The Ghastly Lawn Ornament Thread

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

My landlord and landlady have this ridiculous kid in a sombrero w/ burro & cart. It’s the cheesiest thing I’ve ever seen, since we live, well, hell, we live nowhere near any naturally-occurring burros, hispanic kids, or sombreros, okay? The kid and the donkey disappeared one day. I told my hubby, “Thank goodness they finally got rid of the tacky kid in the sombrero.” Then my landlord told me they’d been stolen, and asked if I had happened to see anything. Now, I cannot condone theft, but I admit that my heart leapt at the thought the they were gone forever, not just stuck back in the barn, waiting to be return in the spring. My landlord went on to explain that the kid and the donkey had belonged to our landlady’s father, and she had always treasure them, especially since her father’s death. Well, garsh, that’s awful.

Unfortunately, they found the damn things–kids, probably, dumped them in the vacant lot by the school. Anyway, to prevent any further shennanigans, the boy and his burro have been installed at the top of the driveway, rather than in their traditional post at the bottom, so I have to look at 'em every time I look out my kitchen window. sigh

In our neck of the woods, realistic canada geese lawn ornaments are popular. This wouldn’t be so bad, except that actual living Canada geese often visit some of the ponds, so 1) I find myself staring at stupid lawn ornaments to see if they’ll move and 2) if I’m not paying attention, sometimes a goose I had pegged as a lawn ornament takes flight and scares the bejeezus out of me.

In the same vein, there’s a house that has a fake deer in the back yard. Since it behooves the Alert Driver to crank the Deer Radar on high (especially in this season) I’d often notice the thing, and then wonder why the heck somebody’d put a deer ornament in the back yard, particularly in a place where the deer are so numerous as to be considered a nuisance rather than decorative. Then one day I drove by and saw four arrows sticking out of it. It’s not a lawn ornament, it’s an archery target.

There’s a lawn ornament, er, dealership, I guess, in Monticello, IA that features life size hippos and rhinoceroses. I’ve always wanted a hippo, to put back in the trees, just so while we were showing people through the yard they’d jump out of their skins when they saw something hulking in the underbrush.

The other option is to build an in-ground pool, leave it empty, and put the rhinoceros at the bottom of it (an allusion so obscure that even most of my geek friends don’t get it.)

42

Well I don’t know about your Bathtub Marys, but here we’ve got the real thing.

43

The plywood cards reminded me of one:

When I was growing up, there was a block in Ft. Worth where the neighbors did a group thing: each yard had a few lines from a poem called “The night before Christmas (in Texas that is)” on billboard type signs, with appropriate pictures. It’s been years since I went there, I wonder if they still do that.

44

Mom’s two geese are currently dressed as Santa and Rudolph. The Santa Goose is wearing a full santa suit, with little black leather boots hanging from the bottom, at about the goose’s belly, and a Santa hat with an attached beard and mustache. The mustache actually lays across the top of the beak, with the beard below the beak, giving the strange illusion of Santa Goose having a large, yellow tongue sticking out. His tiny little flat Santa arms dangle lifelessly from his sides, begging the question of how he manages to handle the reigns with those useless limbs.

Rudolph the Red-nosed Reingoose does indeed have a red nose. Picture a child’s conical party hat, with a red pompom on the end of it, and the little elastic string that holds it on; you’ll have a close on the visual of the string holding the pompom on the end of Goose Dear’s beak. He is also wearing brown felt antlers with little jingle bells on them. A dressed up goose makes for one fat looking reindeer.

But for the full effect, you must envision my mother’s porch. It is a small, concrete three step porch. The steps create a 90 degree angle with the house, and the opposite angle has a wrought iron railing on each side. The steps are about 3 feet wide, with the porch itself only about 3 feet square. Each of these geese takes up about a square foot, on the step on which it sits. Climbing the porch to my mom’s door is actually somewhat perilous, especially when trying not to knock off Reingoose’s antlers or nose…
And folks (you know who you are) - these are the lines that almost made me do a spit-take today: (sorry, I’m being a little lazy today)

45

My mother bought a pair of those lighted deer. One doe that appeared to be feeding, and one buck kinda rearing up on his hind legs. She put them at the corner of her yard and thought they were so pretty.

Until three or four days later, when she came home from the north and discovered she had placed them in such a way they appeared to be rutting :smiley: What’s worse, by that time the ground had frozen and she couldn’t yank them out :smiley: :smiley:

And Ethilrist - if I throw a Vikings party next year I’ll give you alternate directions so you can see The Huge Ass Virgin Mary[sup]TM[/sup] carved out of a deceased oak. It’s a bit frightening, looming there at the side of the road. :eek:

46

“But Joseph, I don’t believe in premarital sex!”
“Don’t worry, anal doesn’t count!”
“I’m still not doing it!”
“Aww.”

47

I live in Nebraska. Have any of you ever seen a Herby Husker? He may be called something different now, but no matter. It is state law that at least a dozen of these things be issued to every residential street in the entire state.

I do like garden gnomes though. There is a movement called the Garden Gnome Liberation Front. They set garden gnomes free. Its great.

I never look directly at a Christmas display, therefor I haven’t the foggiest of the local attrocities.

48

I can’t believe I forgot this little decorative touch, considering I have to pass it every time I come home.

The woman who lives by the 4-way stop has taken a whole bunch of can lids of all sizes and painted them. It looks as if she cut them off the cans below the rolled edge. They’re painted a variety of bright colors, some are spotted, some have concentric circles, some are just one color. They’re hung by strings on the chain link fence at the corner of her yard. I don’t think they’re for spooking birds since nothing is planted there. They’re not “wind chimes” as they can’t really move and they are spread out along the fence. They’re just a bunch of painted lids. I don’t get it…

49

I’m pleased (and slightly embarrassed) to report that I have the tackiest yard on my street. You know the “Fanny Granny” things? I call them “Butt Ups.” Anyway I got a pattern for a Ma and Pa set of Butt Ups, only instead of painting them like a farmer and farmer’s wife, I painted them like Uncle and Mrs. Sam. Yes, read and white striped pants, top hat and all. The Mrs. is wearing a blue dress with giant white stars, a Martha Washington mopcap and white bloomers… It could have been worse – I was going to have them waving a big sign reading “Kiss THIS, Bin Laden,” but I restrained myself.

Tacky Jess

50

Well, Southwest ohio is a haven for devotees of the Kountry-Krafts-for-Dummies movement. Anywhere you can’t fit a goose, possibly with hearts, that is. Bonus points if it’s entirely assembled using a hot-glue gun.

The plywood people silhouettes are the most annoying. Bandana optional.

A couple days ago I was out walking, and it was dark, and nice and misty… And I came upon a house which was surrounded by a row of glowing 6-inch plastic santas (like the lights you stake into the ground to illuminate your mulch. Only cheerily santa shaped).
Something about dozens of little santa clones is freaky.

And the giant inflatable glowing santas you can tether to your lawn or porch roof. Those are new this year I think. Make your house look like a used car lot. Festive!

Actually, I’m glad people do such weird stuff for the holidays. It makes my evening walks much more interesting, plus I love all the lights.

51

This thread makes me think of Charlie…sniff, sniff.

When I was a senior a pair of freshman girls moved into my dorm, and gigglingly deposted a lawn jockey in the middle of the hallway. They said his name was Charlie, and that they liberated him from the lawn of one of the girl’s abusive neighbors. I’m not sure how you abuse a lawn ornement, but he was missing his lantern.

Charlie lived peacefully in our hallway,though he was decorated for holidays, and once with condoms. He even won the award for quietest hall-member.

But alas, towards the spring fling, tragity struck- drunk party goers broke into our dorm one weekend, and kidnapped Charlie. An attempt was made to rescue him, but his shattered remains were discovered in an alley. It seems as though he was dropped off a balcony several stories up. Poor Charlie.

52

The secular: a front-yard fountain of three dolphins standing on their tails, around a circular pond, snouts together, with water coming out of their spoutholes. White concrete, about 8 foot high.

Xmas: A front porch that was close to a main road in Sydney, that had a life-size Santa statue facing the road, arms outspread. Guaranteed to scare away the casual visitor.

53

i live in the city. we don’t have lawns. we have 4.5 squares of concrete outside our houses. so you’d figure lawn ornament wouldn’t happen… wrong… in the last few years having a few large potted plants on your square has become quite the thing. usually they look rather nice and cheerful. a large pot of inpatients or geraniums. until… this one family decided to have pot, ceramic frog, pot, ceramic fawn at rest, pot, large ceramic frog, pot, plastic goose. from stair until the edge of the property’s square. unbelievable. i’m surprized they haven’t been stolen yet!

2 blocks away there was a 4 house lawn exp. 4 houses out of 12 are set back and instead of having tiny back yard of concrete, they have tiny grass squares in the frount. one of those 4 houses has every square inch of grass covered with some sort of animal, being, deity, or a flag stabbed into it. since only 4 houses have this i believe that the exp. was considered a failure.

54

Sounds like they could use some more pot.

55

I love this!

Tons of porch-u-geese, lady bending over, windmills, overturned barrels with flowers spilling out.

A few mirror/reflecting balls that I’ve always wanted to replace with a huge crystal prism so that the sun can hit it right and set fire to the house (naturally, not my house.)

I myself have a large, cast iron with claw feet bathtub in my back yard ( it was FREE!) and I put a flower garden and a tomato plant in it every year. If I could get a toilet and a sink for the same price, I would have a set and plant all types of flowers in them…what? you ain’t my neighbors.

My favorite lawn ornament is a huge wood carving - I think it was an old tree - of a woman. It is dressed up for whatever holiday comes along.

Personally, I want to do the -dress up the large wood object - maybe a wood woman carving **BUT ** what I really want is a large wood carving of a Buddha that I can dress up in that floral dress I bought at the Salvation Army for $10 (new, never worn) and never wore it my myself. Put a santa hat on him for Xmas. Only, I don’t think I can afford this.

Some one asked me “Why Buddha?” , because putting up a cross dressing Jesus Christ on my lawn would really piss off alot of my fundie/pentecostal/whacked out neighbors-drivebyers. Duh.

Maybe I’ll opt for a large wooden plank, like on Ed, Edd and Eddy :slight_smile: It would be a non-denominational plank .
PS - EVE - A)Thank you for coming back to the boards - you were sorely missed! b)I knew you couldn’t stay away from this brain fart of a place! c)Great Thread (as always!)

56

There’s one in Olds or Swedesburg, Iowa too. The have a life sized (or greater) gorilla. One day, just out of curiosity, we stopped there when we were on the way to Iowa City, just because. The gorilla was a few hundred bucks, more or less depending on whether you painted it or they did. Now, the interstate bypasses the town, so I never see it. They’ve probably closed it by now, somehow I doubt that a couple towns with 1000 people or so can support a concrete monstrosity showcase.

I’ve decided that someday I’ll have a house at the end of a long lane, and I’ll line the line with hundreds of gorillas. They’ll be my foo gorillas.

Yeah, and I’ll plate my helipad with platinum.

Ben

57

This is simultaneously incredibly eerie and excruciatingly funny. Thanks very much. :slight_smile:

In my neighborhood we just have the usual assortment of icicle lights, twinkly bushes and one unfortunate lawn jockey. However, just outside of Lexington we’ve got the biggest lawn folly of all… some dope put up an actual castle.

It looks so natural, sitting there amongst the horse pastures and all.

58

I live on a street that magically becomes Candlelight Lane during this time of year. The whole street lights up their houses, and most are relatively tasteful, but my next door neighbor…

Well, let me try to explain this glorious sight.

[li]A shelter of one of those white tents that are often used by merchants at farmer’s markets/craft fairs.[/li]
[li]Atop the shelter is a 5’ multi-colored star[/li]
[li]Atop the star, an American flag[/li]
[li]Within the shelter, the plastic glowing holy family[/li]
[li]Surrounding the holy family, a zoo of stuffed animals stacked atop giant wrapped presents.[/li]
And, I believe it’s still a work in progress.

But not as bad as the headless Mary. :shudder:

59

Podkayne, Wikkit, I think I know the place you’re talking about.

While I haven’t been to the place for at least 5-7 years, I think it might be about 30 mins from Cedar Rapids, IA. I think my parents went there for limestone blocks or something. IIRC, they also had a whole bunch of other crap, including giant stone animals.

60

The one I’m talking about is in south-east Iowa, about half an hour south of Iowa City.

How many concrete mostrosity showcases are there? Either there was a very sucessful traveling salesman, or the demand for these things is much higher than I thought.

Ben