Well Hasbro Australia must have been watching because they were kind enough to send Orion and I a surprise gift for our continuing support of the brand! Check out the video below:
Massive thanks to Hasbro Australia for their generosity! Our Bumblebee, signed by Keegan Michael-Key, will sit MISB in pride of place in The Transformatorium for many years to come!
“What’s the strangest reaction you’ve had when people see The Transformatorium?”
(Or as Adam put it: ‘the nerd shed’)
Well that’s a toughie, I’ve had at least a few hundred visitors to the shed since I first got it set up nearly 4 years ago. Some people travel hours to specifically tour the shed and sometimes fathers contact me, wanting to bring their sons for their birthdays. Conversely, sometimes it’s an unsuspecting tradesman visiting our farm, such as a mechanic or labourer, getting dragged in with a ‘Hey, you want to see something cool?’ line from yours truly. Usually I do the lighting start up sequence, where shelf after shelf gets lit from the bottom up, ending with ignition of the ceiling light. There is usually a lot of ‘Oh wow!’s followed by that moment of stunned amazement as people try to visually process what they are seeing, being completely enveloped by Transformers on every wall and even the ceiling.
Their subsequent reactions tend to be based on who they are and why they are seeing it.
People that know about The Transformatorium
Jason, Trent and Dallas – all travelled 3 hours to come hang out in the shed.
Reactions from people who have specifically come to see the Transformatorium, or at least are aware of its existence before visiting our place on other business are pretty standard:
Those coming to see the shed tend to go very quiet after their initial excitement, wandering around getting lost in the thousands of toys surrounding them. They methodically work their way through shelf after shelf, seeing if they can spot any figures from their childhood.
Those who were aware of the sheds existence, but didn’t come specifically to see it, show bemusement a lot of the time. This is often the mothers of the friends of my children, who are dropping their kids off for a playdate or party, and have been taken in for a look. They seem impressed but also have a ‘why would anyone do this?’ look upon their faces.
People that don’t know about the shed
Lachlan came to clean an underground water tank – ended up getting a full tour he wasn’t expecting!
It’s the people that aren’t even aware that The Transformatorium exists (how that can be I do not know – the level of ignorance in society can be shocking sometimes!) are ones that give the most varied reactions, though the first reaction is always surprise as no one expects to see such a thing on a farm in the middle of nowhere. In fact only last week my daughters new singing teacher (a very talented young woman who has appeared on The Big DJ Trev Show before) saw the shed for the first time, as did her mother later when she came to pick her daughter up.
The mother was extremely impressed and spent a long time looking around the shed. In fact when her two other younger daughters were asking to leave after nearly half an hour she said ‘No, I haven’t finished looking yet’.
However when the singing teacher took a look, her reaction was almost accusatory. ‘How much did all this cost?’ I believe were her exact words. In that scenario I was the one that was bemused.
People online
Most people on the internet are very complimentary when they first see a photo. I’ve received all kinds of compliments, and sometimes comments such as ‘I want come live there’ or ‘will you adopt me?’.
Some people say it looks like a store which I’ve always found a bit odd, though I take it as a compliment as to how they are displayed. Other people react with questions, often about dusting but sometimes other things such as how many Transformers I have or the dimensions of the shed.
We used to have a carpet cleaning company come out once a year that was run by a husband and wife. When I showed the husband the shed he swore a lot (in a good way), looked about, then went and got his wife from inside our main farmhouse ‘Ya gotta f*cken look at this!” I believe were his exact words to her. It was actually his suggestion for me to get a visitors book. Let’s have a look at just some of the reactions people have recorded in it over the years:
“Wow, that’s a BIG collection. Dayam” Brendan – 15/11/2020
“Wow! Just wow, and I want to play with them” – Ronnie – 19/12/2020
“All I can say is WOW!! Just completely blown away” – Brett, 24/01/2021
“Incredible!! You da bomb Trev!” – Lisa & Scott, 03/02/2024
“Mind instantly blown, it took me back to my childhood. Amazing” – Michael & Wyatt, 24/04/2024
“WOWSERS! Oh my HAT!” – Petrina, 12/06/2024
The Strangest Reaction Ever
The strangest reaction I ever got, ever, would have to be from one of the operators of Dry Creek Farm, an awesome company that uses goats in order to clean out noxious weeds like blackberries in an environmentally sustainable way in the best traditions of permaculture. His reaction was – nothing.
Complete indifference. Could have been saying to him ‘Hey, look at this brick that looks exactly like those 27,000 other bricks over there, isn’t it great?!’ Didn’t like it, didn’t dislike it, just didn’t care.
I’ve encountered wonder, awe, shock, confusion, bemusement, amazement & joy. I’ve had people visibly impressed, dumbstruck, stunned and surprised. But never, before or since, have I had someone look inside the shed and have the same expression one would have looking at a piece of grass – just complete disinterest. Even people that aren’t into Transformers are either impressed with the scale of the collection they are seeing, or at least kinda curious in how it came about since its not something you see every day. But nope, not this time.
So Adam, the strangest reaction the nerd shed ever got was no reaction at all.
This is the tale of an amazing natural sight I saw yesterday.
It’s 9am on a Friday morning. The missus has left for work, I’ve gotten the kids up, fed and dressed and it’s time for me to start the farm chores of the day.
I grab my keys and go open the shed door, anxious to get the more onerous of the jobs over with before the temperature reaches the forecast 37 degree’s – typical for the Mallee in January. Just inside the door is my big beer fridge and close to that is a black crate I’ve been using to sort my Transformer books and DVD’s (yes, as well as being a hobby farmer I’m also a big TF nerd). I notice immediately that there has been a big web spun between the crate and the fridge that wasn’t there the night before. There are a few bits of twig and dry grass in it. Also a great big Redback Spider is busy in the web, hungrily sucking on the tail of… a snake.
A snake.
A bloody snake!
I’ve got a real thing about snakes. I didn’t used to, affording them due respect so they wouldn’t bite me but otherwise not worrying about them. However several years ago I lost an immediate family member to a bite by a juvenile brown snake. Combine that with the fact that I live on a farm and have two small children, I’m pretty damn paranoid about them now. Don’t want to lose my kids or for them to lose their dad the way I lost an older sibling.
I recoil immediately but morbid curiosity quickly brings me back (that and I’ll want to be able to grab a beer that evening). It is indeed a young snake and quite dead. We only get three types of snake on our farm that I’ve seen; brown snakes, red-bellied black snakes and blind snakes. While I initially think it is a brown snake, as they are the ones we seem to get most commonly, I realize upon closer inspection this is a Blind Snake, in particular a Ramphotyphlops australis. I’ve usually encountered them when I’ve been digging up various big bull ant nests around the farm but they are known to come to the surface on warm humid nights, which is what we had experienced the night before. It’s grey, about 20 centimeters long and as stated, very dead.
Holy Hell!
The Redback Spider, which judging from it’s size and the nearby egg sacs is a female, has cocooned the Blind Snake’s head thickly in webbing and the rest of the body to a lesser extent. The snake at its lowest point is hanging about an inch above the floor and the spider is chowing down on the tip of its tail – maybe where the skin is thinnest and easiest to suck the undoubtedly now pureed innards out of. It’s a pretty disturbing sight but fascinating none-the-less.
I dash back to the house to grab my phone to take a picture. Of course with a child’s instinct to run towards danger both my kids follow me back out. I manage to take a few photos whilst blocking my daughter (my son is old enough to know if Dad says ‘Stay back – it’s dangerous!’ to do so but my daughter just gives a frustrated yell and tries to push past to see what all the fuss is about). I then reach for my watering can. Whilst having a spider that can take down snakes seems to be very desirable, having one right in the doorway to the shed all the family goes in and out of 50 times a day is most certainly not. I instruct the little ones to look away and then Daddy turns spider, snake and web all into a memory with a couple of decisive bangs.
And that’s the story, one of the most amazing predator-prey events I’ve seen up close! It even led me to make this meme:
After all this I wondered how the spider managed to get the snake off the floor and into its web. Subsequent research I’ve done says that Latrodectus hasseltii (Redbacks) attacking and killing snakes is a very rare occurrence but it does happen. I believe the incident I witnessed however may actually be the only recorded case of a Redback taking down thisparticular species of snake. Apparently the process with other species usually involves the Redback turning it’s abdomen towards a snake slithering on the ground after it gets caught in a trap line and shoots web all over it. As the snake thrashes and becomes more entangled the Redback slowly hoists it up into the main web where it can then bite, kill and feed at its leisure. Despite the fact that Blind Snakes are not venomous I assume this happened in the same manner and it makes the above meme all the more appropriate, don’t you think?
Care to comment on the story you just read or have a similar story of your own? Would love to read it in the comments section below!
