The Other Side of the OH.

Well, I'll be gosh-swoggled! Apparently there is actually more to this state than flat farmland and Cincinnati.

This past week I went on a getaway to Southeastern Ohio (about an hour and a half due east), and found that, geography-wise, it was far more interesting than I'd imagined. One arm of the Appalacians extends into that area, and due to a massive meteor impact age upon age ago, there are plenty of gorges, cliffs and caves to explore.

We rented a "lodge" on Highland Nature Sanctuary that was actually an old farm house from the turn of the century. It was still filled with neat antiques and had most excellent wrap around porches and lots of nooks, comfy chairs, and hammocks to settle down with a book. Interestingly, though I am a veritable mosquito magnet, there were actually not many out in the woods at all.

Behind the lodge was a hiking trail that takes you down into the gorge, and along the cliff face by the river down there. It was pretty darn lovely. The preservation society has been buying up land in the area to protect caves and rock formations and such, and they've only recently begun renting out Ravenwood and Beechcliff lodges. Incidentally, people, these places are ridiculously cheap. If you dig on the website, you can find individual prices.



This has not very much to do with anything, but I find it really amusing that this turkey was hitting on a chicken. He was doing all his puffing and prancing, and she just kept rolling her eyes.



The other cool thing about the area, for those of us interested in decaying historical buildings, is that there are a plethora of tiny towns that are basically just a stoplight with abandoned general stores and houses right up by Rt 50 as you drive through. It's pretty fascinating to see, and I wish my camera hadn't run out of juice. Chillicothe in particular is not such a small town, but it's a prime example of that really interesting crumbling beauty. The downtown is like a ghost town--there aren't many for sale signs, but many of the beautiful high ceiling-ed buildings on and around the main street are empty, and unused. One such is an old opera house, that I had to restrain myself from breaking into to look around. You can just picture the old motorcars on the cobbled roads when the place was actually Ohio's capitol--bustling with people, all coming to that part of the state for business, or theraputic mineral soaks and tours through newly discovered caves and Hopewell Indian mounds.

I'm kind of tempted to look at real estate prices in Chillicothe--not because I'd want to move there, but just because I'm curious how much one those great old houses would run in a place like that.

The Bag of Bags

A while ago I developed a fascination within my crafting habits of creating something new out of itself. That sounds a little confusing, I realize, but let me give a couple examples that may clarify.

The "making things out of the same things" kick was first inspired by this vaguely creepy site wherein a lady takes the leftover fur from client's pet groomings, and spin it into yarn. How quirky would it be to make a dog a sweater out of its own fur? That's the sort of thing I'm talking about.

With the bundles of fur gleaned from the cats when warm weather finally hit, I hand-spun about 6 feet of yarn, which I fashioned into another, smaller cat for them to play with. They had a weird fascination with it, like a toddler looking at pictures of themselves--not quite sure what it is, but it's so familiar.... they adored playing with their little offspring so much that it got destroyed before I thought take a picture.

Then last month I stumbled over this instructable, which was the perfect realization of the "making things out of the same things" idea, only more sensible and less involving cat hair (which is always a plus). Instead, it involves using all those plastic grocery bags most of us have stowed away someplace and creating a sturdy, reusable grocery bag out of them.

I was lucky enough to have sisters in town at the time I decided to go about rolling and cutting up bags to make the "yarn" for the project, and Em helped by making neat plastic circles. No matter how I've tried since then, mine are ragged and wonky in comparison. :(

Ah well. In any case, here's the progress on the bag. It's not all that lovely, admittedly, but I think it'll be a handy thing, and though our community has a vigorous plastic bag recycling program, it's nice to repurpose them permanently instead.

I'm also entertained that everyone who's come to visit lately has bestowed upon me a bag or two. In the last picture, you can see the strata of various places. There are darker bags from Ohio Kroger, a line of white from a random Hillers bag I'd saved from Michigan, and then the lighter yellow of Michigan Krogers.

I also have some Target bags I'm looking forward to using on a separate bag. I think a red and white bag would be much easier on the eyes than this one.

I'll post more as the bag evolves. I'm (supposedly) crocheting it, but I'm an awful crocheter, and I don't work on it as often as I ought to.

A Kitschy Gem From Back When

The other night we were fortunate enough to be introduced to the super-sleek-sixties-spy thriller that is Mario Bava's DANGER: DIABOLIK! (Or simply Diabolk). (Many thanks, Alex!) Holy crow, was it fun... It's full of interesting camera work involving reflections and odd angles, bizzare secret lairs, fabulous costumes, and the cherry on this psychadelic sundae is a luscious soundtrack done by the illustrious Ennio Morricone. (the song above is "Driving Decoys")

Apparently the original masters of the soundtrack were lost in a fire in the 70s, but someone over at YouTube has their hands on some of the songs. Don't forget to take in the trailer.

The Boy was pointing out just how much Austin Powers owes to this movie in particular. Only this stuff is serious. Dead serious. Dun-dun-dunnn!

You little whippersnapper, you!

Fair warning: those who are squeamish about bugs should turn back now.

I was warned by neighbors and friends a couple weeks ago that this season would be the year the cicada emerge. Sure enough, not a week later, abandoned cicada shells began appearing stuck to everything, along with their sluggish former inhabitants, crowding onto trees and bushes.

Anyone who's seen Neon Genesis Evangelion knows the sounds of summer in Tokyo 3: the never-ending drone of cicadas. It makes the air feel heavy and muggy, even if it's a fairly nice day out. I'm not sure if the cicadas depicted in the anime are of the seventeen year variety, but the ones we have here in Cincinnati apparently are.

Cicada deposit their eggs into the bark of trees and such places, and when they hatch, the larvae burrow into the ground, where they percolate for seventeen years (some varieties for 3-5 years) before emerging, molting, mating, and singing frantically before dying. What a life: Laze around for most of it, then have a huge party before you croak.

Since they're relatively cute (as bugs go), and don't bite or sting, the neighborhood kids have been having a heyday collecting them. I see little herds of kids wandering the neighborhood with jars.



The most interesting thing about this whole event is the constant sound of them. It's been cool this season, so they didn't begin chirping until one particularly warm day. From inside the house, I thought someone must be running a whippersnapper outside, but when the apparent yard work went on for hours, I stepped out on the patio to realize it was actually the cicadas. Most of them are higher up in the trees, so it's not as if there are massive drifts of bugs everywhere, but man--judging by the noise they make, there are millions of them out there.

The sound of it just rolls and swells, coming from everywhere at once. It's really something.

But in a couple weeks, they will all have done their procreative duties, and will die, leaving the task of deafening the neighborhood in the very capable hands (or wings) of the next generation.