A bit of whimsy

A whimsy of daisies

Daisies of the world unite — you have nothing to lose but your chains.

~ Unknown

One whimsy

In her current photo hunt, Karma asks us to show her whimsy.  I thought this would be an easy task, and kept it in mind while traveling and visiting with friends and family.  Whimsy, surprisingly enough, is not always that easy to find.  Or perhaps it’s similar to happiness and butterflies.  If you try too hard or make things too complicated, you’ll miss it or chase it away.

Daisies have always been one of my favorite flowers.  They seem so cheerful, and when I see a group of them in the wild waving in the wind, I always think there is something whimsical about them.  During my search for whimsy, I thought I’d end up using a bunch of images with daisies, but a friend (who actually reads my blog!!) came along and helped me find other whimsical things to show you.

Unexpected whimsy in a park.  (Nature Throne designed and constructed by Christina Grote is located in Highbanks Metro Park, Columbus, Ohio.)  The sign near the throne issues this invitation:  “Listen… Sit for a moment and think about the earth as your mother and the trees and animals as your relatives.  You are a part of nature like the wind and the stars…”

I’m not sure the throne in the park was part of the planned tour of whimsy my friend had in mind.  If not, it was a lucky find at the start of a nice hike.

Whimsy on the dashboard.

After our hike, we went in search of some whimsical sculptures in Dublin, Ohio.  I don’t know much about Dublin, Ohio, but it does seem to be a place that appreciates whimsy.

If I have the honor conferred upon me to name your village, with the brightness of the morn, and the beaming of the sun on the hills and dales surrounding this beautiful valley, it would give me great pleasure to name your new town after my birthplace, Dublin, Ireland.

~ John Shields, partner to John Sells who brought his family to the region and established lots for the new village in 1810.

Our first stop was more serious than whimsical so I will save the Leather Lips sculpture for another time.  Oh, okay.  I’ll show it to you now.  Otherwise, I might move on to other things and forget.

Chief Leather Lips sculpture

If you so desire, you can read the story of Chief Leather Lips here.  There is no whimsy to his story, although we ran into the usual Ohio whimsical way of detouring traffic while trying to find the sculpture.  That is to say, there is a sign directing you towards the detour with no other signs to follow until you reach the end where it states clearly “End Detour.”  It’s up to you to figure out which way to go to get to the end.  It was a winding detour through an affluent neighborhood, and had my friend not been paying attention to traffic movements, we might not have found it.

And then there was Cornhenge…

Field of Corn (with Osage Orange Trees)

The official name is Field of Corn (with Osage Orange Trees).  Cornhenge is the local slang reference.  There are 109 ears of concrete corn in a field that was originally farmed by Sam Frantz who donated the field to the city.  Farmer Frantz was the inventor of several hybrid species of corn.  The sculptures are about 8 feet tall, and are a double-cross hybrid variety known as Corn Belt Dent Corn.  There is a poem by a man who goes by the name of Sadclone called “When Once I Walk’d Through the Halls of Cornhenge.”  It is, in a way, another bit of whimsy because Sadclone writes fake poetry and attributes it to classic poets.  You can read the poem here.

Taken near the Osage Orange Trees. There are two of them. One was there before Cornhenge, the other was planted to go with the art installation.

Which brings us to…

Dancing Hares by Sophie Ryder of London, England.

Initially unveiled at The Hague, Holland, Dancing Hares was commissioned in 2001 by Edwards Golf Communities, as the whimsical centerpiece for Ballantrae’s entry park — on loan to the City of Dublin.

~ From the description of the sculpture, Dancing Hares, at the Ballantrae website

Well, there you have it.  “Whimsical” even appears in the write-ups about the Dancing Hares.  Ballantrae is a golf community in Dublin.  The giant bunnies frolic on a hilltop above a fountain where children (and adults) can do some frolicking of their own in the splash fountain.

The Splash Fountain, a good place to get your hare wet.

I like that ‘once upon a time’ quality, where the telling of a tale has an elevated sense of story.  There’s a whimsical quality to it.  Sometimes in fairy tales more things seem possible, even though often they’re real world based.

~ Erin Morgenstern

A closer look

The bunnies are 15 feet tall, and once you get close, you will see that the artist used everyday household objects within the sculpture to “encourage children of all ages to seek and find these things” (from the Ballantrae website).

Paw of a dancing hare

It was a fun, and whimsical, outing.  Thank you, Cismonok, for showing me Dublin’s whimsy.

Clothespin embedded in a leg.

Thanks for stopping by today, and exploring whimsy with me.  Thank you, Karma, for another fun photo hunt.  I’m looking forward to the next one.

Legs and shadows.

Be good, be kind, be loving.  Just Be.  🙂  And go out and dance on a hilltop if you get the chance.  It’s a whimsical thing to do.