Christmas Skywatch – 2024

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Hey you know life goes up and down and so does Christmas. This year was a restrained Christmas in our family. My sister came to visit for a few days beforehand and that was definitely a boost. Other factors came in that kind of restrained things. So we had a quiet Christmas. The sun didn’t shine and it was kind of misty rainy so above is my Christmas Skywatch photo. I’ll take it. Not much of a sky but I love the tree. And yes that is a filter I used on my phone. About four of them in fact.

And this is a shot from our driveway a few days beforehand. I kind of liked it. A wag on instagram said that the chemtrails ruined the photo. Get this folks, chemtrails are not real. There, that is my Christmas message to the world.

Another day, same driveway, looking the other way. I used distressedfx on this.

And this is a jigsaw puzzle that I did on my ipad.

Another jigsaw puzzle.

About this time of year, if you are on social media, you get all sorts of hits about apps that will do a yearly recap for you. So I bit on one, I did a couple of 2024 rehashes, one was about my life in general and another about 2024 skies. I saved the resulting videos and then cancelled my seven day free membership. I then inputted the videos to youtube and so above is my 2024 skywatch rehash. It only lasts 30 seconds and then starts over so don’t do what I did and watch it over and over until I realized what I was doing.

I watched a couple of NFL football games including a miserable Baltimore – Houston game that ended 31-2. Tell you what though, Beyonce performed the halftime show. And what a show it was! Came in on a horse and just killed the performance. She should do the Superbowl halftime show. And I am not even a Beyonce fan!

I hope that everyone of you who celebrate Christmas had a good one.

Skywatch Friday

Christmas 2024 Happenings

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(Photo by Ellen)

We had a nice surprise for Christmas this year. My sister, Ellen, came down from Colorado to visit us. (She is also a blogger, check out “Life on the High Plains“)That’s her on the right. We had a great visit.

We went to see our brother, Bob at his residence and had a meal with him and a little pre-Christmas celebration.

Ellen is a lover of all animals. Our Pomeranian Kodi loves her and even let her pick him up, for a little bit. He doesn’t let me even touch him. Our cat Lizzie loves Ellen as well.

We took her to the Tulsa suburb of Sapulpa to check out the Christmas Chute. We love the Chute. Talk about an extravagant display.

They block off a long section of their main street and put these steel frameworks in which they stuff with lights and decorations.

They have all sorts of various themes.

They provide a list of things to look for. They are hard to find but it gets you to looking hard at the decorations. The main one this year was Christmas Pickles. I had never heard of such a thing. We found a few of them. Check out the Christmas Chute web site for more info.

(Photo by Ellen)

Here’s my bride, Heather, and I looking for the items. I’m holding the checklist.

It just goes on and on. The crowd had a great casual fun energy to it. They have all sorts of opportunities to shop or get snacks.

We spent quite a lot of time there.

All good things come to an end. Ellen returned to her home in Colorado. We all miss her.

Kodi was not happy at all at her going home.

I am linking with My Corner of the World

Shadow Shot Sunday – Shadows on the Trail

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During a recent hike on the YMCA owned portion of Turkey Mountain I noticed that they had new trail signs. (I also noticed that I had grown taller and skinnier, I should hike more often in the late afternoon!) So I said to myself, hmm and looked on the other side of the sign.

It looks like Boy Scout Troop 20 had something to do with sign. Way to go guys (and gals as the BSA takes girls now.)

A very Merry Turkey Mountain Trail Christmas to all who celebrate the holiday.

Shadow Shot Sunday

Saturday’s Critters – Peace in the House

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I was home with son the other day and all was quiet and I came upon this scene. Lizzy the cat and Kodi the dog were laying close to each other without fighting. On these cold days they both like sunshine so they were enjoying each other’s company. Usually when Lizzy is in close reach, Kodi chases her.

They stayed that way for quite a while son and I gawked over them.

Kodi is enjoying the tree. Lizzy used to climb up in the tree and we had to perform several extractions, so far no extractions this year.

Kodi has really developed a taste for beef. We were reheating some leftover roast beef the other day and he decided wanted some. His system is delicate and so as a treat I give him deli beef used in sandwiches.

Lizzie found a Christmas throw on our sectional that she has taken over.

I wish each and every one out there in the interwebs a Merry Christmas, and if you don’t celebrate the holiday, I wish you peace and happiness. I get great pleasure and fulfillment from my “blog friends.” Photoblogs are the peaceful happy corner of the internet.

Saturday’s Critters

Adventure Lab Geocaching on the RiverParks Trails

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Earlier this month a nice cold, sunny, windy day, I went to Tulsa’s RiverParks trails to look for an Adventure Lab Geocache. Adventure Labs are a specialty cache where you have to visit a site and find information there. No physical cache is involved so it is appropriate for areas where they don’t really want you hiding stuff. Check out geocaching.com for more information. So this Adventure Lab involved going to several sculptures and getting information from the sculpture or accompanying plaque.

I ended up walking about two or three miles and had the parks trails to myself. At the end of the Adventure Lab you get coordinates to a “real” geocache and I found it as well.

And I took photos of all sorts of other stuff. We still had lots of fall color and the skies were really blue.

These are some sort of infrastructure and artists had painted murals on them and I really liked them.

And RiverParks installed this little musical drum for little kids and immature 69 year olds geocachers.

And I got this certificate!! I am not sure what you do with certificates. I am now up to 2287 geocache finds. But who is counting, right?

I am linking with My Corner of the World and Skywatch Friday.

Saturday’s Critters – Best of 2024

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I’m on Instagram a lot and post at least once or twice daily about all sorts of things. I violate all the rules for growing your following and all that other stuff. I’m not trying to grow a following I just like posting photos and seeing what other people post. I use an app at the end of the year called “Top 9” and it shows what your top 9 photos were of the year. So this is the results for 2024

You can see my posts are pretty random and so is what people like of what I post. You can also see that I like post photos of animals. One of our cat Lizzie, and our pom, Kodi, some geese and my favorite is the squirrel getting miffed because we hadn’t refilled the bird feeder.

So if you are on instagram and we have connected yet, seek me out at @yogiab and lets follow each other. I’m already following with a bunch of blog friends.

Meantime, check out Saturday’s Critters where I am linking.

Skywatch Friday – This and That Edition

We try and walk our dog every day. It kind of smooths him out and reduces his anxiety. I captured this sky on such a walk. A photoblogger always has at least his phone him at all times in all places is my motto.

My other motto is try your front and back porches first for sky shot.

This one I actually walked from my front porch about a100 feet to the street. No need to drive all over the place if you do not want to do so.

In November I ventured up to the suburb of Collinsville for geocaching meet up. The host had a bunch of caches for us to find. I got stuck on this sculpture. Nothing to do with geocaching I tried all sorts of different angles.

So we found nine different geocaches of several different types at the park. It only took about an hour.

Geocaching Meetup

A group pic that I stole of facebook. That’s me with the black hat off to the right. Note the lady holding her “geodog” off to the right. Everything is geo with geocachers, geodogs, geocars, geowifes, geotents. Also nobody calls anybody else by their real name, it’s always their geocaching handle. So I’m yogiabb. The two other guys and the other lady have each found over 20,000 geocaches. I’ve been at it for twenty years and only have about 2300 or so. Amazing. The lady to the left of me said she only slowed down finding them once after getting bit on the hand by a copperhead. I’ve never been snakebit but I have been bitten by wasps, bees, hornets, chiggers, fire ants and ticks.

And this is another online jigsaw puzzle I finished on my ipad. A rustic western scene with a little bit of sky.

And that is a wrap for this week. I am linking with Skywatch Friday

Getting Started on Christmas

Recently we visited Rhema Bible Church in the Tulsa suburb of Broken Arrow. They put on a great show of Christmas Lights ever year. They have lots of lights and almost infinite parking and although traffic is congested it’s doable. We like to go when we can park the car and walk around.

I loved the carolers in a Victorian vibe.

Santa’s Sleigh and the Reindeer. I don’t know where Santa is.

One of my favorite things is the walk around the pond. There is always great reflections. And the ducks and geese think they are part of the attraction.

At home, my wife has decorated but that will be a different post. Looking at how she decorated the bakers rack I guess you probably saw right away that she loves Snowmen. We are invaded by snowmen.

I participate in a nice social media thing called Postcrossing. To simplify it is where you send and receive postcards from all over the world. I’ve been doing it for years. I’ve sent and received about 350 cards. I do about one a week. I’ve made some new instagram “friends” and even found a few geocachers out there. And it is free!! Except you know international postage is expensive and you have to buy the cards from wherever you buy cards. Check out postcrossing.com if you are interested. The above is a card I picked up in Santa Fe last summer showing Christmas in that town. I sent it to someone in Belgium.

And switching gears a little I am back to doing online jigsaw puzzles on my ipad. I had misplaced my ipad charger and ordered another and fired up the app. I love it. I have to tell you sensory wise, the cardboard back side of real life jigsaw puzzles is a No Go for me. Plus what do you do with the puzzle when you are done. What I really love is that once you place your last piece, the jigsaw lines disappear and you can save it as an image. Plus there are no lost pieces and it doesn’t take up your tables, and the pieces all oriented right.

That’s all for this week. I’m linking with My Corner of the World.

Shadows of Tulsa’s Woodward Park

I had an hour to kill before before picking up son from his work the other day so I ventured over to nearby Woodward Park to see what I could see. The sun was getting low, which is great if you love taking pictures!!

I have taken lots of images of the greenhouse over the years. I think it is a beautiful structure. You notice I got a shadow selfie here.

This is the nearby Carriage House of the Tulsa Garden Center. The Garden Center started out life back in the early 20th century as the mansion of an oilman. Back in the day, the female servants had spaces to sleep in the attic of the mansion. The male servants were quartered in the second floor of the Carriage House. No upstairs/downstairs hanky panky here!!

This is Carl Linnaeus and his shadow in the nearby Linnaeus Demonstration Gardens.

I’m linking with Shadow Shot Sunday