MORE PHOTOS FROM THE SCRAPOSAURS EXHIBIT AT THE MUSEUM OF THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY ON 7-18-25

I enjoy the surroundings in this garden and as you can see, some of these dinosaurs have a lot of open space around them.

This Scraposaur is called Scrappy Ed.

I cropped the Fun Facts for you to see more clearly below, but you can click on each photo to enlarge. Hopefully you can read them better.

More facts can be found at this website.

This is fashioned after an Edmontonia, a nodosaur ankylosaurid. It lived in the Late Cretaceous Period (76.5-65.5 mya), in the class Nodosauridae and was an herbivore. The first one was discovered in 1915 in the Edmonton Formation (now known as the Horseshoe Canyon). Its range included Canada and the northern USA and was one of the last non-clubbed ankylosuras to date. Their sizes could reach 23 feet (7 m). It was a heavily armored herbivore. If you have anyone writing up homework papers on such things, you can read more about the Edmonton Group here. I have added links all through this post, for my own benefit also, as there is a lot of information to take in. These wonderful sculptures have sown a seed for me to find out more.

Our next one has no name other than the title, T-Rex Evolved. This sculpture was one of my favorites. The first partial skeleton of a T-Rex was discovered in 1902 by Barnum Brown, then an assistant curator from the Department of Vertebrate Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History in Montana. It would be a holotype specimen. Holotype means a single type specimen upon which the description and name of a new species is based.

Scientists have determined because of these fossil specimens, that a Tyrannosaurus rex could be up to 40 feet long and 12 feet high and estimated to have weighed between 11,000 and 15,500 pounds (5,000 and 7,000 kilograms), with skin and flesh on its bones. That's about as much as the largest African elephant. I found all this information and a little more from here.

A cropped version of fun facts from the photo above.

You can read more about the T-Rex at this link. Mr. Lewis has created quite a magnificent one. 

As there is such a lot of information on these dinosaurs, I will leave the rest to one last post to be shared later.  Instead, here are a few photos of flowers taken.

They have several of these old-fashioned urns full of plants and flowers. The ground cover you see in the borders (and below) are Lesser calamint, which you can see and read about here.

The pink flower is called Angelonia and this is another website with more information. The purple flower is Scaevola aemula, commonly known as Fairy Fan Flower or Fan Flower, which you can read about here. 

I have added a cropped version. It's a pretty one! I don't remember seeing it before or perhaps I just didn't notice it in any of the gardens we've been to. I occasionally miss a few.

I am familier with this one. It is called Honeysuckle Fuschia. 

We have had them in one of our planters on the deck. I need to buy more as the other plant died. I spotted a couple of hummingbirds hovering and drinking nectar from the bells last year. I would love if they came back. 

That's all for today. I have enough for one more post which I will share next week sometime.

Thanks for visiting 

and I hope you have a great day.

MORE PHOTOS FROM THE SCRAPOSAURS EXHIBIT on 7-18-25

 We were at The Museum of the Shenandoah Valley in Winchester. I had wanted to see the Scraposaur Exhibition on display in their garden, and Gregg always loves a drive out there. The sign is at the entrance. There were a few people already walking around, as I mentioned in my other post, children amongst them, but we arrived not too long after opening time at 10:00 a.m., and it was still very quiet (closed on Mondays if I remember correctly. It is best to check their website at the link above to verify, in case you find yourself in the area). 

By the time we left, there were a few more people. This is a view from where I was sitting on a bench underneath a very nice shade tree. I was waiting for Gregg to come back with the car. I want to mention how warm and friendly we find the people in this area. The lady at the kiosk for instance. She was a delight and had that old-world charm that I find so welcoming. But I am getting a bit ahead of myself. 

I had fun taking photos of the potted plants next to the entrance gate.

I always like to get ideas of what to put in the larger plant pots I have at home.

As we stepped into the garden, we found an information board introducing artist Dale Lewis. You can click on any of these photos to see more details.

The first 'Scraposaur' we saw was Little Susie, inspired by an amazing story of a T Rex named Sue found in South Dakota in 1990. 

There are three websites I enjoyed browsing through about her discovery. One at this link and another here, and the third looking at a video on YouTube here.

I cropped the facts from the sign to make it even easier to read. The two that jumped out at me was that the original Sue roamed the earth 67 million years ago and was only half grown at 13 feet tall and 42 feet long.

We had fun looking at her and figuring out what scrap parts had been used to put her together.

The ingenuity of such a task impressed both of us.

I was really taken with her red glass eyes, which she was using to study me as much as I was studying her, it seemed.

Moving on, we made our way into another part of the garden where they grow a lot of produce - and flowers. All the gardens I have visited in these many years, have an area where they grow food to give to local families in need. 

I put this small collage together and have included names this time. 

This photo shows more of these neat looking tendrils of the Bitter Lemon climbing up the trellis work. Yes I take photos of everything except I think this is Gregg’s photo, so he does too.

But, Dino was demanding attention and giving me the eye. 

You may remember Dino. He was the family pet in the TV cartoon show, The Flintstones.

Like any pet, he demanded lots of fussing. I was happy to oblige, and he enjoyed having his photo taken.

Here is his information.

The next sculpture? Dragonflies! 

So, how long have they been around? My curiosity search found that they are believed to have originated approximately 300 million years ago, during the late Paleozoic period. 

Dragonflies are among the earliest winged insects to evolve. 300 million years' ago this is when their ancestors, sometimes called griffinflies, first appeared. At a time when the earth had more oxygen levels and swampy environments (the Carboniferous period), it is thought this supported the larger size of some early dragonflies. Some had wingspans of up to two-and-a-half feet. While modern dragonflies are smaller, their body plan has remained relatively consistent for 300 million years.

I found more scrap forks and a couple of spoons at the end of the dragonfly's abdomen. There's a very interesting page on the biology of a dragonfly here.

(All my information came from the AI overview when I asked about prehistoric dragonflies in the subject line.)

Today I am going to finish with the dragonflies as I still have a few more photos, enough for at least one more post.

All for now!