It occurs to me that there are surveyors who do not practice among the windmills, cactus, and critters, legged and otherwise, familiar in Texas. So, as a public service, I'm willing to share. This one is between San Marcos and Kyle, in Hays County. I'm thinking that the date scratched in the concrete around the well casing beneath the tower was 1958 or so. I suppose I could always check my file on that, but it's probably correct within a few years.
Kent Quixote de la McMancha!
Dave Karoly, post: 421722, member: 94 wrote: Kent Quixote de la McMancha!
On his Toyota steed Rocinante
On an archetypal level, windmills are a sort of mandala attached to an axis mundi. Here's an old visible gas pump on a ranch in Concho County that also works as a axis mundi symbol:
Kent McMillan, post: 421726, member: 3 wrote: On an archetypal level, windmills are a sort of mandala attached to an axis mundi.
Yes, but Jung was the one who found all the gold that Freud missed in his preference for reductive interpretation.
It's raining at the moment or I could stroll about 100 feet from my current spot and take a photo of a windmill in my yard identical to the one above. The background,however, would not be a pretty blue sky with puffy white clouds.
I've posted the photo of an "Aeromotor" windmill on my father's farm before. With the exception of the tee in the piping it looks the same.
Andy
I recently saw the remains of a similar or identical windmill near the top of Ajax Peak on St. John. It was used to pump rain water from a house up to a cistern. Destroyed in Hurricane Hugo 1989 I think.
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Some of the older windmills I've seen also had the name of the local dealer stenciled on the vane. Those can be even better than the factory markings.
Kent McMillan, post: 421702, member: 3 wrote: It occurs to me that there are surveyors who do not practice among the windmills, cactus, and critters, legged and otherwise, familiar in Texas. So, as a public service, I'm willing to share. This one is between San Marcos and Kyle, in Hays County. I'm thinking that the date scratched in the concrete around the well casing beneath the tower was 1958 or so. I suppose I could always check my file on that, but it's probably correct within a few years.
How do those things work? With plungers like a bicycle pump and a bell crank, with a rod going down inside the pipe?
I wondered the same thing grasshopper . They are truly things of beauty for both aesthetic and practical reasons.
My google-fu revealed...
https://www.homepower.com/articles/wind-power/equipment-products/pumping-water-wind
Williwaw, post: 421885, member: 7066 wrote: I wondered the same thing grasshopper . They are truly things of beauty for both aesthetic and practical reasons.
My google-fu revealed...
https://www.homepower.com/articles/wind-power/equipment-products/pumping-water-wind
Yes, and the seals in that arrangement that were traditionally leather, and now are typically synthetic, do wear out and need to be changed periodically. That means pulling the entire string of sucker rods, uncoupling each as it is withdrawn, to raise the pump out of the well casing.
In many locations, it's actually cheaper to replace a windmill with a photovoltaic panel and submersible pump, thereby avoiding the expensive service item.
One of the great advances in windmill design was the self-oiling mill. Before then, someone had to climb the tower and grease the gears often.
The windmill that appears in the photo below is an older model on a wooden tower. There are still a few wooden towers standing (I drove past one along US Hwy 90 West of Dryden a couple of weeks ago), but they have become rare.
Here's an example of the dealer's stencil on the vane. This windmill is in Kendall County near Comfort and I'd think that Chas. Schreiner was selling windmills in Kerrville at the time this one was purchased
Another view of that same windmill, which was one of three in place on a ranch in 1916 at the time it was partitioned, or rather the well was there and a tower with a mill was in place over the casing. This particular windmill was useful evidence in a lawsuit that helped prove the location of a particular road that was in dispute (or more accurately: caused the parties on the other side to abandon a claim they had advanced as to the location of the road).
I used the above photo as the basis of a painting that still is one of my favorites:
While I don't have Kent's artistic bent this is one in my father's front yard. The platform about halfway up was where a wooden tank sat for years.
Andy
Kent McMillan, post: 421904, member: 3 wrote: the dealer's stencil on the vane
I remember when there were a lot of windmills in my home county in southern Iowa, some of which were still pumping water.
Half of them had the name of a former hardware and implement dealer who prospered about the time my grandfather started farming. Now it's not common to see one, and the paint of any dealer name is gone.
Kent McMillan, post: 421904, member: 3 wrote: Here's an example of the dealer's stencil on the vane. This windmill is in Kendall County near Comfort and I'd think that Chas. Schreiner was selling windmills in Kerrville at the time this one was purchased
I did a little bit of research to see if I could narrow down the time period when Chas. Schreiner Co. was selling windmills in Kerrville. The results so far are inconclusive, but here's a link to Charles Schreiner's bio which contains one interesting tidbit of information:
"In 1879, Schreiner commissioned the San Antonio architect Alfred Giles to design the Capt. Charles Schreiner Mansion in Kerrville. The original two-story, six-bedroom house was the first limestone building constructed in Kerr County."
The above windmill is on the Hillingdon Ranch that San Antonio architect Alfred Giles and his brother-in-law San Antonio judge John Herndon James owned.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Schreiner_(Texas_rancher)
