Thursday Challenge: Empty

Just when I was starting to think the Thursday Challenge wasn't terribly challenging, up pops this week's prompt...

EMPTY (House, Room, Playground, Glass, Container, Chair,...)

I'm afraid the past several days have been too hectic for me to be very creative, or to keep my eyes peeled for artistic tableaus of empty chairs or containers. My first thought was to photograph an empty beer glass with nothing remaining in it but Belgian Lace. Goodness knows I had the props on hand, and the willingness (if not outright need) to use them!

But I kept pondering the prompt, and although my attention remained focused on beer, it turned to empty beer vessels of a more whimsical sort: this whirligig made out of empty Bud Light cans by a man in Saskatchewan, Canada, purchased from him by my mother at the Havre, Montana farmer's market last year, and then given to me to hang above our patio on summer days...

My mother had a silver one made of empty Coors cans hanging from her deck when I'd visited her last year. I found myself torn between admiring its clever engineering, craftsmanship and hypnotic multiple spinning parts, and thinking it was, well... tacky. There, I said it.
Mom apparently thought I'd be won over if I owned one of my own so she sent me this one, and her strategy has been surprisingly effective. So I decided to use it on Robyn, who is now the ambivalent owner of a green one made of Mountain Dew cans. (My mention of the raw materials used in the making of these three whirligigs should not construe that any of us drink nor condone these brands and/or types of carbonated beverages.) ;-)

While I won't attempt to convince you that a whirligig made of empty aluminum beverage containers is more fun than tacky by foisting one upon you, I can do the next best thing and share some video (and audio) of mine in action on a typically blustery Wyoming day...

Here's a little closeup action of its moving parts (over the wind and whirligig noise you can occasionally catch the sound of my bamboo chimes, too. But for the lack of tumbling tumbleweeds and other objects hurtling by (trash cans, patio furniture, compact cars...), you get the entire Wyoming Wind experience...

I'm only kidding a little bit about the wind here. Wyoming's vast, empty spaces are filled with it. (So maybe that means they're not really empty!) ;-)

WYOMING WIND SOCK

Strength of wind from chain angle

0º Broken - Notify Meteorologist

30º - Fresh Breeze

45º - Gentle Zephyr

60º - Hurricane in Area

75º - Beware of Low-Flying Trains

90º - Welcome to Big, Wonderful Wyoming

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Seeking Zen-like emptiness?

Visit this week's Thursday Challenge!