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Add in the nostalgia factor - "People bring us an old picture of their grandparents' farmstead, and say 'We want a windmill just like that one'," Randy says - and all of a sudden, you're talking about a viable business.
Up to a year ago, as much as half of his business came from customers who wanted windmills for aesthetic purposes alone: yard art, if you will. In the past year, though, that number has dropped to 25 percent.
"There's just so many people now who want to pump water with their windmill," he said. "A lot of times, people didn't care if their windmill would pump water, but 99 percent of them could."
"For a rancher who has cattle in a remote location, it doesn't pay to run electricity five miles just to pump water," Randy says.
But advancing technology will change that, he adds.
"From a practical standpoint, for farm and ranch use, the windmill is becoming a dinosaur," he says. "The final nail in the windmill's coffin will be the solar powered pump, and they're close on that; real close."
Most windmills today are atop shorter towers than the "gentle giants" of the past.
"You used to see 50- to 60-foot towers," he says. "But a 12- to 20-foot tower is plenty now, especially for a decorative tower. A windmill on a tall tower will be a neglected windmill."
Before the 1920s, gears on the old windmills needed to be greased every month or two. Development of the oil bath windmill in the '20s made life easier.