Summer has yet to stop at the windmill as September has been just as busy as August with travelers from all over. We hope the trend continues as we transition into Fall.

In the gift shop we’ve picked up a few new products for the Fall season. We now have Glacial Till hard cider in a number of delicious flavors, available by the can, a 6-pack mix of any or all flavors. We also picked up Mike & Jen’s Hot Cocoa featuring their regular cocoa mix or mocha latte. We have both single-serve packets or scoopable mix. We even added some special mugs for the season to go with them.

If you’ve noticed an uptick in our social media posts for the gift shop, it’s all thanks to Johanne Lyager who has been helping us out on Mondays. Every week she creates new posts for Facebook and Instagram, and we have added TikTok as well. We’re very thankful to have her with us.

Meanwhile across the street, work has begun to renovate the Old Danish Workshop. The siding was in desperate need of replacement, and we are also looking at upgrades to the building’s electrical and HVAC. New floors will be put in both rooms, and there is a lot of cleaning and painting to be done for the walls and ceiling. We want to thank our volunteers: Mike & Lou Howard, Mike & Lisa Riggs, and Gene “Beaner” Thomsen for helping out with the project so far. There is still a lot to do and we are still looking for help if others wish to volunteer. We are hoping to get the new siding on the building next week. We’ve already picked out the new colors for the exterior and our goal is to maintain the authentic Scandinavian look using historic colors and patterns.

Last week we had the pleasure of hosting an EEHK field trip with Mr. Baggett’s 11th grade English class, Mrs. Christensen’s Multi-Cultural Foods class, and Mr. Weis’s Principles of Engineering class. The group toured through the windmill with Shaun and got to a chance to learn more about the windmill and its significance from the inside. We hope to see more groups from EEHK this school year. Many of our readers may remember the days when it was customary for the community 3rd grade classes to make a trip up into the mill and learn about Elk Horn’s Danish past. We are hoping they may come back this year.

As we get ready for Fall, we do have one major obstacle out of the way. We will not have a container this year. Due to how late last year’s container arrived, we have quite a bit of merchandise from last year’s orders and not a lot of funds to spend for this year. While we are trying to get a couple of small orders through, most of the stuff we have for this coming season is already here and arrived before the tariff hikes.

Finally, we want to thank the Audubon Country Players for putting on a great show on the life of Hans Christian Andersen. The sets were beautifully done and the play had a large number of local performers including our leading volunteer, Annabelle Baggett. Mill staff journeyed to Audubon for the Saturday night showing. We sold some fairy tale books and made sure Annabelle had a flower arrangement waiting for her at closing. It was a great night and we wish to thank the showrunners again for including us.