Now this feels more like summer. The Ohio Valley heat and humidity just grabs your breath and makes it heavy. After the flash flooding and torrential rains, I thought the park would look a lot different than it does. You can see that the river did get high because piles of driftwood form a meandering line where the water stopped and receded. I checked out the new arrangements, but the object that stands out as the find of the day was a plastic, crinkled, French fry! Something new for the “Fake Food Collection”. 
All manner of insect life is present today. Various dragonfly species patrol the air space just above my head. I watched a small thread-waisted wasp carry a caterpillar across the sand. Ants follow their chemical trails through the driftwood. Some of the willow trees are exuding a sap that’s attractive to dark-bodied flies and an occasional monarch butterfly floats by. With all this buggy activity, I can feel the energy of life all around me.
The river stopped just short of my studio site. As I was walking towards it with today’s finds I could hear the voices of children coming from that direction. For the first time, I actually came across people standing in my spot. I know I surprised “Grandma” and her two grand children, a boy and a girl. She explained very quickly that she lives in Clarksville and wanted to take the kids to the river and get exposure to nature. The girl was holding a small doll I had found months ago and her brother was carrying the wooden ax I had fashioned for my Prince Madoc figure. Grandma said that they just came across my site and thought some old drunk had hauled all this trash to this spot! No I explained, it’s just me…some other kind of eccentric with artistic inclinations. Grandma, however, wasn’t interested in continuing the conversation and the boy laid down the faux weapon. I said he could have it and his eyes lit up in the way boy’s eyes shine when they get to hold sticks and guns and there is a suggestion of danger. I told him that if he struck anything with the ax that it would just fall apart. Grandma said that if they ran into trouble that she wasn’t too worried. She dug her hand into one of her short’s pockets and pulled out a wicked looking black folding knife!
Standing proudly by the river is today’s figure! It’s all stuff I came across between the parking lot and my studio spot. The plastic star is either a child’s cookie cutter or a clay tool of some sort. In the center of the star is an acorn. The other eye combines an orange foam fishing bobber with the cap from a milk jug. The nose is a fake, plastic tube of lipstick. The ears are made from the bottom of an aluminum can. Can you guess what the mouth is? It’s a hair barrette. On the end of some old fishing line, the figure holds a plastic, gold ornament of some kind. I like the way it shines in the light. I attached the sole of a child’s sandal to the body to create another area of interest. The rest is Styrofoam and driftwood sticks.
I had forgotten how uncomfortable the heat can make things. My t-shirt and jeans were sticking to my skin. On such a warm day, why don’t I wear shorts…surely that would be cooler? Yes, but over the years I have torn my legs up on sharp-bladed grasses, endured insect bites and poison ivy, scratched myself climbing over driftwood and bruised my knees slipping on wet fossil rocks. You get tired continually healing from something. I can live with a little perspiration every now and then.
This image was taken under the railroad bridge and next to the eastern tainter gates. The parking lot is just beyond and up on the hill. It’s hard to imagine that the level of the river is just about to the top of the wall on the right. You can’t get any lower in the valley than being at the bottom of the Ohio River, but here at the Falls you can get a feeling for that. I noticed that the leaves are starting to turn yellow and so summer’s days are numbered. I did pass a stand of broad-leaved arrowhead plants with their white flowers and thought this a good way to end this post.
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Artist at Exit 0 Riverblog 