Big bugs!

Saturday
Why do I listen to weather forecasts?! Today was Roger's birthday, and we (Roger, Laura and myself) had planned on going canoeing on the Little Miami River. However, the forecast called for overcast skies and rain and possible thunder showers moving in by about 1pm. Not wanting to get caught on the river in a thunder storm we changed our plans. By about 10am the sun had come out and the rest of the day was dry and sunny! We could have changed our plans back again, but even at lunch time they were still saying rain would move in - just later than they had said in the morning!

So instead we went walking at Rowe Woods in the morning. After a quick lunch we went to see the Big Bugs exhibit at Glenwood Gardens. The exhibit features 13 giant sculptures of bugs, spread about in the garden setting, constructed with four kinds of wood: green saplings, black walnut, black locust and cedar wood. These bugs include three 10-foot tall ants, a 150-pound ladybug, a 20-foot tall praying mantis, a 600-pound daddy long leg, a spider in a web. a bee on a flower, a butterfly and the damselfly shown in my blip. The artist is David Rogers from Long Island, New York. He discovered his talent for creating sculptures when he was young.  At the age of thirteen he learned how to build abstract steel-welded sculptures using salvaged car parts and scrap materials. By age fifteen, he began using dry branches and rope-lashing techniques to create different kinds of abstract structures, and by the mid 80s David had discovered a serious devotion to rustic design using natural materials. He began designing and constructing many different styles of rustic furnishings and garden structures.  This traveling exhibit debuted at the Dallas Arboretum in the summer of 1994 and its success continues to grow. There was an information plaque with each sculpture, and from this I learned the differences between damselflies and dragonflies. The dragonfly perches with its wings spread flat. It is a strong, fast and purposeful flier. Its eyes are touching or nearly so, and there are three short spines on the end of the nymph's abdomen. The damselfly, on the other hand, perches with its wings folded behind its back. It is a weak, fluttering flier. It has eyes on the side of its head, and it has three feather-like gills at the tip of the nymph's abdomen. We then went home for a quick shower, before going down to the Cincinnati Museum Center to see the IMAX movie Tornado Alley, then going across the river to have dinner at Mitchell's Fish Market at Newport on the Levee (shopping and entertainment complex), which was excellent. So, all in all, it was a good full day, just not what we'd planned!

One year ago: Snap!