Have You Seen This Tree’s Owner?

“My shoe is off. My foot is cold. I have a bird I like to hold.” (Dr. Seuss)

So, we were driving around Northville yesterday, minding our own business (okay, not really–we were gawking at big, beautiful, expensive houses), when we turned down a suburban cul-de-sac and saw this! What on earth was it–a Dr. Seuss bird? Very cool, but completely random to place in your front yard. I snapped a quick picture, then slowly realized just as Brad turned the car around and said exactly what I didn’t notice in the first place: it wasn’t a statue–it was a tree stump. Someone cut a huge Dr. Seuss-bird-stork-thing into a tree stump and it was awesome. What a great idea, to make art out of something that otherwise would take boatloads of stress and manpower to dig up. My kind of thinking.

And guess what? A street or two over, there were more. Dogs, bears, mountain men . . . all artistically chiseled out of lumber-turned-too-tall.

So, who did it? I originally guessed that whoever lived at the first house was just handy with a chainsaw and a knife. Upon seeing these things at two or three other houses, however, I began to think that the neighbors were either really good buddies, or someone in the area was making a killing off of re-purposing the eyesores we call stumps.

I did a Google search to see what I could find–and the only thing that looked similar was an image search thumbnail that linked to a few photos of a statue in a Northville dog park. Same style, it appeared.  Made of wood, so same material. Same artist? Not sure, but I would think that anything of the contrary would be an incredibly big coincidence.

So, if anyone knows who this dog belongs to, or how totem poles and birds suddenly became all the rage throughout suburban Northville, please let me know. In the meantime, I will continue to seek He-Who-Must-Be-Named.

Hi! I'm Jennifer.

Southwest Virginia born and raised, I moved over 500 miles to Southeast Michigan with my husband in 2011. Since then, I’ve been recording my adventures here, bringing you stories as I explore the “mitten state,” the midwest, and beyond.

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