It’s been a minute since our last update and as usual there is much to be shared! We also do want to apologize in the delay in getting this issue out. There has been a lot of work in preparing our gardens for Spring and for Tivoli Fest that had to get done as soon as possible, and we just don’t have the help for those tasks that we used to.

The windmill had some interesting visitors in April including several different parties from Denmark. The Danish National Landscaping Team visited the windmill over Easter weekend where Shaun provided a thorough tour of the windmill and grounds before Tim Palmer took over for a tour of the Museum of Danish America’s campus. The group are eyeing their upcoming Euroskills competition to be hosted by Denmark for the first time this year. This tournament hosts several trade skills including landscaping, masonry, and carpentry. With Denmark hosting this year, Danish teams have been given some leeway and encouragement to train outside the country, and the landscaping team happened to be passing through Elk Horn in between locations.

The windmill also enjoyed a return visit from Ole Mieth before the end of the month. This marked his first time in Elk Horn since 2014 when Ole arrived to inspect the windmill and found the wings to be in exceptionally poor condition, inspiring the Spin Campaign that brought in new wings in 2017-18. Ole’s background in railroad engineering has made him an experienced expert on metal gear systems like those inside and outside the windmill. Ole graciously volunteered some of his time on a trip through the US to inspect all of our gears including the exposed wheels out on the fantail. Everything is in good order and Ole even coated the gears in a fresh layer of water-resistant grease for us.

The windmill also enjoyed a few large group tours so far including a large bus group in April followed by some busy field trips between Atlantic and Audubon third graders followed by the Atlantic Area homeschool group. The wind cooperated most of the time, allowing the kids some time to see how the windmill works and watch the sails go by.

On April 30, we celebrated another community Earth Day with some EEHK middle school students. We didn’t get as big of a group this year, but that didn’t stop the kids from getting mulch spread for us. We’re thankful for EEHK’s willingness to keep this program going and always look forward to seeing some familiar faces and meeting some potential new volunteers eager to help us out.

And speaking of volunteers, we want to thank Justin Nelson for helping us out in preparing the gardens for Spring. We have opted to start over in the flower beds surrounding the windmill this year, and it took quite a bit of effort for Shaun and Justin to dig out some of the shrubs that have been there for years. We are almost done getting new flowers in place, and if all goes well, we will also have a new sprinkler system to optimize our garden maintenance and help conserve water. And of course during some of this we discovered one of the spigots burst in the basement, so we have not had a lot of time lately to get some other things done like this paper.

We would like to announce that the windmill has been invited back to Christkindlmarket Des Moines this year and we will be participating in both weekends! We’re excited to be back and hope for some mild weather. We also want to thank the Rasmussen Group of Des Moines for sponsoring our participation.

Finally, we are thrilled to share a couple of internal changes. Joni Griffin stepped down from the Board of Directors and joined our part-time staff at the windmill. In her place, Joanie Heuton has volunteered to join the Board and fulfill Joni Griffin’s term through 2026. We will have some additional vacancies on the Board coming up in January 2026, so please keep us in mind for anyone looking to get more involved in the community and support our cause.