International Wind Day?

     You've never heard of International wind day? Don't feel bad . Neither have I.

     I had the radio on this morning and I heard the term International Wind Day. It caught my attention. I have a curiosity about special days. If you look,  most days are special for something.

    Now I know Father's Day is for honoring dads. That makes sense. But honoring wind? That's a stretch.



    So I had to look it up. Yes, the day is to celebrate wind and all the ways it is used to produce power. Right now we are particularly interested in using wind to produce electricity. Back on the farm , in the 1940's Dad had a wind charger that charged batteries and that gave us power for electric lights only. Today windmills are used to produce large amounts of electricity. The first windmills that were installed in the modern age are being replaced because they now have windmills that are much more efficient.

     Wind power is used to power ships. John's Island has a post on sail boats today. Before steam the main source of power for moving ships was the wind. Windmills were also used to provide power for flour mills.

     We have lots of wind in the spring. As a kid, I can remember making kites (not buying kites) in the spring. We made kites with brown paper and small slats for cross pieces. These kites worked well. We used binder twine for string. We'd get  tired of flying the kite and tie the twine to a fence post. You could come back several hours later and usually your kite was still flying.

     So today is set aside to mark all the new technology and modern uses of wind power.

    We've had windy days all week so it was easy for me to think about wind.

     So do we say "Happy wind day to you?"