Janet Aldrich's windmill and a donkey named Merlin

     Janet Aldrich has a windmill on her quarter horse farm in Elkhorn that I admire each time I drive by on the way to work. The windmill sits behind a corral facing the road and I wonder each time I pass what a good perspective would be for a photo. 

     Being windmill-, animal- and sunrise/sunset-obsessive, I imagine a photo with horses in the corral, the barn and windmill behind them and a brilliantly colored sky in the background. 

     Well it seems Janet is also a windmill aficionado and a photographer with a good eye. When I interviewed her and her husband Ben for the newspaper, we talked a bit about her windmill, as well as her beautiful quarter horses and Merlin, a donkey who each December is the star of a living nativity down the road. 

     Janet's photo is posted here, as is my shot of Merlin and one of Janet with some of her horses (and Merlin, of course). For now, I'll drive by and wonder about my own shot of the Aldrich windmill. 

     But I won't forget Merlin and how he nudges people for a little scratch behind the ears. And what ears they are! The consistency is something between a letter opener and thick plastic.