South Dakota Windmill

I had a picture in my mind's eye of a windmill in front of night sky startrails. But windmills, once a common, though neglected, artifact of an earlier technology, had become historical oddities. I realized this after looking for an intact specimen, not near any security or residence lights, and a reasonable distance from any road traffic. I wondered if any windmill that I could see from the road would ever meet these requirements. After hours and miles I realized I wasn't seeing any. Where were they? How could the very icon of rural farm life have disappeared?

Eventually I did come to find this windmill in the heart of South Dakota. I marked its location and returned to it later in the evening to record the stars making their passage behind it. In this picture the stars are transient, leaving their trails behing them. In a larger time scale, the windmill is transient, eventually turning to rust and dust while the stars continue on.