Axel Erlandson (December 15, 1884 – April 28, 1964) was a Swedish American farmer who shaped trees as a hobby, and opened a horticultural attraction in 1947 advertised as "See the World's Strangest Trees Here," and named "The Tree Circus."
The trees appeared in the column of Robert Ripley's Believe It or Not! twelve times. Erlandson sold his attraction shortly before his death. The trees were moved to Gilroy Gardens in 1985.

Women perform square dancing at a park square in Beijing, China, April 9, 2015. Chinese-style square dancing is running circles around other hobbies for the elderly, with millions taking to parks and plazas across China, swivelling their hips and rolling their arms – but it's not to everyone's liking. (Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)

Meet Booboo, the 2-year-old guinea pig. Her hobbies included eating chicory and posing for pictures. Described optimistically as ‘spirited’ by owner Megan, she can generally be found knocking about with her guinea pig crew, Titi and Teddy. But don’t worry, these gangsta guineas are lovers not fighters (didn’t the chicory give you a clue?). In fact, they’re pretty cerebral, often to be found quietly reading a book, or staring contemplatively into the distance next to a sprig of lavender, that kind of thing.

A man rides a horse through a bonfire on January 16, 2009 in the small village of San Bartolome de Pinares, Spain. In honor of San Anton, the patron saint of animals, horses are riden trough the bonfires on the night before the official day of honoring animals in Spain. (Photo by Denis Doyle/Getty Images)

A gaucho is unseated by an untamed horse during the Creole week celebrations in Montevideo, Uruguay on March 26, 2018. (Photo by Andres Stapff/Reuters)

A man rides a horse while others swim on the beach of Gaza City, Friday, August 3, 2018. (Photo by Khalil Hamra/AP Photo)

Icelandic horses graze on a meadow at a stud farm in Wehrheim near Frankfurt, Germany, Monday, September 1, 2025. (Photo by Michael Probst/AP Photo)

Pilgrims dressed in traditional Bavarian clothes attend the traditional Georgi horse riding procession on Easter Monday in heavy snowfall, in the southern Bavarian town of Traunstein April 6, 2015. Since the early 16th century, farmers have taken part in the pilgrimage to bless their horses. This tradition, the “Georgiritt”, goes back to the legend of Saint George, the horsemen's patron saint. (Photo by Michael Dalder/Reuters)