch. The wooden vanes are partly covered with canvas to help them go faster.

Inside, a grinding noise, not constant but variable, clattering, groaning, thumping, chopping, crushing. The functionality of the turning shaft can go to more than one action at a time. Subsidiary side shafts supplement the large central mill. Dust in the air.

Reducing chalk to powder.

The wheel, stopped, shows the superstructure. There's a shaft here in the middle that rotates, hurrying the stones around. Things are balanced in pairs - two stones, four vanes, and so forth Above the stones, the shaft rises. It joins the horizontal shaft turned by the wind, located a full floor above where we're standing. Each of these parts can be replaced piece by piece, teeth especially. This is a side connection, transferring power to a secondary grinder, while the main shaft rises up to another toothed gear coming from the vanes turning outside.

 Pigment barrels and vials, though these are empty. They represent the product of the mill. They sell pigments on the side, but I can't be mixing my own paint, so I let that go.

We come down steep stairs very carefully, the hand rails polished by many hands sliding, grasping, sliding. The mill was still, we went outside. 

The mandolin player was still at it, offering his cheery tunes. When we arrived he was playing My Darling Clementine, and Julianne wanted to dance but I was too shy. Later we met him at the bus stop, and he said he's retired, just does this for fun. He's been a member of Friends of Zaanse Windmills since he was 10 years old, 56 years ago. Somehow the rain that threatened blew away overhead, the sun came back out, and we took the bus back home through the most darling streets you can think of, in Zaandijk.

from Nancy