THE CUCKOO CLOCK II

THE CUCKOO CLOCK II

Several months ago I posted about a cuckoo clock which I inherited from my mom.  http://joeh-crankyoldman.blogspot.com/2011/10/cuckoo-clock.html  It is not an expensive clock.  It is probably not worth more than $25.  Its value is purely sentimental.

Somewhere in transit the clock lost its minute hand.  I replaced it with a small stick painted white.  This stick-hand is glued to the clock post, but it is not on firm enough to manually spin forward and move the hour hand to adjust to the correct time.  In order to get the clock to the right time you need to wait until real time equals cuckoo time and then start the pendulum. 

The clock runs fast or slow depending on where the weight of the pendulum is located.  Push it up to speed time; pull it down to slow time.  The clock must be wound once a day or it stops.  Needless to say whenever the cuckoo is in synch with the real world time, I forget to wind it, or we are away for a day or more.

The cuckoo is almost never in synch with the real world.  It is almost impossible to remember to start the pendulum when real world time equals cuckoo time.  Generally I remember to start it up within 90 minutes of real time.  I then have to adjust the pendulum weight to either catch up or drop back to the actual time.  Once I have achieved synching up to real time I then have to readjust the weight to real time speed.

Every once in a while I actually have the cuckoo clock adjusted to the correct time and running at the correct speed.  Then I forget to wind it  and the process starts all over.

Mrs. Cranky is the only one that can hear the cuckoo bird cuckooing from our bedroom.  Every morning she advises me how far off the clock is to real time and I try to adjust it accordingly.

Last week she told me the clock was one hour fast.  When I went to check it, the time was spot on.   She claimed she heard nine cuckoos when it was eight o’clock.  If true this would mean the bird’s cuckoos were not is synch with the time hands.  I have no idea how to correct that.

Later in the day I counted eleven cuckoos at exactly eleven o’clock.  I informed Mrs. Cranky she was crazy and the clock was just fine.  She disagreed.  The next morning at eight o’clock I counted nine cuckoos.   Damn!  After several days of cuckoo counting we have determined the bird is accurate from ten o’clock to five o’clock and then adds an extra cuckoo from six o’clock thru nine o’clock.

The clock is indeed cuckoo!  We have decided it just adds to its charm. 

I suppose I could purchase a new, accurate, adjustable cuckoo clock, but this was my mom’s clock, a new one just would not be the same. Besides, I’m retired; trying to get the clock running at the correct time gives me something to do.  Figuring out what time it is based on the number of cuckoos is good mental exercise.