The Yellow Bucket
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Contents: a yellow plastic bucket filled with small pears, water, oatcake crumbs and sometimes ice, now grass and rocks, draining over time
Location: beside the door of the chalet, beside the main house
Duration: since summer 2020
Initiator: Julie Upmeyer
25 January 2021
This was not purposefully initiated. Even before Succession existed, I had prevented this bucket from getting poured out several times. I’m not sure why. In a way actually, Succession was formed around this yellow bucket.
The girls (Ffion and Nesta) enjoyed collecting the small, sour hazel (hessle?) pears from the two trees down by the pond. Not for a particular purpose, we had no intention of making jam or anything else from them. It was simply a fun activity. The collected pears sat by our back door in the bucket. Days later, it filled with rain. A few pears floated; the others sunk. About a month after that, a few pears exploded, their pulp scattering in the water. Some wasps, attracted by the fermenting pears, were drowned in their attempt to drink the souring water. Later, an opened packet of crumbled oat cakes fell off the railing and into the mix. I think someone removed the wrapper at some point, but I’m not sure. It could still be at the bottom.
Is sometimes kicked, water splashing out in a bouncy, joyous fashion. A dance of wellies and water.
Freezing temperatures overnight - a layer of ice formed on the surface. A solid and tangible disk you can hold, and smash on the ground.
8 February, 2021
8 February, 2021
Things have changed, the waters darkened. Most of the pears are now trapped under a layer of heavy rocks. I consider the actions of the girls to be an inevitable part of this place, so I do not interfere. A happy moment was spent scooping the rocks from the nearby pile and into the bucket, onto the pears. A sprinkling of grass. It feels different now when you kick it.
17 February, 2021
Even the most disturbed environments settle into layers according mass, density and porosity.
21 February, 2021
A permanent wet ring surrounds the bucket. I suppose there is a leak? Surprising, as its supposed to be quite robust. There were more rocks in there than I had imagined. Shrivelled. It no longer smells of fermentation.
25 March, 2021
21 March, 2021
Someone was nibbling last night. I don’t think they liked the taste of it too much, as they didn’t eat them all, or even finish the ones they started. Or perhaps it was the texture that turned them off? I certainly wouldn’t blame them. I would think the very desperate might eat the seeds at least - fibre, fat, vitamins and minerals? But it is spring now, so I imagine there are more tasty things to be found.
I’ve found the leak - a long, vertical crack at the bottom. It has been oozing soil and mud and fermented matter for a while. I suppose it was from all the enthusiastic kicking earlier in the year. The contents now smell of poo. But external cycles are also in play - the pear tree, from which these specimens originated, has bloomed!
22 April, 2021