Here’s a story that came out of the recent high water we just experienced. The Ohio River can be an unpredictable element in our landscape. One moment it seems blue and peaceful and in a matter of hours can rise, be muddy, and turbulent. I was walking along the edge of the water and I came across this unexpected sight.
Washing in and out with the river waves was this bright yellow raft! As I was watching, an especially large wave drove the raft high upon the sand and I approached to check it out. I remember wondering who lost this and how far had it traveled from its home? Could it’s owner be nearby? I kept walking along the shoreline and finding other bits of flotsam and jetsam to put into my collecting bag for later use. That’s when I came across what I believe to have been the raft’s occupant. It was a sad discovery.
It was a little mud baby and the rough water must have pitched him out of the raft. With the treacherous currents and logs bashing about in the waves, he probably was swiftly overwhelmed. He only had this scrap of cloth left on his body. I pulled back and took this last image of where I found him.
I can recall as a kid, a description about dinosaurs that always stuck with me. Despite the immense size some of them reached, their gray matter was rather miniscule. In fact, the comparison that was given was that their brains were the size of walnuts. I find walnuts all the time by the river. So, I have started using them regularly as an indicator of scale with some of the objects I find. Here’s an example of this using the yellow raft.
Artist at Exit 0 Riverblog 
I thought this was a huge raft – until I saw the walnut heheh! This reminds me of Hucklberry Finn and Jim in the Mississippi River. I loved those Tom Sawyer books – Huck was my favorite though.
I still can’t get over the incongrous things that you find in that river you know!
I felt like a giant when I came across that raft. There is that surreal change of scale thing happening all the time.