Progress

It was raining like the Dickens when I went out to PT (physical therapy...not that other stuff grunts do at basic) this morning. I felt sure there would be no progress on the windmills...and little on my knee.

Boy was I wrong! The therapists headed my knee, bend and twisted my knee and then had me doing the same to it on my own. Then they put me on the stationary bike for 10 minutes to "stretch it out." Surprisingly, that seemed to work! Afterward, it was more bending and twisting as I did more exercises. Then the ice pack and electrical route once more. I won't say I was ready to polka out the door, but after more ice on the joint this afternoon, I feel remarkable better about avoiding any form of surgery than I did a few days ago.

Still, I'll take the Doctor's and therapist's advice and stay off it as much as possible for a few more days. I'll do the exercises the therapist gave me and apply ice when I'm through as he recommended. We'll see how it feels on Friday when I have my next appointment.

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Now, about those windmills. When I got home around noon, the rain had stopped and the crane was lifting the second section of one of the towers into place. Then around 2 PM it lifted the housing for the generator to the top of the tower. I sort of forgot to follow along for a while after that but the next thing I know, there are three blades spinning slowly on the top of that windmill and the crane has moved on to the third on the hillside.

No doubt, if the weather holds tomorrow--and it is supposed to be a beautiful day, they will erect the second section, the generator, and the blades of that third windmill before moving back up the hill to the first which awaits its blades. (I'm guessing they didn't install those blades because the crane has to go past that windmill on its way out. And that may be done before quitting time tomorrow.)

I failed to see if they put the entire blade assembly in place as a unit--which is my guess--or if they put one blade up at a time. Tough to see how they could do the latter. Heck, it's difficult enough to understand how they attach the entire blade assembly except when you see the generator housing on a truck and realize it's about the size of an 8'x10' shed. It looks so damn small perched atop the tower and when in contrast to the 75' long blades.

Cool thing is there was the tiniest of breezes blowing at sundown and those newly installed blades were turning ever so slowly.

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Speaking of the weather, Terry emptied the rain gauge last evening and poured out nearly two inches of water. That would be water from last Friday through Monday. The stuff that fell last night was pretty intense and I'm sure must have been well over 3/4 of an inch. (I didn't empty it today, however, so that's just a guess. Tomorrow I'll get to see what is really in there.) Temperatures have been right at, or at least around, the seasonal averages for Aerie. Morning frost on clear nights and afternoons in the upper 50s.