the nothing ,anything ,everything thread

[opmania]

This is a thread with no particular

Topic so no one can be off topic 🙂

So if anyone out there has something 

To say about anything you like now

Is your chance

Keep it clean 

And be nice 

See how long that lasts

Can we keep politics and religion out 

Of the conversation 

[ecar3483]

🙂

[ecar3483]

🙂

[ecar3483]

🙂

[ecar3483]

For all the wind and the rain, Babs still managed the arduous and perilous journey to the big table... ha ha.

And eat the creamed corn...

Nothing else, just the creamed corn... ha ha.

That little possum's going to grow up knowing nothing but creamed corn flavoured milk, ha ha.

It looks like the Winter'll be back next week...

I can see myself standing in the kitchen at half past six in the morning waiting for the dawn to come so I can see how badly the bird baths have frozen...

And arguing with myself as to whether or not I feel brave enough to venture out in the cold and do something about it...

Or take the sensible alternative and go back to bed... ha ha.

I should put string loops in the bird baths that hang out over the sides, and set up a pulley and line system...

That way, when the bird bath freezes, there'll be string in the ice, and the loop hanging out of the ice...

All I have to do is pull on the string that runs through the loop, and the sheet of ice will pop straight out of the bath...

That easy... ha ha.

It's like the time a mate replaced the air filter in his motorbike with a kitchen sponge...

Okay, well, that didn't go well at all, ha ha

Maybe I should just stick to levering the ice out with a screwdriver...

But you have to admit that practicalities aside it's a brilliant idea, ha ha.

🙂

[lyndal1838]

Does the water freeze all the way through.....if it does there would be none left in the birdbath when you pull the strings.

What about a container of boiling water.....melt the ice and still leave water in the birdbath.

[imastawka]

Nice ideas there.

Ecar, apparently if you have something floating on the water, the breeze moving it around will prevent the water freezing completely.

If it's windy you'll need to tie it to a weight, though.

[ecar3483]

Lyndal, no, generally I can expect about a centimetre to two of ice, with a "bubble" of water underneath...

I should have paid more attention in high school to the physics lessons where I would have learnt that physics has a perverse sense of humour...

The bird bath sits a little below waist height.

On the one occasion that I went to "break" the ice with a hammer, the ice, floating on the water, moved, as did the water...

Which is where, of course, the perverse sense of humour possessed by physics came into play,...

The ice went one way, the water went the other... straight towards me... at a little below waist height...

I'm sure there was laughter all round, ha ha.

Not only wet pants, but pants wet in a place where you really don't want to get them wet, certainly not with with freezing old water... ha ha.

The ice grows delicate lace curtains down into the water and I keep saying to myself that an upturned block of ice would make a beautiful photograph... now if only I could get my fingers to unfreeze while I get the camera... ha ha.

🙂

[ecar3483]

Something floating on the water, Stawks... There's an interesting idea...

I'd thought of cheap ping pong balls, at first, then then thought no, because I don't want to have to go round the garden cleaning up the pieces of ping pong balls after certain birds have played with them... ha ha.

Somewhat more sturdy things are in order I think, and definitely tethered because I know if I didn't secure them then I'd never see them again, ha ha.

There is, also, the matter of tethering the floating object...

Or more to the point, fastening the tether to the bird bath...

If I drill a hole in the bird bath won't all the water run out?

And you knew I was going to ask that... ha ha.

🙂

[ecar3483]

I built the bird perch frame some years back.

It's a big, open, rectangular/square frame with two pieces that go up almost to the eaves.

Here and there there's angled sticks for climbing on, and more or less horizontal sticks for perching on...

It's had some use, but not a lot... mostly the birds use it as a climbing frame to get from A to B... ha ha.

Tonight the old man bird decided to try it out...

Right on dark I thought I'd do the right thing and say goodnight to him...

He wasn't so certain... ha ha.

There's this large dark shape looming towards me out of the darkness, and my eyesight isn't that good...

He got upset...

He Told me that he was upset... ha ha.

I got the torch out and held it over my head, pointing down...

It didn't really "illuminate" me, in as much as it didn't show the finer details but it did give a pretty good outline of "me"...

He snorted at me, which I shall take as "Oh, it's you...", ha ha.

Shining the torch up, under my face gives a distorted picture of my face, and that's not going to help if he's looking to identify me by specific features, but "The beanie that Really does need a wash" and "I bet he didn't pay more than twenty bucks for that jacket, and it looks like it,  ha ha" is all he needs to know that it's me, ha ha.

"Snort...", ha ha, he's priceless...

🙂

[ecar3483]

I told the birds that I was going to the shops to get them some bread...

I went up to the nearby shops and barely had time to get out of the car and lock it before there was a cockatoo flying from "I know exactly which direction that is"... ha ha.

And he was shouting, at the top of his lungs "Where are you? Where are you?", ha ha.

My limited knowledge of shrieked spoken cockatoo is coming in handy, ha ha.

Over the carpark he flew, and it seems, didn't see me... so he kept going in the direction of the next set of shops that I might have gone to...

By the time I'd got back to the car, he'd made it back to the carpark, and having found the car he waited for me...

Quietly? Patiently? You ask... ha ha.

In a word, no.

He'd found the car, but he hadn't found me, so he felt that it was his duty to keep asking where I was...

Loudly...

Repeatedly...ha ha.

He was so happy when he saw me that he completely forgot that he didn't have to keep inquiring as to my whereabouts in a decibel range that would put a rock concert to shame, ha ha.

He got home before me, and when I got home he was proudly announcing to the other birds that he'd found me... ha ha.

There's times I'd dearly love to be able to shout say, in cockatoo, "Down here, you idiot!, Now Shut Up!!", ha ha.

🙂