The other day I was looking around on Pinterest and found a folder of images called “The Land of Make Believe” collected by user Flamenco Nut. I scrolled through for a while and it is an amazing stash of images. I decided to save some gnomes for Clovey.
As I have mentioned before, we are very fortunate to have little gnomes painted on wooden plaques at the foot of the electrical poles around our home. Since Clover is a big fan of Little Bear they are referred to as goblins in our circle.
A few blocks from our house we found that next to one of the goblins is a little fairy door. It is the perfect size for the goblin and Clover was so very happy to discover it. I have seen the little doors at Fairyland and they are even available from the gift shop for anyone was interested to house their fairies, gnomes and goblins.
We sill look for the little goblins every day and Clover directs me to cross the street to be on the side that has the electrical poles. This kid has Oakland mapped out and has preferences about where we should walk everywhere so she is definitely paying close attention to her surroundings.
maiki found a couple goblins that were hung much higher on a pole near Whole Foods and of course they are holding balloons (that is how they floated up so high on the pole). So now we are all in the spirit of finding them around our neighborhood. Much to my surprise we have seen them further into Oakland than just Adams Point. I even spotted them walking in Rockridge, and I sure was happy to report back they are spreading.
According to the Oakland Wiki they were anonymously painted on pieces of wood and then tacked to the bottom of utility poles throughout the city. There are over 2,300 gnomes painted on utility poles throughout Oakland. Last January, after intervention from City Council, PG&E agreed to let the gnomes remain on the utility poles. Yay!
It occurred to me the other day that Clover had probably never seen the gnomes even though they are all around our neighborhood. So she was introduced and quite impressed by the “globlins” (they do resemble the goblins in Little Bear). I am always happy to find bits of whimsy through out the real world. My gratitude goes out to the artist whoever they may be!
