If you think that dental hygiene is irrelevant, Dr Joshua Baum and staff are happy to remind you that “Brushing Your Teeth is Never Irr-Elephant.” And to make that point, Shelton landscaper Pete Stanisci and his team have crafted an 18-foot-tall elephant out front of the 23 Church Hill Road office for Dr Baum, from nine large bales of hay (each weighing nearly 1,000 pounds) and many reinforcing bars. PVC pipe stands in for this elephant’s tusks extending out from either side of a trunk made of several feet of vacuum hose, usually attached to commercial leaf suckers, said Mr Stanisci.

In the elephant’s trunk is an oversized toothbrush — one of many “you never know” items Mr Stanisci has collected over the years. The big red toothbrush came from a job a few years back, he said, driving a truck for a prop company. When he found out the items were going to be junked in the end, he happily claimed the cargo, including the toothbrush.

“It’s a little bit of work to get to the decorating part,” admitted Mr Stanisci, but the annual hay bale crafting is a nice diversion from the usual lawn cutting and weeding that makes up the usual day of a landscaper.

This is the third year, said Dr Baum, that Stanisci Landscaping has fashioned a creation from hay bales for the front lawn of the orthodontics office. In 2012, a Hay Monster stood on the lawn, followed by the 2013 giant teddy bear.

The hay bales come from the Joe Ovessny Farm in Shelton, Mr Stanisci said, and are selected for the quality of hay that will make a very durable construction. When hay bales are too moist, they rot, and that can lead to a rather unpleasant odor emitting from the creation, said Dr Baum.

Stanisci Landscaping brought in the bales of hay over the weekend, and by late Tuesday morning, were putting the finishing touches on the elephant.

Dr Baum was as surprised as any passersby with the appearance of the elephant.

“My wife and Pete came up with the idea,” he said, leaving him to wonder all weekend, along with the rest of the town, as to what was growing on the front lawn of the office.

School children wandering up the street after the first day of school were treated to sugar-free popsicles by staff stationed next to the elephant, Tuesday afternoon.

“An elephant never forgets” is the adage, and without a doubt, anyone who has sees this towering pachyderm will certainly not forget to brush any time this fall.