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Near where my family lives in Washington state, there is this great yard with a giant circle of vintage toy trucks arranged in a scene. At first it looks like it’s haphazardly placed gobs of a borderline hoarding habit tilted toward yellow toy trucks. As you get closer, you can see that the toys are not haphazadly arranged at all, but placed with thought. As with most eccentric yard art, you have to look for the details to really get into the mind of a person who would spend untold hours procuring the vehicles and then arranging them. As I walked back and forth on the sidewalk, it was easy to see tiny vignettes going on in the bigger picture. I would guess there were about thirty large Tonka trucks, maybe even more and untold numbers of smaller trucks, graders and other various Tonka vehicles arranged in an oblong ovoid path right at the sidewalk. It was really something.

job-site by Jon Armstrong.

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I wish there were more weird people doing stuff like this in suburbia. I’m sure a homeowner’s association somewhere is losing their shit over this, but given that I grew up with these toys (I had the metal crane and a dump truck to go with it), I’m siding with the actual homeowner.

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Affirmation: I accept myself and my weaknesses. And I accept the utter fantasticalness of people who see the world differently than I do.

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  • http://www.facebook.com/robin.dearing Robin Dearing

    I love this. I seek out weird things that people build in their yards and on their houses. Do you have more pictures? I’d love to see them.

  • top45at45

    I LOVE this idea! I have been struggling to come up with an idea/plan for planting my front flower bed and this gives me some ideas to think about. I don’t want to just plant things that require a ton of water, especially since I live in Austin, TX with drought issues. Thanks for posting!

  • americanrecluse

    This is the best thing ever. There are no words.

    Any idea what that succulent artichoke-like plant is?

  • Marn

    I don’t know the latin, but the plant is called hen and chicks.

  • chernevik

    My daughter leaves stuff like this lying around the house. Also fun: when the cat “builds a fort” around herself, experimenting with various pillow configurations. The kids love looking at the cat, surrounded by pillows and wondering what the hell is going on.

  • http://blurbomat.com/ blurb

    I can and I just did. Sorry about that. Upgrading WordPress apparently turns off the Fotomoto stuff. It’s back on. Make sure you click on “more sizes” and see all the options.

  • http://twitter.com/PollyJCole Polly Cole

    As a long time denizen of Los Angeles, this does not seem strange or weird to me at all. Unquestionably normal, actually.

    • http://blurbomat.com/ blurb

      In LA there would be tours around this yard. In the woods, this is a whole other thing, which, if I’ve read my J.G. Ballard correctly, makes it most subversive in a way.

      • http://twitter.com/PollyJCole Polly Cole

        Washington as a whole (and Oregon, too) have always seemed sort of Ballardian to me. It’s probably all the dystopic music that came out of there in the good ole ’90s.

        And yes, I just said dystopic rather than dystopian. If dystopic is not yet a word, it should be. IMHO