Neighborhood Curiosities

Portland is wonderfully quirky. And, I have found a number of examples of quirk on my walks with Ella, our dog. We live in the Sabin neighborhood and are bordered by Irvington, Alameda, King and Alberta Arts District neighborhoods. The eastside of the city is a bit more quirky than the westside of town. And, you can definitely see that as you walk around and see how your neighbors decorate their homes and gardens. 

Since the one year anniversary of our move to the Pacific Northwest is coming up next month. I thought I would post a collection of some of the photos I have taken over the last year of what I like to refer to as "neighborhood curiosities."

I love the poetry posts. There are a number of them

throughout our neighborhood. And, I love them best when

someone posts a poem by Mary Oliver.

It's a fairy house. I love that it is handmade and not some

prefab thing from garden catalog. 

This is my favorite sign. It says it all...perfectly.

A community chalkboard on the front of a house.

A garage that has been converted to a guesthouse with a great

mural on, what I believe used to be, the garage doors.

I think these are the same Breyer horses of my youth but 

someone has used them as little statues in one 

of their garden beds. So cute.

Another toy horse but this one is attached to an old horse ring. 

This is part of The Horse Project that was started in 2005 by

an artist in The Pearl District but has slowly expanded to

other neighborhoods throughout the city. 

Praying figures in front of a home. Definitely one of the more

unusual things that I have seen on my walks.

This wonderfully disturbing use of mannequin arms probably takes

the top honor of being the most unusual "curiosity" that I have seen.

But, what else are you going to do with an extra set of those things?

Planting them in the garden so they look like their 

crawling out of a grave is so cliche.

KEEP PORTLAND WEIRD!