Doubled winged Turkey Weather Vane

A variation on the theme. A wooden spoon and lengths of western red cedar timber slats - old blinds found on the street as part of the Councils kerbside cleanup.

The next version will have a wooden fork as a head. My local op shop is a treasure trove - though I seem to have bought their full stock of wooden stirring implements..

Macadamia Raider

Harvest awaiting drying and shelling

CAAAARK  CAAAARK
I hear the raucous call and jump to my feet. A sulphur crested cockatoo is an unusual visitor to my backyard. He sounds like a young version of my grandfather who spent his last years in the front room of my parents' house smoking his rollies and coughing himself to his grave. This pure white raider, still in his adolescence, doesn't have the chest rumble and the deep voice of Larry. He's still proud and potent and announces his presence without hesitation.

 In reply the pathetic Noisy Minors make their challenge. yeeep yeeep yeeep. The sulphur crested one cockily ignores them and they give up, acknowledging the futility of mounting this campaign.

He's up there high in the macadamia nut tree clumsily clawing his way along each thin branch to reach the nuts at the extremes. He looks like he's a dapper pirate walking the plank. It's a large tree. It was mature when I arrived here almost twenty years ago so it's a survivor. I've just finished harvesting a good crop but there are plenty remaining for those prepared to fly or risk their lives.

The past two years have provided very generous harvests - one an extraordinarily wet year and this, a very dry and hot year. One a pest free crop and this year compromised. The wasps have deposited their larvae in the shells and their pupae have bored into the core and spoilt every second nut.

'Sulphur crest' cocks his head to take me in as I wander around the base of the tree but he soon returns to his task which appears to be the snapping off as many branches as possible. His strong beak simply bites through the branches as he goes. He's giving the tree a good summer pruning. He's behaving like I do when I get a pair of gardening shears in my hands - cut and cut until the urge departs - which is why I think of him as male.

He's not particularly interested in the fruit, or at least he is happy to be wasteful. Nuts fall to the ground around the base of the tree as he crawls from one bunch to the next. I don't see him crack or eat any of them. He just shows off by throwing them out of the tree like discarded babies.

Maybe he and I should strike a bargain. He can throw the high ones out of the tree, I'll gather them, then I'll crack a few and leave them out for him. And then we can both let our hair down and go on a rampage of pruning together.

CAAAARK CAAAAARK. We speak the same language.

Santa's workshop - Blokes in sheds making stuff.

Turkeys hung out to dry

You may remember my fascination with creating a weather vane using the much loathed Brush Turkey as my inspiration. Well, I've gone from fascinated to obsessed. This is partly due to the positive response I've had from friends and mates. I've even had a few orders (one willing to pay). So I decided that these would make good presents. I'm up to number 7. All of which happily spin and follow the breeze beautifully. Some of which only a mother (or inventor-bloke) could love.

Now it occurs to me that there are blokes (and possible blokettes) out there doing some amazing things with scraps of timber and lengths of left over pipe and, in my case, wooden spoons and spatulas, held together by string and wire, staples and a spot of glue. Blokes (and b'ettes) in their backyards inventing every manner of useful and useless thing, sometimes to solve a problem, sometimes just for the hell of it. Why, people build whole beach shacks using this technique.

A stampede of feather brained weather vanes

In my case it's clearly not just a whim, but practical. I now have a pretty good indication of the direction of the wind at any time of day simply by looking out my back door (at night I have to revert to using my own senses or turning on the floodlights which is pretty annoying for the neighbours - I'm working on a glow in the dark version! Kidding).

Doesn't everyone need to know where the wind is coming from? My cat certainly has an instinct for shade and breeze and cool spots. It's the same for me. I feel cooler when I can see there's a breeze.

Mother and child

I am interested in any one else who dabbles in the dark arts of creativity in the secrecy of their shed, or under the house, because I reckon it would make a great blog site or, better still, an exhibition at some prestigious social history museum like the one we have here in Brisbane (MOB - Museum of Brisbane).

Send me some photos and I'll post them. I'll also be pitching this idea to the director of MOB. I'll let you know the response.

PS For Christmas my son has offered to get the 'Turkey Brained Weather Vane' registered. I'm not sure what that means and I'm not sure that was the spirit in which the project was initiated but its another bit of fun. And a kind of interesting present. Life is.....

BrushTurkey put to good use

turkey weather vane

 It's summer. The brush turkeys are on the prowl. Breeding profusely and tearing gardens to shreds to make their huge nests.

This is the only good use I have found for these terrorists, though my Uncle Paddy says if you get them young they cook up quite well. Others say that to cook them, boil in water with a rock and they're ready to eat when the rock is tender. Unfortunately they're a protected species.

design inspiration

I've always wanted a wind vane, a weather cock. I love their simplicity and in a strange way I always feel connected with the elements when I watch them.

I've hinted to the family about my secret desire over the years but my requests for a birthday or christmas surprise have always been deemed to be a tad eccentric and fallen on deaf ears.

keeping watch

I've taken matters into my own hands and decided to make one of my own. Google helped, but of even more assistance was the natural qualities of the brush turkey. What a great tail. If only their heads were anywhere near as attractive! They're pin heads of very little brain and spend many hours with their heads stuck in the mound of nest material taking the temperature. Hence functional but ugly.

So I googled and then had a sudden inspiration. After ten years I have designed and made a prototype over the past couple of days. And it works. It behaves just like a turkey - spinning and checking and changing direction in response to the breeze.More rational than the real bird.