Friday, March 20, 2009

Bucket Tree
























This really is a random thing, something served up by the web. It started as a search having to do with maple syrup (it's that time of year), with just two words: bucket tree. I found a few images that were arresting, from the old tin bucket to to the tree that is "beyond the pail." (There are a number of photos in the flickr stream of that tree, but I didn't see a geographical location for it.)

There is even a Bucket Tree Lodge, in Tawa New Zealand, with a huge tree trimmed to the effect. I wonder what trees think when they turn into sculptures?

And I remember swimming in Fountain Lake in Albert Lea Minnesota, as a child , singing the infinite loop song: "There's a hole in the Bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza, there's a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, a hole...Well, then fix it, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry, well then fix it, dear Henry, dear Henry, fix it!"

2 comments:

Lyle Daggett said...

On one occasion when I heard Pete Seeger perform -- it was in February 1990, in Minneapolis, at a large public celebration of the 90th birthday of Meridel LeSueur -- he sang the "hole in the bucket" song, actually led the audience in singing it with him.

He commented that most folk songs don't survive translation into another language very well, but that the "hole in the bucket" song was an exception, that it was originally in German.

I imagine that when trees are made into sculptures, they think pretty much the same thing dogs think when people put clothes on them.

elena said...

!! LOL...you were so lucky, Lyle, to hear Pete Seeger sing in honor of Meridel LeSueur: that must have been an amazing occasion. Long live Pete Seeger, and the memory of Meridel.

And of course it was Pete who "taught" me the song, too, from one of his albums. Joyce and Wally sang a lot of folk songs together as well..my favorite was the slightly scandalous ("Oh what do you care if I just go bare!) "Jenny Jenkins."