The Taking Tree by Mr Everyday
September 26th, 2008 7:14 AMWhen I first saw this task I was very excited indeed. I have some PLANS for when my other persona does this, but in the meantime I just wanted to get out there and PUT STUFF IN TREES!!! Fortunately, owning a souvineer / Jewellery store means you ALWAYS have stuff to put in trees (or whatever). Mostly it was stock that had come to some sort of accident, but a few pieces were undamaged, but just too cool to pass up.
Anyway, after choosing my items, and tying string around some of them (in case I needed to hang or secure them) there were still 2 hours of work to go... TIME!!! OH TIME!!! Sometimes you wish it would just go faster... Yay, closing. Huh... It's Mr Everyday doing this, and he's already done a task today sooo... DAMN, Another hour to wait til midnight...
Fortunately there are such things as all night dairies, and they sell pies. Nothing kills time (and arteries) like pies. Midnight having come, I started my walk from town to the car. I park about 10 minutes out to give myself a nice walk along the lake each day on my way to and from work. Free parking too, which always helps. I had already decided that I would put all of my items in the lakeside park, but as I passed the town green, a tree jumped out at me...
To follow my further adventures, see the pictures.
Start
Ignore this, just a nice starting photo.
Items.
Some of the items I chose to hide. A piece of paua shell, a piece of pink mussel shell, a blob of melted art glass, a pauashell kiwi braclet, and the bling-encrusted extra face of a watch missing one shiny stone.
Lynching
Well not exactly. The poor fellow has already lost an ear, he didn't really deserve to be hung as well... 
Rhinoplasty
Embarrassed about the size of his beak, this kiwi underwent rhinoplasty, with horrific results...
Final items
Pewter tokens with "Smile" and "hope" written on them, and a fine New Zealand pen, complete with silver fern. Took me 30 minutes to take this shot, as I had never learnt how to use the micro focus on my camera. Now I know and will have LOTS of fun using it.
Cabbage tree
Walking along the street, I suddenly realised that this cabbage tree would be a perfect place to hide the mussel shell.
Moa.
It even has it's own guardian, a 2.3 meter tall extinct bird - The Moa - made from concrete.
Potted
After that I swore I'd get to the park before I hid another item. Unfortunately this small tree looked so forlorn in it's inside prison that I had to give it a gift. I used the shiny watch face to adorn the tree. I was sorely tempted to liberate the tree to the outdoors, but a foot behind me as I took this picture is the glass entrance doors of a fancy restaurant. I was ALREADY getting funny looks through the glass.
Much better.
See, he looks happier already. I suspect that this might be the first item found, and this is also the main shortcut for anyone walking into town from this direction (thousands of people a day).
Lady of the Lake
The steamship I love. You will definately see her in other tasks, as I have a free ticket (for being local). I was going to use the little cabbage tree to hide something, but it seemed repetitive. I took a photo anyway, how could I not when she's that pretty...
Hope.
This seemed like an appropriate spot to hide the hope token. Somebody else is obviously hoping for love...
Knot
The pauashell went into the knot of a tree just beside the last tree. It's relateively obvious, but actually getting to it will mean a scramble down a mesh floodwall, and wet feet. Putting it there also involved these...
Tree
Distant shot of the last photo's tree. The Paua is in the bottommost knot.
The writing tree.
The tree ghosting up behind the lamp is about 100 years old. People have been carving things in it for decades. It was seeing this tree this morning which made me decide that TODAY was the day for this task.
The trunk.
A closer view of the trunk of the writing tree... what secrets are contained in it's mysterious writings...
Wedge
Seemed like a fine place to wedge the glass when it was dark... looking at this photo in the light it looks... somehow obscene.
Now you see it.
Hmm, seems a relatively obvious place to put a pen...
now you don't
Unless you move an inch to the left or right... Deep narrow crack. Almost invisible from more than 2 feet away. Good luck finding THAT pen when you need a writing utensil right now.
Smile
The Smile token fit nicely into this split branch. Above head height for most people, it"s both easy to find if you look, and almost invisible for most people just walking past... I hope that if someone finds one thing in a tree they will closely scrutinize other trees in the park until they find more stuff...
Split
The same picture but no flash... I just liked the photo.
Kowhai
A distant shot of the tree where the smile token rests. It's a Kowhai tree (that's "Coh-fie" for those non-Maori speakers out there). Pretty yellow flowers.
Bracelet
The Paua braclet was the next item to go. This is the other one that should be pretty easy to find. Even at night you could spot the silver in the tree.
Distance
Even at a distance I can see it.
Kangaroo.
The kangaroo was carefully tied into a bunch of cherry blossoms. He's a little hard to see in this photo.
Blossoms
He's at the far right end of the tree. Inone of the three blossoms at the bottom.
more blossoms
More blossoms - just cause they're pretty - so sue me. The people in the bottom left of the picture were drunken American uni students who were freaked out by my behavior in the park, dressed in a business suit, at that time of night. The guy seemed seriously keen to kick my arse. Fun.
Kiwi
Finally I get to my car. Leaving the best for last, the kiwi goes into another handy Kowhai tree.
Kowhai flowers
This tree has MUCH nicer flowers, and gives me a chance to test my niw micro-focus skills... So MUCH fun hiding things in trees.
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Possibly. Queenstown is one of those tourist places people always visit, and its right in the middle of the town square.
You put such beautiful objects in the trees! I wish I didn't live on the other side of the world, so I could try and trace your steps and admire them from close up.
My favourite has to be the paua shell in the knot of the tree. It looks like it's exactly where it should always have been. Beautiful. I hope that people who find it, will simply admire it and leave it there for others to see.
Nice fit of objects to hiding places. When I visited NZ, I think I saw a big concrete moa, maybe even that same one.