June 12, 2008. Harper, Texas. Wind farms.

We have seen the future world of energy out on the plains west of Amarillo. For the past year we have seen huge blades of metal, strapped to the back of trucks heading west on Highway 10. We've been told by friends that those huge metal objects are part of a windmill heading west to a new wind farm on the plains. Just one blade is bigger than the largest flat bed truck, so when they travel they do so with accompanying vehicles stating "over sized load". They make us look like shrimps driving beside them in our little SUV Escape. Now we have seen one of these wind farms. They are impressive, although from a distance the size is not as apparent as when driving beside them. There are many many of these monsters, and from the road, they look quite lovely in a surprising kind of way. About one hundred windmills was what I counted, stretching for miles on the plains. The plains are almost always windy, and certainly when we were there, the wind was always blowing, so I hope they are making lots and lots of electricity.

Windmills have been very important to the development to Texas. Without windmills this whole area could not support farming and ranching and family life in West Texas or the Hill Country. Dug wells could be built in East Texas, but not in the West and the Hills, so until the American adaptation of the European windmill in the late nineteenth century became common, no one could live here. Our ranch has an old fashioned windmill that pumps water into a large tank, which then drains through pipes to the cattle trough. This was the system installed in the first ranch in the very early 1900's, and it still works today. Of course, when we bought the ranch the windmill was not working and the big tank was leaking. We tried to hire someone to fix the tank, but no one was willing to do the work, as it is labor intensive and hot. But one of the three men who came to look at the job did tell Ken how to do it himself, and that was happened. Ken did the work himself, climbing into the tank, cleaning it out, them re-coating the inside and out of both the large tank and the cattle trough. Now the windmill works like a charm, so we can live as they did in 1920. except for the air-conditioned homes and the satellite Internet connection. Windmills were very important one hundred years ago, and I hope they will become very important for the next hundred year, but now to generate electricity, not only water.