The Puddle

Nothing too ambitious today. I'm in the midst of editing something for a friend. Last night I engaged in some horticultural black-ops, installing these decoy sunflowers in with the real ones in our garden. My jet-lagged father was quite surprised to see them in the morning light as he looked out the kitchen window. As I've told numerous people already, we haven't had much luck with sunflowers. Every time we try to grow them they are carried off before their prime by vicious squirrels and groundhogs. They scoff at our feeble attempts to protect the shoots. I once watched a squirrel nimbly reach past the chicken wire sleeve, lift the old pop bottle that was sheltering the infant plant, and slowly tear it from the ground to savour the sprouted seed at the root. He turned to me with that special fury of squirrels and gave me a withering look of haughty superiority. I'm sure if his little digits possessed the dexterity, he would have flipped me off before scurrying back to his den. Attempts to cheat nature and buy grown plants were also a rather expensive disaster, the record being something like 2 hours between purchase and time of death. Apparently, to the distinguishing woodchuck, the only part of a sunflower worth eating is the two inch section right at the base of flower. Its exceptional tenderness is unparalleled, while the rest of the flower can be discarded in the muck. In short, this was the first time in memory that we managed to save anything from the ravaging rodent hordes. Our two spindly sunflowers aren't much to the casual observer, but to me they're a bit of a triumph.

On a completely unrelated note, I wanted to remedy the lengthy absence from cyberspace of something that deserves to be here. Myself and Martin Cuddy made this animated short in high school. It was a lot of work, and it's a bit of a shame that we've lost the original forever. Such is the fate of all things made, especially those that aren't even all that physical to begin with. Also note that there are only minimal sound effects in this version, so don't turn up your volume too much or take to smacking the side of your computer. Enjoy.

The Device from Martin Conley-Wood on Vimeo.