Random things in trees

Trees. I don’t know where to begin: there’s so much to say about them, and our relationship with them.

Look at this old monster, bearing its huge and ancient scar. Was the bark for a canoe? Or part of some cremation or interment ritual? I’ll never know. I’d gone out with some of the kids and Mr B, a very knowledgeable artisan, to collect wood for spears. (That’s what I like about schools out west. There aren’t enough places where you lads can go out and make spears during school time.)

Some scars were decorated. This is a more modern interpretation of the practice. Might’ve been cut with a cordless circular saw or similar. The world changes.

This one’s up the Castlereagh, towards Angledool. I don’t think it’s an actual scar from human activity, probably just a shed branch. But what’s the blue for? It’s not near a driveway or anything; it just seems really random.

But if you want to see really random stuff in trees you don’t have to go far. On the road between Cumborah and the Grawin there’s a tree with a microwave oven in it. How? Why? Perhaps someone put the oven down for five minutes twenty years ago then forgot about it and a tree grew beneath it.

As you head up towards Hebel you’ll come across a lot of little … um … what do I call them? Sculptures? Tableaux?

Whoever’s responsible has put a fair amount of thought and work into their creation. Not a lot of thought and work, but a fair amount.

Again: what does it mean?

As is always the case with children’s toys in a location where there are no actual children there can be an element of the creepy in the whole exercise. This is exacerbated when the artist nails the toy to the tree by the ears.

Superman makes an appearance. There’s something poignant about this Superman. Well, that might just be me. I’m always filling in imaginary back stories for things like this and perhaps his arrival in a tree at the side of the Castlereagh Highway miles from anywhere isn’t poignant at all, maybe it’s utterly hilarious and involved rum and cones and nakedness and all the other standard rituals of modern Ridge life.

But I prefer my poignant back story. It suits my natural melancholia.