Wednesday Walk - Dutch Grainmill

Yesterday on my way back home from a little vacation in Michigan I stopped by the only windmill grainmill in North America, the De Zwaan (the swan).

This was moved from the netherlands in 1960 and still operates today. You can buy organic corn and wheat flour at the bottom. Here's a video about the windmill
https://youtu.be/r4ewkWo-ZTU

Here's the builder's seal, it has a bullet hole in it from WW2 when mills were used as lookout points.

Here's a view from the balcony where the miller has to detach a huge chain to point the windmill towards the direction of the wind.

Here's the internal wooden gears.

And the grinding stone. The wooden shaft is connected to the wooden gears above and slowly turns the stone with the power of the wind.

The grain gets ground under these large stones. The grooves in the bottom stone crush and grind the grain outward to a surrounding wooden enclosure. From there it falls down a wooden chute to the first level where it gets sifted.

Here is the shaft that the miller uses to haul the grain up to the grinding stones. There is also a wooden shoe at the bottom to send messages up to the miller on how to grind the grain.

These are the horses that used to bring grain to be milled. I forgot their breed but they are stocky work animals with strong legs for hauling heavy carts.

Now they are just glorified pets that like attention. They run towards the edge of the fence for petting.

Surrounding the windmill is a garden with lots of flowers. In spring they plant lots of tulips but in summer there were mostly lilies. There are also nature paths surrounding the mill with lots of native Michigan plants and animals.

A random garden gnome of dutch origin.

Here is the giftshop with lots of wooden shoes and other Dutch souvenirs.

Overall the De Zwaan was a good place to stop and stretch the legs on my way back from upper Michigan. I recommend it if you ever find yourself in Holland Michigan. Happy #wednesdaywalk @tattoodjay.

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