in the key of C Major

[asakiyume]

For the daily prompt thing I'm doing, I ended up going down a rabbit hole about windmill sails and came across this story of a miller who restored the last of what used to be many windmills--"the highest concentration of windmills in the Iberian peninsula"--on a mountain in Portugal. Here he is with his windmill in 2019:


Photo by Maria Rebelo Photography; resized from the image at the blog post

He's using the mill to grind ancient wheat grains; he says ants prefer wheat grains that don't have pesticides.

Oh, and those clay pots hanging on the arms of the windmill? They are each tuned to a note in the key of C Major, and you can hear what they sound like in this soundcloud file.

Comments

[athenais]

Wow, that sound is cool!

[asakiyume]

Isn't it? I'm curious when and how that tradition of hanging bottles started...

[cmcmck]

Wonderful!

Since you mention mills, this is Meopham mill (it's pronounced mep-um) in my home county of Kent.

[asakiyume]

A lovely windmill!

[sartorias]

It's like wind harps!

[asakiyume]

Yes, very much so!

[heleninwales]

Those pots would sound really eerie at night.

Wales tends to go in for watermills rather than windmills. We do have plenty of both wind and water, but down in the valleys where people would want to build the mills, water is more reliable.

[asakiyume]

Water is what powered the mills where I live too, back in the day.

[asakiyume]

They furl the sails at night! The guy mentions it in the blog post. But the wind could still whistle over the tops of those bottles even with the arms of the windmill still, so nights are probably still a bit eerie!

[amaebi]

Oh, that's amazing!

[asakiyume]

It was a delight to come upon!

[amaebi]

As I batted up on Mallorca in the week before going, even in the plane on the way there, I saw that windmills were a signature feature of a former village, Santa Catalina, now swallowed by Palma. And so I wasn't surprised as I saw a variety of windmill and windmill-inspired graphics on sign faces as Sheeyun drove from the Palma airport to the hotel.

What I didn't realize I would find is that there are windmill remains all over the island-- not at all surprisingly, given that stones mostly let just to wait quietly until their next use.

Somewhat similarly, there are a few sites where the remains of prehistoric buildings called talaiots are specifically preserved-- the link leads to a document about the biggest and most-preserved/excavated one, which we visited. But then I realized that there are remains of talaiots or later very similar constructions all over the place, dotting farmers' fields....

[asakiyume]

What cool buildings!

Places where there are remnants of long, long continuous human presence are neat. The way different bits of history are present like different layers of paint or varnish on a place.

[amaebi]

So, so, so much this.

At the gate, selling the three euro entry, a small coffee bar staffed by one very elderly-looking woman. Just inside the fence, a mysterious shady enclosure housing a depressed-looking peacock. Around the talaiots, soil studded with small stones that has recently been sloughed, I think to limit weeds more than for any other purpose. From a seat on the top wall, I listened to tree sorrows, linnets, a serin. I had a glass of the one beer they sell, Estrella, before we left.

[asakiyume]

What a beautiful word-snapshot. I had to look up serin--a pretty bird!

[amaebi]

It was new to me, as well-- and turns out to be in Yorkshire as well.

[oracne]

A singing windmill. ZOMG, so great.

[asakiyume]

Right?! I'd love to find out more about that tradition.

[shewhomust]

he says ants prefer wheat grains that don't have pesticides...

Am I missing something here? Isn't that the point?

It's a very pretty mill, though!

[asakiyume]

Hahahaha, you're quite right! Here's the context:

With his son Luís, Miguel is bringing back the old wheats that are full of nutrition and flavor: barbela, nabão and preto amarelo. “These stones have never milled modern grains so they have no trace of pesticides. My wheats are certified as biological, not by the government but by nature, come see.” He places a handful of barbela grains at the entrance of the mill. Soon, an army of ants arrives to cart away this loot. “The ants avoid grains that have pesticides, but they love these ancient wheats,” Miguel says. “I am also starting to find more and more lady bugs on the wheat fields, they had vanished from this region but they are coming back to my fields.” Miguel likes to plant his wheat in southern-facing slopes protected from northern winds that are likely to be tainted with pesticides.

So really for the sake of my post it would have been better if I mentioned the ladybugs than the ants. Because who wants their crop to be carried off? Or to put it another way, if you're not using pesticides, what are you doing to keep your crop from being carried off?

[shewhomust]

I love the idea that the millstones have never ground pesticide - that is very cool!

[asakiyume]

They are ignorant of the Ways of Humans and Their Chemicals

[wayfaringwordhack]

What a wonderful rabbit hole to have fallen down!

[asakiyume]

I love it when this happens. It really shows how wherever you look, there's so much to see. The world is so fractal that way!

[anna_wing]

That sounds as if should be part of a compilation entitled "Music of Middle-earth"...

[asakiyume]

It really does!

[osprey_archer]

What a beautiful windmill. Thank you for linking the soundcloud file, too; it's such an eerie, lovely sound.

[asakiyume]

I'm so glad someone *made* the sound file. So glad to know what those pots sound like!

[med_cat]

What a cool idea :)

[asakiyume]

It truly is!