これは「scarecrow」です。

こわいわね。ちがう。こっけいですね。

頭は牛の頭です。日本語で「とうこつ」ですか。

からすはオーシテンにがありません。

たぶん「scarecrow」は利きます。

「scarecrow」は日本語で何と言いますか。

Generally Speaking

This is a scarecrow. Scary, huh? No. It's more funny than scary. The head is made out of a cow's head, rather, a cow's skull. (Is "とうこつ" how you say skull in Japanese?) In Austin, we don't have any crows. Hey, maybe that means the scarecrow works! How do you say "scarecrow" in Japanese, anyway.

質問とコメント

1. Finally we had a sunny warm day. I spent most of it in the garden: mowing the grass, weeding, and pruning trees. But I took a little time out to look at other people's gardens in our neighborhood. These people have a garden in our neighborhood on a vacant lot about one mile south of our house. They've but up some other strange yard sculptures, but earlier this month, this scarecrow appeared.

2. I associate scarecrows with cornfields in Kansas. They are usually made of straw stuffed into old workclothes. You don't see many scarecrows around here, because Texas is primarily ranch land, not farmland. But in the olden days, people used to use cattle skulls as decorations on their fences and houses. I guess because there wasn't anything else. So this is a pretty unusual design, but it certainly has a Texas feel to it.

3. The thing that sets this scarecrow off as pure camp is the pink flamingo on the its shoulder. The plastic pink flamingo is the ubiquitous garden fixture in gardens less refined.

4. We don't have crows here. The first time I saw a crow was in Japan. Whoa! They're big! We have smaller birds that are similar (black and noisy) called grackles. And mockingbirds (our state bird) and bluejays. I've never put up a scarecrow, but sometimes I put up bird netting to keep them away from my tomatoes and corn.