About a year ago I was detoured on my way home because of an accident and drove past a very odd sight: a large tree by the side of the road festooned with hundreds of pairs of shoes.

©PicklesINK 2012

I had never seen anything like it before and went home and consulted my friend Google, who also had no idea. Since then, the good people of Wikipedia have been hard at work and there is now an entry that would have answered some of my questions, but at the time I had to muddle on in ignorance.

It has since suffered some damage as we’ve had some pretty severe storms in the last year but the most of the shoes seemed to have come through pretty well…at least you wooden know weather or not they were the worse for the wear.

©PicklesINK 2012

A little while ago I showed it to Ben and Molly and ever since Ben has been eager to add a pair of his shoes to it, so we decided that today was the day. We gathered up a hammer and some nails and two pairs of worn out shoes (Ben’s favourite, worn right through the soles, Thomas sneakers, and Molly’s out-grown and well-scuffed “pretty pretty pink shoes”) and drove out to the tree, where Ian handily nailed found some space and nailed them on.

©PicklesINK 2012

Ian managed to find room for Ben’s on the trunk

©PicklesINK 2012

but for Molly’s he had to go out on a limb.

©PicklesINK 2012

You might think we’re barking mad, and perhaps that is the root of the issue… (okay, I think I’m done now. At least I guess it’s time I leaf it alone. Heheheheheh…) Anyway, now Ben and Molly’s shoes have a place in local history along with other footwear both large and small (Hey, if the shoe fits…).

©PicklesINK 2012

And Ben and Molly have a fun memory of a family outing to illegally vandalize a natural landmark purely for the sake of entertainment!

But seriously, it was a lot of fun!

©PicklesINK 2012

~ karyn

Have you seen a shoe tree? Do you know anything more about them?