Yellow Jersey prairie dog is done.
He goes outside tomorrow on the front proch until I can pour him a permanent concrete pad when it warms up more.
I'm talking about a concrete prairie dog that I painted to look like it has on the Yellow Jersey from the TDF. Complete with black cycling shorts and the yellow jersey. I hope to find a small cycling helmet and sunglasses for him eventually.
Why a prairie dog you ask. Well the prairie dogs are part of the Lewis and Clark and The Corps of Discovery festivities. The offical celebrations start in 2004 and last until 2006. To commemorate the 2 years it took Lewis and Cark to journey from Missouri to the west and back. Prairie dogs were one of the interesting animals found by The Corps of Discovery during their journey. They caught several of the creatures and took them back with them to Pres. Jefferson.
Though Sioux City was not around during their journey it is where Sgt Floyd is buried. He is the only member to die during the journey. So Sioux City is one of the places where the celebrations will take place.
There is even talk of having a commorative bike ride along part of the route to help celebrate.
There are 3 sizes of prairie dogs. A table top, a yard ornament size, both of these are made of concrete. The third one is a 5' tall fiberglass size. Any person can purchase either of the concrete or the fiberglass prairie dogs.
But when they were first being made the fiberglass dogs were sponsored by businesses in the Siouxland area and decorated by professional artists. They were then auctioned off later.
I have painted a table top size dog a while ago. He has painted on him our local bike clubs jersey and black shorts. I did manage to find a pair of sunglasses and a small helmet for him. (Found them as part of a Ken doll's accessory kit.) But I can not find a larger size for my lawn ornament size dog.
Next I'm going to paint a praire dog with the green jersey, then the white and polka dot jersey's. After that there will be one with the world champoinship colors painted on it. Then a stars and strips prarie dog. And finally a lawn ornament size with the local bike club jersey on it.
This will make a total of 7 lawn ornament size prarie dogs. But I may paint one with the pink jersey for the Giro de Italia as well. Each one will have his own poured concrete pad to sit on along the front walk in my front yard that leads up to my front porch.
Any other colors I could paint that represent cycling?