I don't personally have one, but one of my friends lives 100% off-grid. He's had a wind turbine for years. A few years ago his wind turbine broke and it's not gotten repaired yet. They're on solar now, and it's proven much more reliable and trouble-free.
The blades themselves can be fabricated from large enough pieces of wood, so you could theoretically do that part yourself. It's time consuming but doable.
I'm assuming that you'd want to do a grid tie of some sort and the goal would for it to basically offset the electric costs, rather than be a dedicated source of electricity. Grid tie is easier (no batteries to hassle with) but you'll still need an appropriate controller. You'll also need to check with the utility company to see how that will work out for your mom.
My friend's controller wasn't very advanced, but if the wind is blowing too fast, he had to turn off the wind turbine. It'd still be turning, but basically it'd make too much power and had to be shut off to prevent from overpowering the circuitry. I always thought it seemed pretty silly - wind turbine needs wind to make power. But there's too much wind, so you have to turn it off. Basically the turbines have an optimal wind speed to work at.
Like I said, after my friend's windmill broke a few years ago, he hasn't fixed it fully yet. He's made some strides and certainly could fix it, but has opted not to in favor of solar.
But if you want to go wind, check out this website:
http://www.otherpower.com/
