tall and proud outside theBloemhofKaroo homestead - so elegant, yet so vitally crucial on the farm.
The wind in the Karoo can be so tiresome but we always console ourselves with the fact that life-giving water is being collected at a rate of knots for our crops, animals and gardens!
WINDMILLS are an ingenious invention dating back to the 12th century, and we're still using them all over the Karoo; our lifesource in the veld.
Until 1750, windmills were turned by hand to face the wind; thereafter the new fantail automatically kept the windmill in an optimal position.
I never realised how much expertise there is amongst the Karoo people to understand, repair and even salvage windmills - almost any farm worker can scramble up to the top in a jiffy, set the brake (yes, a windmill has a brake), and do all sorts of tweaking to enable gathering (but not overflowing!) of water.
'LOVE IS THAT TO LIFE WHAT WIND IS TO A WINDMILL'
"The Windmill never strays in search of the Wind".
Lifesource at BloemhofKaroo.
