Rose is Rose by Don Wimmer and Pat Brady for July 28, 2023

I always thought of a reflecting ball as tacky. Then I got one. It is a really neat focal point especially n the winter when it gives life to an otherwise bland garden.

I’m half-surprised none of them in the last panel have thought, “Yes, Master…”

Only intelligent beings react to hypnosis.

Jimbo is missing his chance to get the animals to do his bidding!

This is how you catch a unicorn (see the beginning of “Phoebe and Her Unicorn”) https://www.gocomics.com/phoebe-and-her-unicorn/2012/04/24

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-portrait_in_a_Convex_Mirrorhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Portrait_in_a_Convex_Mirror_(poetry_collection)

not to your animal friends however. :J

The animals are hypnotized by it!

In the ‘50s my parents had friends on the outskirts of town who had a reflecting ball in their yard. It was the only way to tell their house from the others around them.

It apparently has no effect on the weak-minded.

Mine lost its shinny too fast.

A small, but significant, concern: Many such ‘gazing balls’ are made of glass. Most have some sort of manufacturing neck, and that usually is sealed with a plastic or rubber cap to allow for external pressure changes. However … my own experience is that the seals do not stay that way. A small amount of water gets inside the ball, and the trapped humidity on hot days destroys the sheen.

In addition, most display stands require the neck to be placed pointing downward inside some sort of obscuring recess, and usually that recess fills with rain or dew water. The fix for this, and water inside the ball, is to drill a large drain hole down through the inside of the stand or pedestal. Otherwise the first freeze breaks the neck, and can craze-crack the entire sphere. This is a hazard for an inexperienced homeowner who tries to extract or gather the broken shards without using specifically-designed ’safety’ gloves.

My wife has such a gazing ball in one of her gardens. The first year we had one, it and its pedestal were destroyed by freezing temps, somewhat to her irritation. I now insist that before the first predicted freeze in the late Fall, the gazing ball (and its stand) HAVE to be taken down and packed away in storage for the Winter. The replacement ball we acquired for the second Summer now has lasted for 9 years, and it still is all gisteny-glowy. We have a whole menagerie of decorations (garden fairies, bird baths, the gazing globe, etc.) that we store over Winter, and replace with freeze-hardy ones like a miniature sled, mini skis and poles, birch logs, bright fluttery seasonal flags, etc.

I found a 1-foot cube light-weight wooden box in which we store the the globe, and I lined it with bubble-wrap to protect the glass object. The box stays on a high shelf in the garage, along with the other stored garden ‘art’ items.

I think Jimbo found one of Tolkien’s palantir stones. Now all the creatures are under Sauron’s spell!

Try one of those “talking tree face” attatchments