Month: June 2018

Today’s project – hang a string of bells I brought home from my dad’s house. Don’t ask me why I brought them home as I have literally only asked for 3 items so far … and we’ve went through a lot of stuff … and there is nothing special about them except they sound calm and soothing.

I’m not going to go into detail about how I managed to hang them from the eave of our second story balcony, but let’s just say it involved a Swiffer duster wand; a rubber band to hold open the carabiner clip; a step stool and an already-in-place eye hook. (No, Ellen Weiler, there was no coffee can involved!) Needless to say I was successful in getting the string of bells hung but they were a little too heavy to catch the breeze and tinkle.

Think … think … think … It needs a wind catcher tail and some weight. Hmmmmm. Where do I go when I need to find something totally random and yet useful? Mike’s shop! That man has everything! Grab the keys and head to the front shop. I’m looking around and what to my wondering eyes should appear? A reflective strip! He won’t miss it, he has 3 more just like it! Now the idea is really starting to gel. I turn around and on a shelf I see fishing line. Perfect. Now, something to poke a hole in the reflective tape. A small screw driver, got it. I need something to hit the screwdriver with to make the hole. I’m standing in Mike’s shop. He probably has 15 hammers. But the first thing I see is a paint can opener and the handle will be just the blunt object I need. Hole poked. Done and Done.

That right there is what makes my husband CRAZY! He has caught me using his cat’s-paw to dig weeds, tin snips to cut barbed wire and an ice cream scoop to pound in a nail. He has NO imagination. I get my money’s worth out of anything I purchase, every item in my house must be a multi-tasker. Please do not rat me out to my husband. Let’s just keep the Swiffer duster and paint can opener details to ourselves, shall we? Good.

With great pride I tied my reflective tape/fishing line invention to the end of the string of bells and … … … nothing. It is too light and even though the wind catches it, it does not have enough weight to cause the bell rope to swing.

Think … think … think … what can I use to give the reflective tape a little bit of weight? Didn’t we have some left over sticky bumper things from some long ago project? I meant to throw those away, but I think they may still be hanging out in the junk drawer in the laundry room. Yes! I found them and they will be perfect, I just know it.

So, about an hour and a half later, after trying different fishing line lengths and weight placement combinations I have a wind catcher that has enough bulk to get my bells tinkling even in the slightest of breezes.

I know this is just a prototype. The backing on the reflective tape is not waterproof and the sticky backed bumper things are not going to stay in place if we get much wind. But for today I was successful and I can hear my bells tinkling as I type this. About 2 o’clock in the morning I will come up with the components necessary to have a lasting wind catcher and I’ll have to wait for another day when Mike isn’t around so I can create to my heart’s content.

Just call me Jeanneine MacGyver, Angus MacGyver’s illegitimate half-sister.