The Year of the Windmill Part Three

     Some mornings just before dawn I hurt so bad that I just have to get up.  Such was the case this morning.  I made coffee and got outside just before the sun came up.  There was a coolness in the air that I had not felt for months.  Sheila is in the process of painting the deck and all the rockers are at the deck of my shed studio. This area like most of the yard is covered in large oaks and pines. Squirrels were dropping pine cones and acorns all around me.  A few small ones landed on me and I was tempted to moved so I didn't.
     "If you are going to throw at me at least let it something good."  I said. Just then a couple of small cylindrical shapes of chocolate fell into my lap, just beside my coffee.  Looked pretty good so I popped it into my mouth.  Tasted ok, but had a hint of a taste of pine nuts.  After a few moments, I had the urge to climb a tree.  Something I had not done in fifty years, but it dissipated pretty quickly.  Good thing there was only a couple of pieces of chocolate.  Had there been more, I may have gone to the top of the pine tree.
     After an hour or so, I had enough energy to go and work on the windmill.  I have the head(gear box, blades and tailbone) mounted onto a 3 inch steel pipe so that I can work on it.  Inside the helmet on the bar that houses the yoke, there is a date stamped.  It was produced in June of 1938.  In 1927, daddy was born in Midland City.  That made him eleven years old when this mill was erected.  When I walked up to the mill this morning, I looked at all the 22 rifle shot holes in the blades.  The tailbone had been shot with a shotgun and looks like hell, with holes, dents and lots of rust.  I wonder how many of those holes belong to daddy?  I would almost bet money that most of them belonged to him.  I also would not be surprised if the shotgun blast on the tailbone did not belong to Daddy Frank.  There is a lot of history tied to this windmill and I am glad that it wound up here.
     I am not mechanically inclined and have had to redo a lot of the things that I did to the mill.  To send the gear box off to be repaired, I had to remove the sails, three at a time.  I did mark the front of each sail, so that I would put it back as it should be.  There are six arms on the front of the hub and six arms on the back of the hub.  According to the directions, the rear arm should go on the outside hole of the outer band and the front arm should go on the inside hole of the first section.  You then reverse this on the next section.  There are six sections and on the third section, I realized that I had forgotten to reverse.  I had to backtrack and do it right.  On the sixth section, before you can join it, you have to reverse the first section.  That was a job.
     After that was completed, I wanted to be sure I had done every thing right, so I sent a photo to Miller's Windmill service.  His reply was, everything looks o k except for the rear arms should be straight.  I told him that they were bent like that when I started to work on them.  I even told Craig, when he welded them to make sure they all had the same angle.  Evidently, when the tornado blew the mill down, the rear spokes bent the same all around the hub.  I was disappointed but, I removed the sails and the spokes to straighten them.  That took another two afternoons to fix.  It has become a conflict between me and the mill.  Very close to the end and I wonder if I or the mill will win.