Kinderdijk - Windmills

Kinderdijk, windmill, the Netherlands

Windmills. Whoomp. Whoomp. Most seriously working windmills are the new tall skinny blingy kind that are white, look metallic, and three-armed and in great groups on windfarms.

But the old are still there, and many in use.  There are sails that attach to the arms to increase the whirl as needed; and a big log of a brake that jabs in to stop it and keep it stopped when that is needed.

These are huge. Whoomp. Watch your head.

Kinderdijk has a large set of windmills in one place.  In some, you can go right in, and climb all around and see where the family stayed and how they arranged their household and sleeping and living areas inside. Read about "Living In A Windmill" at www.kinderdijk.org/tour.

Working windmill with sails, near Kinderdijk NL

Watch the arms accelerate or slow when yanked on the anchor to stop it, and then adjust the canvas sails that are attached and rolled. More whoomp. Whoomp. Then see what it is doing for all that work:   there is a big screw that dips into the canal, and takes the water and pushes it up to the next level. You soon get used to the thumpiness. If you got careless and walked into one mid-whomp, there you go.

Windmill row, Kinderdijk, the Netherlands


Windmills are the workers that make the polders, the drained land now used for agriculture and settlements, even cities.  See how to drain farmland at www.nai.nl/polders/e/hoe_e.  From someone's bright idea, to a concept that supports the farmland that wasn't there before, that produces the food that feeds all the people. Go to that site for a film on how to reclaim underwater areas for farmland.

The windmills also powered mills.  You can see how it works, like water wheels making power. See ://www.kinderdijk.org/



Here is the farmland. The polder itself. Flat flat. Look closely, over our steering wheel for the masts moving along.  Looks like they are sailing right through the field.

Polder, or drained farm land. See mast of boat at eye level, canal across the field, near Kinderdijk NL

The canals network around at field level. If the draining failed, so goes the land.

The Afsluitdijk across the sea; and Urk - Island fishing village, now on reclaimed mainland

Afluitsdijk, Commemorative sculpture to 1930's construction, causeway separating Zuiderzee from Ijsselmeer

AFLUITSDIJK

Dykes are everywhere; the largest is the Afsluitdijk in the northern area, finished in the 1930's. It is a 20-mile causeway to Friesland province. It holds back the North Sea (Zuiderzee inlet) from the fresh water lake, Ijsselmeer. Not clear what was saline or not before the dyke, but it appears that it was also saline but not sea-water strength. See the size of it in Afluitsdyk photos at outdoors.webshots.com/album/552587230IKkFdP. The major highway across the dyke is close to sea level - 7-9 meters.

It has sluices that flush in and out to maintain the salt that is in the Ijsselmeer, for ecological reasons; and to adjust for storms. Would Mississippi benefit from the technology? It is a matter of will, not way.

URK- The Island that is now a peninsula

The effect of the dykes, especially the Afluitsdyke and overall reclamation, has been to turn islands into towns on the mainland.

Urk Island Lighthouse, now inland (land reclamation), the Netherlands

Urk had been a remote fishing village, isolated on its own island, in the Ijsselmeer, east coastal area. With the large Afsluitdijk, the causeway across the northern Netherlands, now across from North Holland to Friesland, land is being reclaimed.  Urk, that once was an island with its lighthouse, is now mainland. The lighthouse at Urk is listed at www.lighthousedepot.com/database/uniquelighthouse.cfm?value=2140.

Urk dates from the 900's. See the history of Urk at www.answers.com/topic/urk. One of the oldest Dutch dialects is spoken there. See Urk overview at experts.about.com/e/u/ur/Urk.

Much of the land that had been underwater is now agricultural land. Wikipedia has a comprehensible writeup on these polders at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polder.

Urk, the Netherlands. Waterfront. Once a fishermen's community on an island, land reclaimed and getting yuppie.