It's Tulip Time and Miller Alisa Crawford is at Work at the Windmill

Hello and welcome to the Girls Succeed blog. The annual Tulip Time Festival is this week in Holland, Michigan. Visitors from all over the world come to see displays of the gorgeous varieties of tulips brilliantly blooming in enormous flower beds all through the city. Parades, shows, authentic Dutch dances, and food are showcased throughout the week. 

I am re-blogging the blog post I shared last year at this time about Alisa Crawford, the miller who works at the huge windmill located  in Holland, Michigan. I added a video that appeared on ABC news Channel 13 last night so you can see her in action as she does her job. Read more to learn more about Alisa and her career as a miller.

Author and Miller Alisa Crawford

Trailblazer Alisa is a miller, a person who grinds grains to produce flour. She is the only American miller certified by the Dutch Council of the Netherlands where she learned her trade. 

The 250-year-old machine she uses to do the grinding is an authentic Dutch windmill which was dismantled and moved from the Netherlands to Holland, Michigan in 1964, then re-assembled and opened to the public in 1965. It's the only authentic working Dutch windmill in the U.S. Known as DeZwaan (the swan), the windmill was the last one allowed by the government of the Netherlands to leave the country. 

De Zwaan Windmill
De Zwaan means graceful bird.

The windmill is the focal point of the Windmill Island Gardens, a gorgeous place in the City of Holland displaying the Dutch culture and of course, beds of gorgeous flowers. 

When we visited Windmill Island and took the tour of the windmill, I was amazed to learn of the work Alisa performs as a miller. She is a strong, feisty woman whose job consists of climbing up and down the windmill blades (reaching 125 feet at the top blade of the windmill, pushing the blades to face the wind via a wheel that turns the cap on top, and lifting fifty pound bags of wheat and pouring them into the chute to slide down to the millstone for grinding. I won't even go into the maintenance that she does to keep the windmill in good shape. Definitely a GRRL in my book.

Tulips in my yard.

If you ever get the chance to visit Holland, Michigan, you'll love the area. Be sure to take time to visit the windmill and you might get the chance to talk to Miller Alisa Crawford working at the windmill.

Do you have tulips in your yard? Have you ever visited a windmill?

Please leave a comment below. We love to hear from you!

Click here to watch Alisa's interview produced by ABC News Channel 13

I shared more pictures of Holland and Windmill Island Gardens on the J.Q. Rose blog. Click here to see the pictures.