We are in the thick of it now as the tourists continue to pour into town. The windmill hosted a number of group tours in June including back-to-back tours on June 19 and another back-to-back on June 28. We even had two tour groups show up just to use the restroom, so one way or another they are finding their way here.

But the month has not been without its challenges. As many are aware, the windmill’s fantail suffered another breakdown shortly after Tivoli Fest. Updates about the repairs were posted on our blog at danishwindmill.org, but the short of it we were saved once again by Mike’s Welding in Kimballton. Mike Mortensen and Shaun spent an entire day up in the air adding a new coupling to the fantail’s axle that should fix the issue once and for all and ensure the gearboxes function better for many years to come. We’re thankful for Mike’s ingenuity and readiness, and that the issues we’ve had with our gearboxes the last several years may finally be behind us.

Elk Horn’s ongoing water issues have presented additional problems. We invest a significant amount of time and money in our flower beds on an annual basis, and have had to refrain from our regular watering schedule in recognition of the city-mandated restrictions. We wish to thank Mike McClain for bringing us a barrel of rainwater collected at Salem. Thankfully we’ve been fortunate with rain, and staff continues to work to water everything by hand until the water issue is finally resolved. To help local residents work around the boil advisory, we hosted a couple food trucks which were well received.

In the gift shop, we have brought in a number of fun items for the Summer, but we remain out of the high-demand electric aebleskiver pans. There is only one manufacturer of these pans and they have been unwilling to import them into the country at the risk of tariffs spiking again when the ship gets to port. Otherwise, we have faired well in getting products in without having to raise prices significantly. However, additional suppliers have already begun raising prices as we nearly the holiday season market time.

We are excited to announce that we will have a new livestream webcam of the windmill by Summer’s end. METC is already in the process of running fiberoptic for it and we should have the camera installation fairly soon as well. This will allow many of our followers at home to watch the windmill in real time and will be announced once available for viewing.

Finally, we wish to thank the volunteers who have helped out the last couple of weeks including Faye Farley who stepped in to help while Shaun was away for his wedding, and Annabelle Baggett who continues to volunteer as a tour guide.