SANDHILL COUNTRY, Neb. — They love their sandhills in northwest Nebraska.

They love them so much that one sees signs that read “Save the Sandhills” as you tool along U.S. Highway 83 northbound into South Dakota.

“I wonder from what or whom they’re wanting to save the sandhills,” I asked my wife.

Then it became evident.

We noticed another set of signs: “Say ‘no’ to wind turbines.”

There you have it. They don’t want no stinkin’ wind turbines polluting the landscape in Sandhill Country.

Interestingly, as we noticed campaign signs for all manner of political candidates on the eve of the election, we didn’t see evidence of a ballot measure calling for construction of wind turbines. I guess, therefore, that the good folks here are launching a pre-emptive strike against anyone who might want to install the big-bladed turbines that have become part of the landscape in, say, West Texas, Eastern New Mexico, the Oklahoma Panhandle and even parts of Kansas.

This more or less cuts to another question: Do the folks in northwest Nebraska — what few of them one can spot — not care about national energy policy, or about whether wind power could help us develop cleaner, safer, non-foreign sources of energy?

I’m guessing they do.

Just don’t put the big ol’ blades in their territory.