The Bird Feeder

The Pyramids, the Sphinx, the Colossus, skyscrapers, nuclear aircraft carriers and Texas. What do these seemingly unrelated things have in common and how in the world do they relate to a bird feeder?

I’m glad you asked. They all started with a couple of guys with a good idea for an afternoon project. Before they knew it, things got out of hand. Yesterday, I was one of those guys. The mission, should I decide to accept it (I did), was to mount a bird feeder in the backyard for my grandparents. By the time we finished, we had myself and my father, several psychics, the entire Army Corps of Engineers, NASA, three NASCAR pit-crews, and Errol Flynn’s ghost all involved in the project.

Now I can’t tell you how each of these groups were involved, but we have one neat, damn rig to hold up a bird feeder. I’m even thinking of charging admission and signing up with AAA to schedule tours.

I guess I had better describe this thing. We needed to mount the feeder high in the tree. On the other had, two people in their seventies would have to refill it occasionally. The first idea was just to nail a board about ten feet up in the tree and have it hang down to eye level. By the time we completed, we had the feeder about forty feet up in the tree (they can see it from their upstairs bedroom), had a rope and pulley combined with an old garage door opener and optical refill indicator that the people over at the Hubbell project have asked to study.

All my grandparents have to do is look through this thirty thousand power scope too see how full the feeder is. Should it be low, they can push this button (from anywhere in the northern hemisphere) and the feeder will slowly descend to the ground. Once it’s refilled with their choice of three tons of various bird feeds, they push the button again and it ascends to a scientifically perfect height to feed the birds and provide the best possible viewing experience at all times.

The Errol Flynn part? We put in an emergency release on the system. In case of extreme danger (the squirrels can be demanding), he can hit the release and hold on to the rope. The weight of the feeder falling will carry him up, and we placed several weapons of choice along the trunk going up the tree.

The cost of the project was somewhere to the tune of $425 million if we don’t count the expense of repositioning satellites. Luckily we had government funding. Being good citizens, we gave back the leftover money since we were trying to be frugal.

The Disc Space Conservation Society got involved. They deleted all evidence off all official and several unofficial systems. They said you should delete this one too. If not, boy do we have a project for your house. On the other hand, if your looking for a new way to mount a bird feeder, boy do I have a system for you.