My husband and I got into the car laughing merrily. We'd been promising ourselves this treat all summer. Cameras in hands, we were going to tour the neighborhood and show the world the tacky yard art of Chinchilla, PA. All the way down the road we wondered aloud if we'd be able to keep a straight face as we asked the proud owners if we could photograph their "garden sculpture."
It turned into an odyssey of a different kind.
We saw yard art as we drove - but I was on a mission - three houses I had discovered earlier in the summer that I swore were in a competition to out-tacky each other. So we sped past the statue of a boy fishing (successfully!) in sand with scarcely a pause.
Our first stop was a front yard which I remembered as being all gravel and dozens of statues. I was part right - there were tons of statues, ranging from two Blessed Virgins to plastic chipmunks, all arranged in vignettes on a bed of gravel between a few small shrubs. It's hard to tell in this thumbnail, but that's Winnie the Pooh behind the Mary statue, and a concrete baby deer and rabbit in the foreground. I couldn't squeeze in the plastic squirrel.
But as we drove into the driveway I noticed other things. There wasn't a single weed in the gravel, and the shrubs had been carefully trimmed. The lawn leading to the backyard was immaculate. Other beds held not gravel but vegetables - beans, tomatoes, potatoes, onions - all judiciously tied and poled and tended. There was an orchard of supremely healthy apple trees in back. This was not the yard of someone who simply didn't care. It was a yard created with love.
The man didn't even appear surprised when I asked to photograph his yard art. One might have assumed that it was a common request.
Stop two was a place that my husband described as a McDonald's PlayLand that got lost. Our reception at the first house had been so matter of fact that I felt braver now, but this homeowner appeared a bit confused about why we would want to photograph the assemblage of neon plastic structures in his yard. "It's just kids toys," he said.
And indeed that's what it proved to be when we walked closer - a child's heaven - somewhat blinding, but clearly functional and well used. I almost put away my camera until I glanced beyond this array to a tree by the fence. In front of it stood a larger than life-sized bear - quite realistic, and nearly terrifying. A few yards over was a life-sized wildcat, then a wolf, and finally a deer. "Hunting practice," he explained - and that made sense. I'm sorry the photo isn't clearer - but we were losing light fast.
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