Last year, we installed a windmill over the hand dug well at our chacra (small farm). I got an upgrade by taking a larger-than-quoted demo unit in place of a brand new one. Hey, why not, these things last a long time. They had to disassemble this unit; win-win. Almost: sometimes when you engage it, something sticks and the tail fin doesn’t go perpendicular to the rotation of the fan blades.

In other words, it does nothing. Which it did the other day.

And the something that sticks is way at the top. Where I have never ventured. But now it’s out of warranty, so up I went the wire ladder, consoling myself that it would at least make an awesome photo op.

Which it didn’t. Oh well.

The more I looked at the mechanism at the top, the less I could understand where the problem lay. Then I looked further up, and saw the tail fin perpendicular to the fan blades. In other words, the mechanism worked. But the windmill didn’t, given the unusual and complete absence of wind. Problem solved? Ya veremos. We will see.

We visited with our country neighbor, Mariana the veterinarian, who boards dogs and took in the lovely dog in the upper right, Benji, whom we rescued from a neighbor’s yard (with their permission; poor thing was on a 5-foot chain and yowling all day long in misery). Unfortunately, Benji has the people skills of a database technician (due apologies, yada yada), and during his last “interview” with an enthusiastic family with kids, walked away from them, curled up under a tree, and went to sleep.

Windmills that work, but don’t; dogs that are lovely, but aren’t. Must be a Zen thing.