Mill Day....

Once a year, all of the old-fashioned German Windmills are open to the public. There are 5 or 6 in our county, so on Muhle day, which happened to be one of the most beautiful days we've had all year, we took to our bikes, met up with some friends, and made a windmill circuit.

We started in Breberen; continued on to Waldfeucht, got lost so skipped Kirchoven and ended up inHaaren

Total, we cyclced 32km (about 20miles) and were gone about 6 hours. One mill had a grill set up where we could refuel on Brots and Kartoffelsalat and another had Kuche and Kaffee for sale. C started out on his trail-a-bike and did just fine until it was time start home from Haaren. He'd had a lot of sun, and his allergies were bothering him, so he and B took naps on the way home in the pull-behind kid cart, affectionately known in our house as "the cave". However, said cave was behind my bike, not daddy's, since daddy's better with C on the trail-a-bike. Lemme tell you pulling 20lb of kid is a lot different than pulling 70lb of kid, especially up hill!

Mills in this region typically ground grain, rather than moving water the way we learned of windmills back in elementary school. The Haaren mill is actually a working mill and a local farmer buys the milled flour to mix in with his feed. I really can't believe they let the public into the mills - it was crowded, the spaces were cramped, and no safety barricades between the visitors and the milling mechanisms, not to mention the ladder-steep stairs we had to climb to get up the mills. Our friends had an 18month old with them, so between theirs and ours, the mommas spent a lot of time holding collars to be sure curious little minds didn't get a little to close to the spinning gears.

All in all good fun, one of the cooler "local" things we've done, and we'll definitely put next year's "Mill Day" on our calendar!