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Posts Tagged ‘Louisville’

Circularity

Posted in Art, art and environment, collections, Falls of the Ohio, Louisville, Kentucky, nature photography, Ohio River, watershed, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 7, 2011| 6 Comments »

I came across a partial quote from Black Elk recently that served as a jumping off point for this post.  He said:  “Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle.”  From the rising of the sun to the changing of the seasons it doesn’t take one long to find examples in our lives that illustrates this.  The Ohio River has been at its highest for the greatest length of time since I began this Falls of the Ohio project in 2003.  We have had a lot of rain. In fact April was Kentucky’s wettest since records have been kept in the 1870s with nearly 14 inches of rain.  I tell you it seemed like more than that to me.  The month of March was also a wet one which caused the river to rise high too.  Following are images that were taken after that first bit of high water.  The theme this time is found circles and here are a few recent pictures.  The first image is the washed up plastic hoola-hoop defining a circle in the wet sand.  Here’s another found circle.

After the initial March flooding subsided, I came across this sight in the muddy bottomlands and couldn’t resist taking the picture.  Here’s another from that day.

Near the water’s edge in the western section of the park, I came across this object.  Whatever was covering this Styrofoam circle was worn away by the river, but its fabric bow remained.  It’s a graphic reminder that life itself is a circle.

The above broken circle is a detail.  Here is how this image first presented itself to me.  It was swept into the trees by the water.

I might have missed this next one if it hadn’t been for the color.  I believe it’s a toy meant to be thrown.  It flew into the river and here it landed.

I find so many automobile tires in proximity to the river that I almost stop looking at them.  But, their circular shapes always seem to catch my eye.  Here’s one recent tire with a small toy guarding the center space.

The rising and falling of the river is also a part of a great circle.  Soon these high waters will recede (that is if we don’t receive more record rains) and there will be a changed landscape to explore.  I found another quote I would like to end this post with and it’s from Albert Einstein and it seems appropriate.  He once said:

“Our task must be to free ourselves…by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.”

I feel recognition that we are indeed a part of that circle and not outside of it is important to our future and the quality of life.  Until next time.

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Hoser

Posted in Absurd, animals, Art, art and environment, collections, creativity, ecosytem, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, Louisville, Kentucky, nature photography, Ohio River, public art, recycled art, sculpture, Styrofoam, watershed, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 26, 2011| 2 Comments »

The Ohio River continues to rise because the sky continues to rain.  This flood will be one for the record books…perhaps in the top ten when it’s all said and done.  But who knows when that will be?  The weatherman hasn’t been very encouraging of late.  The timing of this flood is especially bad because it overlaps with the Kentucky Derby Festival and its two weeks of partying and activities which culminates with the most famous horse race in the world.  The additional water will keep the tourists away.

These images were taken just a couple of days a go and now the river is even higher.  In the City of Louisville, some of the most powerful pumps outside Holland are working around the clock pumping water from the low-lying areas.  Streets have been closed and the flood gates are up.  For the people who live nearest to the river…they have packed up and left a few days a go.  By now, the water has reached the roofs of their homes.  There’s nothing more that can be done.  It’s sit tight and see how much more rain will come and how high the river will rise.

My son Adam was curious to see the extent of the flooding and so we visited the Falls of the Ohio.  The familiar wooden steps that lead to the river bank were now half way underwater.

We watched a box turtle flushed from its home in the underbrush swimming to higher ground.  Fortunately, it received an assist in the form of currents pushing it to land where it was able to escape drowning.  Watching this greatly affected my son who has a tender heart when it comes to all animals.  He really gets upset when the nature shows on television become too graphic. He doesn’t understand that life feeds on other life and that this has been the way of the world for a very long time.  This flood has also affected my creative routine at least by the water.  I’m forced to hopscotch back and forth between events in time which I think is a healthy thing in my life.  I was beginning to feel a little too linear anyway.  So, here’s another Styrofoam project I made sandwiched between the last flood of a couple of weeks a go and now.  This project is also now a memory remembered by these images.

I really thought the previous inundation would be it for the year.  And so I set up shop atop this immense pile of wood and explored what was mixed in with all the natural debris.  Among the “treasures” was this toy gas hose…but that’s not all that I found!  Here’s something unusual too.

I set it up to help orient it for the photograph.  It’s what’s left of a taxidermed deer head.  The tanned skin that would have been stretched around it is now gone, but the remnants of the deer’s actual skull and broken antlers are screwed into the molded foam form.  This is another object that exists at the intersection of the natural and the artificial which I find curiously to be another sign of the times we live in.  When this trophy was intact, it probably was praised for its life-likeness.

I also picked up this Styrofoam fragment of what I’m guessing was perhaps a Halloween novelty?  Amazingly, the little skull image survived.  I found another human bone reference out here on the wood pile.  It’s a miniature pelvis made out of plastic.  Luckily, I have never found the real deal and probably would freak out if I did.  Here’s that hip bone and a second image with some other fun stuff I picked up including one of the smallest and cutest squirt guns I’ve seen.

Sitting on a huge log, I started getting comfortable on my new spot.  I thought I could last here until the summer heat drove me under the willows.  I began to gather materials to make sculptures with like I had done with my previous plein air “studios”.  Mother Nature was providing all the material I needed to keep me and this project going for a long time.  Here’s my Styro-cache with its river-polished foam.

It’s all gone down river now, but before that happened I made one other figure out here.  I called him “Hoser” and set him up next to the “Danger” figure.  First, I started with making a head.  The eyes are old fishing floats.

I felt very meditative in this setting.  I could see the skyline of a city with its proximity to nature and it made me speculate on how it all was going to turn out?  Would we eventually strike some kind of working balance with the planet or was this a taste of what was coming or even worse?  I would walk around my wood pile looking for a stick or branch I could use for a limb to help blow life into this Styro-man.  This is how he eventually turned out.

With gasoline approaching four dollars a gallon I decided to put the fake gas pump nozzle and hose to good use.  I strategically placed this object into the figure’s polystyrene body more as a reference to the fact that here was another resource that we pissed away.

I located “Hoser” near the “Danger is My Middle Name” figure, took my photographs, and walked away.  That was the last I was to see of them.  Within days, the river started to rise more from rain that fell north of here and then it started to rain in earnest in the Ohio River Valley.  That was two weeks plus…it’s still raining and the river keeps on rising and the adventure continues.

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Lotto Land

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, birding, creativity, ecosytem, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, Louisville, Kentucky, nature, nature photography, Ohio River, public art, recycled art, sculpture, Styrofoam, watershed, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 23, 2011| 5 Comments »

It’s raining as I write this post.  It has seemingly rained the entire month of April in my area resulting in a swollen Ohio River.  I think we are on another collision course with the record books for most precipitation during April.  Only once this month have I been able to access what passes for our normal river shore line and it was very muddy!  We have had tornado warnings and flooding this Spring.  The following adventure occurred between the two episodes of high water we have experienced.  I was walking along the Woodland Loop Trail at the Falls of the Ohio State Park when I was stopped in my tracks by this hand painted sign the river deposited during the first flood.  Is it another way that the universe is trying to communicate to us?  Is nature saying we are taking a big chance with our treatment of the environment?  I wonder who will win and what the prizes are?  Care to buy a ticket?  I decided to pass, but there were plenty of consolation prizes all along my walk courtesy of man and a too high river.  Since this is Indiana, I thought it was fitting to find one of these.

For thousands of years the Falls was home to a sizeable population of native people.  Now, you are more likely to find one of these.  Another piece of Americana I came across I added to my fake food collection.

What can be more iconic than a fake cheeseburger?  What’s sad is that this isn’t the only one I’ve ever found out here.  I even have found a couple of plastic crinkle-cut french fries too.  Let me see if I can find a picture of one…hold on…yes, I also found this recently.

Moving along the trail, the unmistakable smell of skunk kept getting stronger and stronger in the humid air.  It’s possible that one of these animals drowned in the flood and its carcass was deposited here.  Or, one of the many birds of prey could have taken it.  At the odor’s epicenter, I discovered two species of vultures polishing off what’s left of the unfortunate skunk.  There were three black vultures and one large turkey vulture taking turns at the miserable remains.  Here’s one of the black vultures keeping an eye out while his friends gnosh.  I could see them around the tree trunks.

The dominant bird here was a big turkey vulture which is unusual from what I have observed at the Falls of the Ohio.  I normally see them retiring when the black vultures arrive.  This bird was the last to leave the skunk and the first to return.  Here he is giving me the “eye” from a low hanging branch.  As I approached, he joined the other vultures in a tall tree with a vantage point of me and the skunk. 

All that was left of the skunk were a few innards and its skull.  Perhaps the vultures will eat this too?  That skunk odor was so pervasive and offensive, I’m amazed that these vultures could stomach this, but then again, they have probably had worse meals.  Not to far from the birds, I did find a big piece of Styrofoam that was washed into a bottomland area.  Using what I could find nearby, I constructed this unnamed figure, photographed it, and kept moving down the trail.  Where I left this figure was in the center of a trail loop that curled back towards the Interpretive Center.  Here are images of this improvised piece.  It was an especially pitted and worn hunk of polystyrene.

I circled around and could see the sculpture from another angle.  Funny thing is that while I write this…I know it is no longer standing and was probably swept away again by the Ohio River for parts unknown.  It occurred to me recently that this month is the riverblog’s second anniversary.  As long as the river keeps things interesting, I will try to do the same through these posts.  I have many other images of recently found junk and once this more recent flooding subsides…no doubt will be able to fill this virtual collecting bag.  My parting image is the last picture I took of this short-lived artwork.

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Beach Combing Images

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, collections, creativity, ecosytem, Falls of the Ohio, fresh water, Louisville, Kentucky, Ohio River, recycled art, Styrofoam, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 16, 2011| 2 Comments »

I’ve added another collection to my Pages section.  Inspired by the theme of “Beach Combing”, here are images of objects found at the Falls of the Ohio State Park.  My Pages section can be found on the column on the right. 

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River Ghost

Posted in Absurd, animals, Art, art and environment, creativity, ecosytem, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, Louisville, Kentucky, nature, nature photography, Ohio River, recycled art, sculpture, Styrofoam, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on April 13, 2011| 7 Comments »

Seldom seen and thus aptly named, the River Ghost is an unusual small mammal living at the Falls of the Ohio.  Over the course of several days I was able to photograph a young adult as it was surveying potential territory.

Don’t let the cute face fool you.  The River Ghost is a relentless pursuer of anything it can catch and eat.  It’s diet includes birds, fish, other mammals no larger than twice its size, eggs, reptiles, and if necessary, insects and carrion.

The River Ghost has a long and flexible body that allows it to pursue its prey through underground burrows.  It also utilizes abandoned burrows to raise its own young.  Two kits are usually born, but only the strongest will see the light of day.

I photographed this specimen walking along the mud line that was deposited by the recent flood.  The mud is a five-inch thick layer of “fudge” and very soft and moist.  That’s my boot print in the picture.

This mud is also perfect for recording the foot prints of other animals that cross over its surface.  Scientists are uncertain which senses are most important to the River Ghost, but it seems to have a keen sense of sight and hearing.  This odd animal has kinship to both rodents and weasels and may be a throw back to an older evolutionary line.

Despite having formidable survival skills…the River Ghost is not thriving for a variety of reasons and primary among them is habitat loss.  More and more the riverine bottomlands it prefers are being divided and developed.  It’s prey species are also experiencing a decline in populations.  Many species are dependent on large areas of intact ecosystems in order to remain viable.

It would be a shame to allow this curiosity among the local fauna to disappear before its time.  Humans have coexisted with this intrepid predator for thousands of years.  The native people have legends and myths about the River Ghost’s ferocity and toughness and its way of getting out of trouble that it starts.

The last time I saw our River Ghost it had moved onto higher ground around the Interpretive Center and Woodland Trail.  It seemingly followed every lead and poked its head into every hole looking for food to satisfy its insatiable hunger.  It occurred to me, that it was heading for the picnic tables where people have been spreading dry cat food on the ground.  I wondered if the River Ghost “knew” that other animals would be attracted to the feeding station…or was it here for a bite of cat food too?  Perhaps I will see it again?

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Unidentified Floating Objects

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, creativity, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, Louisville, Kentucky, Ohio River, public art, recycled art, Styrofoam, watershed, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 30, 2011| 7 Comments »

The river has given ground, but just a sliver of it.  Although the waters have retreated, the Ohio River is still higher than usual.  On the immediate riverbank is a new wooden obstacle course of washed away trees and huge logs.  I find myself a walking stick and go exploring.  I cover ground I have visited hundreds of times before and yet  is made different with each episode of high water.  I began this trip descending the frail cut lumber staircase whose bottom steps were recently covered by the river.  I see a man and his children playing in the sand and pebbles and it looks like they are also building something.  I wait for them to wander off to gather fresh materials before sneaking a closer peak.

They have taken a recently washed up piece of Styrofoam and added some other found elements to improvise a toy raft.  Jutting from the foam are many spent cigarette lighters ( you can always find these).  There is also the red plastic flag from a mailbox…the kind you stand up to alert the postal carrier that you have outgoing mail.  I can also see a larger piece of blue plastic, perhaps a sail?  To me, it also resembles a shark fin.  As much as I like this family’s creativity, I am however, dismayed by the graffiti on the side of the log. This is something I’m starting to see more of on the bridge and through out the park.  It makes me wistful for the days when scrawling bad words and so and so loves so and so in the sand were sufficient means of expression.

The walking stick comes in handy when you are not sure how deep the mud is in a certain area.  You need to pick your path through by stepping on branches and broken planks.  You can see brightly colored plastic just about everywhere you go.  There are moderate to heavy waves along the river’s edge.  Today I have a paper sack with me to collect the small river treasures carried by the water.  This proves to be a mistake because the sack soon becomes water-logged and the bottom falls out.

I pick my way towards the railroad bridge because when the river was at its crest…this spot had the most incredible amount of wood and debris floating in the water.  I wanted to see the aftermath.  I came across this formation created when the water level left these logs high and dry.  A very fine coating of mud and dampness unifies the scene in neutral tones of brown and gray because the greening of spring is only just beginning.  I had hoped to see a bird or two, but they weren’t in this area.

It’s a cool and very overcast day and got progressively colder as the day wore on.  In fact, it would blow snow on this night.  Because the light was subdued, there were fewer harsh shadows and I felt that I could read the forms better.  Everywhere you looked there was the jumble of logs and branches twisted and interconnected together.  I recognized little from just a couple of weeks a go, with the exception of the UFO or Unidentified Floating Object which was miraculously still there.

This big circular platform first appeared here a couple of years a go.  It came with another flood that swept it loose from wherever it came from, washed it over the dam, and deposited it here.  My sons first thought it looked like a flying saucer, but I said it was an unidentified floating object instead.  We also speculated that this could be the plug found at the bottom of the river…and when it was pulled, the river drained like a bath tub.  It’s about a dozen feet across and we used to dance on it.  I’m really surprised that it’s still here and didn’t move along with the river on its way to the ocean.  Apparently, nobody has missed this thing since it’s been here for years.  When it began spitting rain I decided to turn back the way I came and headed for the staircase.

The people who made the “Styro-raft” were gone and now was a better time to sneak a peek at their creation.  I snapped a few photographs for my collection.  Before leaving I could see that they had attempted to launch their colorful craft into the river…but the Ohio was not in the mood.  I have had this experience before where the wind and waves on the river push back whatever you hope to have float away.  It probably disappointed the kids, but in their imaginations I’m sure they can see a little of themselves riding their unidentified floating object on its journey westward towards adventure and new lands.

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Mud Duck

Posted in Absurd, animal art works, animals, Art, art and environment, birding, creativity, ecosytem, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, fresh water, Louisville, Kentucky, nature photography, Ohio River, public art, recycled art, Styrofoam, watershed, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on March 22, 2011| 5 Comments »

I ventured out over the weekend to see what I could see.  The Ohio River is still very high, but receding.  All along the riverbank you can see how far the water rose because large logs and plastic trash reveal the high water marks.  Once all this water reaches its “normal” level…there will be a huge amount of trash left behind to challenge any clean-up attempts.  Today I wasn’t out looking for garbage, but other signs of life.  Perhaps it is a bit early to look for migrating birds although I can feel that is just a short time away and getting closer.  Already species like the Red-winged Blackbird are staking out nesting territories.  Species we see all the year round like the Northern Cardinal were singing at the tops of their lungs and I enjoyed standing under one bright red bird that was doing just that!

This particular bird has many rivals.  I could hear many other cardinals singing across the landscape.  I could almost imagine the spaces they were occupying by the volume of their singing…every hundred meters or so it seemed a different bird was calling out.  I wondered how the poor females went about the task of choosing which one to form a pair with?  I did see a few Yellow-rumped Warblers which are usually the first warblers to arrive and among the last to leave.  The other warblers will be winging their way here shortly…or at least I hope they stop here ever so briefly on their way northward.  Over the last two or three years it seems there are more changes to the environs around the Falls of the Ohio State Park.  I know that there are many other better choices all along the Ohio River than here. It seems we have decided to put people’s needs first over what birds might need.  During my wanderings, I did see my first butterfly and here it is…

…this is the Spring Azure butterfly.  Here it is mid March and this tiny ( no wider across than my thumb nail) bright blue-violet butterfly was visiting plants.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t obtain an image of that beautiful blue coloring, but with this species, the underside or ventral wings are more helpful in identifying it.  Since there were no dark marks on the dorsal wing tips, this helped me determine that this butterfly was the male of the species.  I was really excited to see this little wonder and thought that this could be a really uncommon species…but it wasn’t.  It’s fairly common, widespread, and has many morphs.  Formerly, this species was scientifically named Celastrina argiolus, but is now called Celastrina landon. With this species, there is still much taxonomic hair-splitting to do.  It’s just that variable over a large area of North America.

As I walked along the riverbank, I came across a few familiar signs now mostly underwater.  Here’s what happens when you throw “Caution” to the water…you get this view.  And here’s one that partly hides a “No Trespassing” sign near a storm sewer that feeds into the river.

As I moved along where the faint hearted fear to tread, I was hoping that my slogging through the mud and muck would be rewarded.  Earlier I had seen a few Blue-winged teal which is a small species of duck and so I was hoping to see another small, but rare duck that sometimes mixes in with these teal as they migrate.  Today was my lucky day and here are three images of the very unusual  Mud Duck.  This bird likes to really get into the underbrush particularly during floods to take advantage of feeding areas usually restricted to other ducks during normal river levels.  It is a very oily duck and highly buoyant on the water and as a consequence…it almost never dives beneath the surface of the river.

The price of observing this unusual fowl was foul boots.  I became so coated with mud from my knees down that I didn’t worry about my foot gear until I was ready to go home.  This mud is particularly sticky and each rise of the foot is accompanied by a sucking sound.  You definitely need to tie your laces tight, otherwise you risk stepping right out of your shoe or boot.  I stopped every so often to clean the bottoms of my boots because the weight of the mud made each step an additional burden.

So far, I haven’t seen any of the large pieces of Styrofoam that found temporary refuge in my plein air studio.  They are probably half way to the Mississippi River by now.  It may take another week for the water to fully retreat and then it will be even more time before the riverbank dries out some.  I’ll close for now with another flood view.  Over the years, these sycamore trees have been a good marker for high water.

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More Found Toys

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, collections, creativity, fresh water, Ohio River, unusual collection, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 2, 2011| 10 Comments »

The Ohio River is currently on the rise.  I think by now, the plein air studio I’ve been using all these past months is under water.  I’m sure the next time I walk this landscape it will have been rearranged.  With spring coming this will be a new place once again and with it a new cycle of debris and artifacts will have washed ashore.  I was looking through several months of images shot at the Falls of the Ohio and chose more pictures of toys that I have come across.  I’ll end this post with a bonus feature!

And now for the bonus!!  Usually after a flood it is common to find logs and sticks that have been snagged by trees as in the above image.  On occasion the retreating waters deposit other objects like strange fruits for me to find.  Here are a couple more found toys that illustrate this.

Here’s the last toy in three images.  Thanks, and see you after the flood.

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Big Red

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, creativity, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, Ohio River, public art, recycled art, sculpture, Styrofoam, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on February 25, 2011| 8 Comments »

The informal trail to my plein air studio was marked by something different today.  Old tires that were cut apart to extract their metal wheels were hung upon a few select willows like perverse life preservers.  I saw few people out today and in fact a light drizzling rain probably contributed to that.  Approaching my “studio” I could see that it had been visited again.  The “Choir” group of sculptures that had been thrashed a few weeks ago were once again the targets of abuse.  All the figures that had once been standing were all broken and horizontal.

By now, I am somewhat accustomed to the destruction that happens to the works I regularly leave out here.  This time, however, there was something oddly different.  Why would anyone take the wooden plank that I like to sit on while I make these sculptures?  I checked all around the area and could not find it and so I assumed it was carried off.  My searching did uncover this scene involving a small found object sculpture that someone had previously made and left as a gift.  Here’s how it appeared this time.

Perhaps the same people who made a mess of my outdoor studio set this up.  A small doll that I had found months previously was decapitated and its head placed on this improvised “pike”.  I took a few photos and left it be.  Returning to my polystyrene cache, I decided to recycle some of the larger pieces that were now lying haphazardly on the ground and here are a few in process shots of the new sculpture I came to call “Big Red”.

Because this work was reminding me of something I had made before, I decided it needed something different to distinguish it.  While looking for my favorite plank, I also came across the unravelling rope snagged on a willow branch with its small figure I had posted a few weeks a go.  The rope was now lying in the sand…it had been pulled down from the tree.

I removed the little figure hiding among the fibers and put him in my collecting bag.  I will reassemble him once I get home and perhaps make a gift of him to somebody.  The shredded barge cable I also took along, but I had a different purpose for this…it would become a wig for Big Red.

I arranged the dishevelled rope upon the figure’s head and decided it needed a bit of styling.  Luckily, while walking the river I found the tools I needed.  First I found a brush…and I have found many of these over time.

And then, I located a blow dryer!

In no time I was able to coif my figure.  Here she is as a train passes over the railroad bridge.

I left the figure where I made her and frankly I don’t expect to see her intact again.  It wouldn’t surprise me if she didn’t last the day, but at least I have these pictures to record her existence by the riverbank.  Here is my parting image of her as she waves to the river that partially gave her “life”.

One final snapshot…I got a kick finding that little hair dryer and I do mean little!  To help judge its scale I placed a five cent piece from my pocket next to this artifact and recorded this image.

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Ohio Valley Sphinx

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, creativity, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, Louisville, Kentucky, Ohio River, public art, recycled art, sculpture, watershed, tagged , , , , , , , on February 13, 2011| 9 Comments »

What a day!  I was able to take my time and explore the western section of the park.  It had been a few months since I was last there and the change in location felt good.  As I passed the creek that defines the western most limit of the park’s Woodland Trail, I came across this nice view.  I like how the water has terraced the riverbank in particular.

The fine mud has left a record of the rising and falling water.  Plus there was something reverential to me in the pose of the fisherman.  Making himself humble in the face of this peaceful nature?  Who care’s if you catch a fish when it feels this good to be outside and breathing.

Crossing over, I soon came across a section of the riverbank that is the proverbial elephants’ graveyard for plastic.  I took many photographs of it all.  That’s stuff for a future post wahoo!  Yes, I found a lot of interesting stuff, but I also heard some birdsong as well.  In a month or so, it will be spring migration time for neotropical birds which is one of my favorite moments at the Falls.  I did come across some relics from earlier figures I made and it’s interesting to see how they weathered.  The one with the pinkish lips was last year’s butterfly guide.

How much of our history is based on fragments?  And because it is incomplete, filling in the blanks is guess-work.  Like many people around the world, our family was watching events unfold in Egypt and we were cheering for the people and their struggle for self-determination.  But our own notions of democracy were borrowed from the ancient Greeks, whose armless marble statues were once complete and probably painted as well.  American democracy is what evolved here and heaven knows it’s still a work in progress.  Whatever happens in Egypt will be their interpretation and will take in to account their civilization’s already long history.  I’m happy that the transition is happening now fairly peacefully.

Today, I found two plastic tanks on the riverbank!  Finding one would be unusual so what do you call it when you find more than one?  Just coincidence I suppose?

It’s to the Egyptian peoples’ credit that the military didn’t make this deadlier than it was.  It’s a measure of civilization on how well we take care of the least fortunate among us.  This is a quality that I find eroding in my own country where decisions are often made based on a bottom line.  Walking along, I found another little toy.  Over the years, I have found a handful of these.

Coming across this little plastic cowboy shooting his pistol made me wonder what it might be like if we were the ones experiencing a popular revolution?  With America awash in weapons, I shudder at the thought. 

I rested at this spot along my walk and ate my granola bars.  My left foot was aching a bit from walking along such uneven surfaces.  I wonder how old these trees were before the beaver got to them and what’s that yellow sandstone looking form?  Walking over to it, it’s a large hunk of some kind of expandable foam used for insulation?  There’s more than Styrofoam floating out here. 

It took some effort to roll this to a place where I could work on it.  Partially water-logged, it was really heavy on one side and that kept it from standing upright on the sloping bank of the river.  Over and over I reminded myself to be careful not to hurt my back.  Recently, I did tweak it a bit by being out of position when I lifted.  Anyway, in honor of recent events and because this block gave me the idea…here is the Ohio Valley Sphinx in several images.

I left my sphinx near the river where it could watch that other attribute of civilization wash ashore from far afield.  Good luck to the Egyptians and all the people of that region desiring a more humane life. I ended my last post by finding a plastic duck…and here is another!  What are the chances of that?  It was an old pull toy and is now missing its wheels.

Naturally, this artificial duck went into another collecting bag to join the decoy found on the last expedition to the Falls of the Ohio.

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