Across the fence

I remember my first trip off the farm and outside of Atchison County, Kansas. I was probably nine or ten years old and traveling with my Grandpa Nolting, heading west to Colorado. Somewhere, just past the Kansas/Colorado border, in the seemingly endless stretch of open prairie, there stood a huge stock tank being fed by two windmills. In my untraveled curiosity and ignorance I asked grandpa, "Why do they have two windmills?"

Without hesitation grandpa replied, "The wind out here is so strong a single windmill can't handle it."

"Oh" I said, not figuring out until sometime later that he was k...