I use a football field as a term of measurement when describing a large area. Everybody, including me, unbelievably, knows that a football field is 300 feet long--I don't know how many feet wide, but I figure it must be somewhere around 100 feet wide.

Very small spheres: BB's. They do well for that.

Eggs are good, too, since they're roughly the same size.

However, and this is off-topic, when giving directions here in the Richmond, VA, USA, area, we tend to use 7-Eleven convenience stores as landmarks to guide us. "Go down Broad Street past the Boulevard, and then starting counting 7-Elevens on your right. After the third 7-Eleven, count three streets, turn right, and then start counting 7-Elevens on your left..." And so on.

Back on topic: shoeboxes are good for giving rough estimations of size for objects in that ballpark. You just have to specifiy which kind of shoebox you're talking about.

Also, dogfood sacks are good, too, for estimates. When I lost fifty pounds, somebody commented, "That's 50 one-pound packages of butter." I said, "Well, just imagine a 50-pound bag of dogfood." That's pretty gratifying to wake up each day and to realize I'm not carrying around that 50-pound sack of dogfood each step I take.

Sorry, of troy, to get off-track. I'm procrastinating going in to school to close out for the school year!

Barking regards,
WordWoof!