I was checking my email when I noticed a message from my friend Mark. Mark said that he received an email from a man in northern California that had two old windmills he wanted to get rid of. Mark made a joke that they could be very rare.

Through Mark, I made contact with the owner. He admitted that he had no idea what kind of windmills they were and that they had been dragged by a tractor and bent up. I knew that if I didn’t go see the windmills, I would always regret it.

At five a.m. the following Saturday, my 16-year-old daughter and I set out on the four-hour drive to the hills outside of Red Bluff, California.

When we arrived, we noticed piles of old farm equipment spread over roughly 100 yards, so we started to look for windmill parts. I first found an Open Gear Aermotor Windmill, but that is a story for the next edition.

I then found several partially buried windmill blades with a small tree growing through the middle of them.

The Find

I’m not a very experienced windmiller, and in California we don’t see a great variety of windmills, but I quickly knew this set of blades didn’t come from an Aermotor. The corrugated shape of the outer rim was something I had never seen before. As I started to move the sails, I realized that the windmill was buried in the dirt and that the blades were the size for a 10-foot windmill. As we started to dig, I was surprised to find that the blades were in great shape. They had a small amount of surface rust, but no holes or major damage.

We had a shovel, but it quickly became apparent that we needed a wood saw to take care of the tree growing through the middle of the blades. When I packed up my tools the night before, I was sure I had everything I might possibly need. It was soon evident that I didn’t have everything, and a hacksaw wasn’t going to cut down that scrub oak. The property owner went after the tree with anything he could find. Let’s just say that the tree put up a good fight.

Positive ID

We then found an odd shaped piece of rusty metal far away from the other windmill parts. It had arms attached to it and very rounded corners. I thought it could be a windmill tail, so I opened my copy of “A Field Guide to American Windmills” by T. Lindsay Baker. http://www.ou.edu/oupress/bake1901.htm and found an illustration of the very distinctive tail listed under the heading of “GEM U.S. Wind Engine and Pump Company”.

Mr. Baker quoted an ad for the GEM as follows. “The GEM is all its name implies. It is artistic in design, unique in finish, simple in construction, faultless in operation, and the product of the best mechanical talent.” Mr. Baker went on to write, “In these words the manufacturer describes the GEM Wind Engine, a windmill which oral history was just the opposite- a product intentionally made poorly in an effort to discourage buyers from purchasing steel mills at all.” He then gives a detailed description of the windmill and closes by saying, “Today an observer is fortunate to see one.”

The Quest for More

I knew it was a great find but I needed to locate more than the windmill tail and blades. Along with the property owner, my daughter and I searched the ranch for the GEM motor. We had no idea what we were looking for, but we searched the piles of car parts for something that looked like it came from a windmill. We found the hub with a small gear attached and some wheel spokes, but that was all.

We took apart the Aermotor windmill and loaded the truck. It was hot day and a long drive home. I was so excited that it didn’t matter that we arrived home with a truckload of Aermotor parts and part of a GEM 16 hours after we left home.

What’s a GEM?

I posted my find on this web site and was lucky enough to have John Cox send me a great deal of information. John’s photo of his beautifully restored 10 foot GEM really got me going. I had to find the GEM motor.

A few days later, John sent me a parts diagram. With the photo and a parts diagram, I felt that I could at least recognize the motor if I saw it. I also decided that we all need to get some information to Bill about GEMS to post in the library section.

I Gotta Go

I planned to return to the ranch a few days later under the pretense that I was going to cut a few feet off the top of the bent up Aermotor tower to make a stub tower. I also planned on looking for the GEM motor but I didn’t think I stood a chance of finding it. I called my friend Tom and asked if he would go with me. Tom is a sharp guy with keen observation. On top of that, if you are going to the middle of nowhere and digging around metal piles in rattlesnake country, it doesn’t hurt to take a paramedic. Tom said he would go but kept calling me Don Quixote and made jokes about running into windmills.

The Business of Adventures

On the other hand, maybe I was thinking like Don Quixote, going after something only I could see. I looked up a quote, "What we see there are not giants but windmills, and what seem to be their arms are the vanes that turned by the wind make the millstone go." "It is easy to see," replied Don Quixote, "that you are not used to this business of adventures. Those are giants, and if you are afraid, away with you out of here and betake yourself to prayer, while I engage them in fierce and unequal combat."

Unequal Combat

We had the parts diagram John sent us memorized by the time we got to Red Bluff. As soon as we got out of the truck, Tom walked right up to the base of the GEM motor. It was just like John had said: “Look for the lazy-Suzan-type base.” I told Tom, “I could not believe that I didn’t see that last time.” As only a true friend would, he replied, “It did have a few grass stems in front of it. Besides you did not know what you were looking for.”

Just like Don Quixote, we hit the piles of old tractor and car parts in fierce and unequal combat. We went part-by-part and even found parts that we could identify as broken GEM parts. Dividing the yard into sections, we slowly combed the areas at least twice. It was like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle using the parts from multiple puzzles.

We got home about midnight with some key parts to a GEM motor. I still need many major parts, but I’m on my way to restoring a Real GEM.

I did pick up a bad habit after this adventure: my wife said it’s rude to keep asking people if they have any gems around their place and showing them the parts diagram. I guess I should say, “Hello, nice to meet you,” before I inquire about their family gems.