First I have to tell you that my Icelandic grandfather was ahead of his time. Before he left Iceland he learned skill as a tinsmith. He was not in the vanguard of emigrants who left Iceland in 1875 because of untenable living conditions but he came soon after, with a salable trade. I think he was 24 years old when he met my grandmother in Winnipeg; she was 17. They married and moved to Churchbridge, SK, where they didn’t like the water and moved again. He worked his trade in Winnipeg, tinning roofs. I think I learned the phrase “cat on a hot tin roof” from his recollections of his work in Winnipeg in the searing summers until he moved to Gimli, where the water was good. He started Tergesen’s Store in 1899 (still in the family today, run by my cousins) and in 1907 built the house on Third Avenue from blueprints he bought from Chicago. He built an enormous concrete rain barrel in the basement and put a windmill on the roof of the barn to supply the power to pump the water. He had the house wired for electricity years before power arrived in Gimli. After that , I guess the windmill supplemented the electric service and saved some money on the bill. So by the time I came along his habit was well established of watching the windmill every day and night. Hence:

“myllan hefur ekki pumpa i dag”

I could say it but I couldn’t understand it. I asked my Amma what he was saying. What did it mean?