Windmills and Pumpkins...It Must Be Fall!

Sometimes you just need to get outside. Sometimes the day is just so beautiful that it would be a crime to spend it inside, doing laundry and cleaning house. Today was that day. I've been researching windmills online, and decided to just go and check them out in person. With Thomas (my GPS) as my trusty sidekick, I hit the road in search of adventure. To make it a little more challenging, I didn't exactly have an address for any of the windmills that I wanted to see. I just had the names of the towns that they were in. My first stop was in Kinrooi. Once I made it into town, I just sort of drove around, looking for the blades of a windmill sticking up above the houses. This one was pretty easy to find, because it was just off a main road. This is the Lemmensmolen, in Kinrooi, built in 1856. It wasn't quite what I expected, because it was just tucked in between two big buildings along a busy road (Breeersteenweg). Still, it's a Belgian windmill, so I'm a happy camper to have seen it. After taking a few pictures, I plugged "Molenbeersel" into my GPS and was off again. There are two windmills in that town that I wanted to check out. Then Thomas pulled one of his crazy stunts and took me down some narrow, one lane roads through farmland. I was getting a little concerned as I wound my way through fields of corn with no other humans in sight, when suddenly... I rounded a corner and saw this...a pumpkin patch! How fantastic is this? If this doesn't put you in a Fall mood, I don't know what will! I love all of the crazy shapes of the pumpkins, too. Apparently, today was pumpkin harvest day. The tractor drove slowly down the side of the field, while the men picked up the pumpkins and put them on the conveyor belt. The pumpkins rode along the belt, and were dumped into the big blue bins pulled on a trailer behind the tractor. When the blue bins were full, they were deposited on the side of the field and replaced with empty ones. Can you just imagine all of the pumpkin pies in their future? Mmmmmmm... After watching the pumpkin harvesting for a while, I decided that I'd better get back on task. I had windmills to hunt.Molenbeersel is a bigger town than Kinrooi, so it took me a lot longer to find the lovely Zorgvlietmolen there. Once again, it was tucked in between other buildings, and kind of hard to get a good look at it. It was built between 1817 and 1818, and is located on Oude Kerkstraat. I went around the corner and took this picture of the front of it over the neighbors fence. Two down and one more to go. I took off again, madly scanning the horizon for windmill blades. After driving around Molenbeersel for a while, I had to admit defeat. Apparently, I wasn't meant to find the last windmill there. I stopped to admire Sint Leonarduskerk before heading back home. It's a very pretty church. I walked around for a little bit and admired the architecture, as well as the history, of this beautiful building. As I was getting ready to start for home, I just happened to notice a little sign on the other side of the church. It said "Keijersmolen", and pointed back behind the church. Success. I found my missing windmill. The Keijersmolen (on Smeetsstraat), built in 1869, was all that I expected and so much more. I walked around it and took some pictures. The double doors under the windmill were open, so I checked out this room as well. They had all kinds of interesting pictures on the walls, and diagrams of the different parts of the windmill. As I was walking back out again, an elderly gentleman came up and started speaking Nederlands to me. He didn't speak any English, but was very kind and patient with me. I eventually figured out that he was the windmill's caretaker, and was inviting me to go in and explore the windmill. I mean really explore it. He let me climb all the way to the top, and it was absolutely amazing. The Keijersmolen has been turned into a museum, and everything inside is as it was many years ago. This is the flour loft. If you are interested in learning more about it, then please check out their website. It has lots more pictures and some really interesting history about the building. This is the stone bowl in the mill.There were narrow, steep ladders leading from one level to another. This is at the top of the windmill, and it's the backside of the blades, or wings, of the mill. The mechanism is lubricated with pork fat to keep it running smoothly. This is the counter in the very top of the mill. It counts the revolutions of the blades. After spending quite some time exploring all of the levels of the Keijersmolen, I knew that I needed to be heading for home. It really was an amazing day. Just think what all I would have missed if I had just stayed home and mopped my floors today. The next time the sky is blue and the breeze is warm, just head out and explore. The laundry will still be there tomorrow. It's not like it's going anywhere. If you won't listen to me, then take some advice from Helen Keller. She once said, "Life is either a great adventure, or nothing." Don't let it be "nothing".