The last several weeks at the Falls have yielded many favorite images that don’t always make it into my posts. Until now. Here’s a collection of found objects photographed in situ at the moment of discovery. Most of the items are lost toys that have travelled with the Ohio River to be washed up here and mixed with wood chips and fragments of our material culture. An example of this is the so-called “Sand Lion” I discovered on the riverbank. It’s rubbery and sticky and the sand clings to it easily. It’s meant to be inflated by blowing through the mouth piece located at the tail. Reminds me of a horned toad the way it lays in the sand. I also came across this variant of a sand lion with its punkish hair style.
This sand lion is hardly fearsome with its child friendly smile. I later found another animal object on the driftwood. It’s a bear with a twist having been formed with polystyrene foam. This was premade and I didn’t have to do anything else with it except to take its picture for my collection.
And now for a series of images of circular and spherical objects. These are the things that catch my eye. Of course the artificially colored plastic stands out nicely against the natural tones found at the river.
One final image before eye fatigue overwhelms you! More flower images, but this time its decorations on the side of a plastic Barbie cup found on the riverbank’s mud and offered as “Cheers!” to you. I’m looking forward to this weekend to see what is different at the Falls since my last adventure. The forecast, however, is calling for temperatures around 100 degrees fahrenheit. I don’t expect much will be moving quickly on this day.
Artist at Exit 0 Riverblog 
Amazing images Al! The tyre looks like a dead fish eye staring out of the water:) My favorites are the crouching sand lion and the styrofoam bear, though the brown decorative container which looks like an amonite and the orange/brown patterned one which looks like a sea urchin come a close second!
I like the way the river and other natural forces test and patina all these objects!
I like how you put everything into a category. Isn’t that what we humans learn to do at an early age. Helps us to process more quickly? I don’t know. Love that sand lion, though. I’ve never seen one!
I’m sure it has survival value as well. I imagine our earliest ancestors needed to categorize and store in their memories the difference between predator and prey. I’m confident, however, that ancient people never came across one of these sand lions before.
I believe that to be the TRUTH! 🙂