Tiagua Windmill Haiku

The Lanzarote windmills are a feature of the island; we've seen windmills dotted all over the place in our travels, in various conditions, including a famous one in César Manrique's cactus garden - so I wanted to learn more about them:

In times before electricity, they provided power for many uses, thanks to the trade winds. The Lanzaroteños grew maize, which after harvesting was toasted and then taken to the local mill for crushing to create their staple diet of gofio.  The mills were also used to crush barley, wheat and chick peas to create flours (frangollo, millo & trigo).

The Lanzarote windmills can vary in height as they could have one or two floors. The millo tostado (roasted corn) was taken inside up the stairs to the top of the building and poured into a special wooden funnel (tolba), which dropped the corn bit by bit onto the huge lava rock millstone with a central hole, underneath this stone would be a similar round stone but static.

The wind would turn the sails which also could be turned to harness the direction of the wind, the sails moved a series of gears which then transmitted the power to the top millstone to crush and grind the toasted corn into the gofio powder, this would then pour out of a chute to the floor below where it could be sacked.

If there was a lower floor of the mill, this would be the warehouse (almacen).

We spotted a beautiful windmill in the distance from the road through Tiagua, so went to take a closer look. We were in luck because the owner was there and he told us, in Spanish, how it was really old and completely ruined when he inherited it. He explained how he had been slowly renovating it over the past few years and that he still had a way to go before fully restored. 

What a fantastic labour of love. It looked pretty perfect to me.

Here's my windmill haiku:

wind teases paddles
kiss clear February skies  
grind gofio once more