Woodward Park Skies and a Moon

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I was loving the light and the reflections

My son not only has a BA in History, last summer he finished a certificate program to be a paralegal. He is working his way through the formal certification tests and has been looking for a job as a paralegal.

Oklahoma Fall Color is a lot of yellows and browns.

He got a call asking for him to interview a law firm in mid town Tulsa for a paid intern paralegal job. So at the appointed time I drove him to the firm and then headed out to nearby Woodward Park to wander around, see what I can see, and maybe take a few photos.

Stumbled on a wedding going on. I wish them a long and fulfilling marriage.

It was late in the day, the sun was low and the shadows were long and it was a beautiful Oklahoma autumn day. Autumn here lasts ridiculously long.

Got me a silhouette

So I wandered around doing my thing and when I was about finished, son called and said he was done. I picked him up and he said the interview went well and they would let him know in a few days.

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They came through with a full time, paid, temporary intern job at a salary about 50% higher than the box store job that he has. So of course he said yes.

The sculpture is Rosalind Cook. A very talented artists who is retired and lives in Tulsa. This is named “Poems and Promises” and was a gift from Ms. Cook and her husband to the City of Tulsa.

Monday morning my wife took him to work and I picked him up at the end of the day. I have picked him up after work countless times over the years and he never had the big smile that he had that day. He had a great first day. He was nervous at first but his training kicked in. He had such a sense of accomplishment.

I don’t know who the artist is for this work but this little lady is going to get pretty frosty this winter. I have photos of her with a robe made of snow.

His boss sent him an email saying he did well.

Appeal to the Great Spirit. I have been posting a lot recently of this sculpture. I love it even though it is controversial to some degree for cultural misappropriation. I’m pretty “woke” especially for Oklahoma but sometimes a scupture is a sculpture.

His second day went well also.

I fired up my Hyperspektiv App and made a glitchy video of the work. I kind of like it.

Who knows where this is going, they only promised a temporary job, but for now his Mom and I are happy just enjoying the work he is doing.

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It kind of looks like a skinned grapefruit.

And here is that moon I promised you. The full Beaver Moon shot a few days ago in my back yard.

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday

My Corner of the World – Hiking Oxley Nature Center

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One day late in October it was very windy. Windy days I like to go to Oxley Nature Center, especially their Sierra Club Trail. You can hear the wind howling in the treetops but it is calm down on the ground.

And I hardly ever see anybody. This trip I encountered only one person. A guy headed towards me looking kind of angry and upset. I had my spidey senses going but he passed me without looking up. I could hear him walking past in the leaves, crunch, crunch, crunch. Any change in the pattern and I would have looked around. But nothing happened. I’m not going to begrudge anybody needing a little solace in the woods.

I took a small garbage bag and my grabbers with me. The places I go hike there is hardly ever any trash. This day I found just a few cans and wrappers and that was it. Put the trash in the trashcan at the trailhead at the end of my hike.

It was a feast of Oklahoma style fall color. We don’t have a whole lot of color in the fall besides some yellows and browns. I’m okay with it.

Oxley Nature Center's Sierra Club Trail

Here’s a little reddish color for you. My Merlin ID app was going crazy with all the birds in the area. I was going crazy with inability to see such birds, except as small specs when they took off. I saw lots of squirrels and a glimpse of a deer. Kind of a zero day for photographing animals.

And a short video of the wind in the treetops.

And at the end, I see where a city surveyor had set up shot. I hope that they are not putting a new freeway in!!

A little shy of 3 miles, a nice walk in the woods is what I thought.

I’m linking with My Corner of the World.

Saturday’s Critters – Phone Only

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I went on a bike ride the other day. I didn’t bring along one my “good” cameras mainly because I wanted to get the ride over with and I fuss and fidget with my good camera. But hey, my phone works great on this sculpture of a pelican and in the background to the left you can see a sculpture of a great blue heron.

Speaking of pelicans, there is a group of American White Pelicans way off in the distance. Sure missed by superzoom on this shot.

And ducks paddled by. A zoom would have been nice here as well.

The Bear Fountain is always a favorite. No zoom needed here!

On another day I was in Woodward Park and spotted this squirrel.

And I finally checked out our new Scheel’s Store. Very nice, very crowded and overwhelming. I liked this diorama with a moose and turkeys the best. The store is cram full of very nice outdoors goods. I’m kind of an Academy guy myself.

I went on a hike at Oxley Nature Center. The birds were out in force but they were moving fast in the brush so I couldn’t get a photo of them. I couldn’t hardly see the smaller birds.

And that’s that! I am linking with Saturday’s Critters.

Skywatch Friday – All Over the Place Edition

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Somebody published a geocache within walking distance of the house. Well, i’ve walked over there twice and can’t find it. It’s in a tree just to left of this scene. I didn’t find the cache but I’ve got two walks over to look for it and a not bad photo.

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A full moon in October. Not the greatest I’ve done but here it is.

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And a better rendition of a half moon, also in August.

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I got a new action camera recently. It’s a GoPro clone at literally one tenth the cost. About seventy percent as good as a GoPro, so I’m ahead the way I figure it. I attach it to my bike’s handlebars and set it to take a photo every ten seconds. Most of the photos are of nothing memorable so I delete them. I love vintage power plants and this is Public Service Company of Oklahoma’s Tulsa Power Station. It hardly ever runs but it still on the rate base making money for PSO whether it runs or not. I used to work for a sister company to PSO that supplied the gas to all the power plants. We had a systems that would show us graphically all the gas the power company was burning to make electricity. It was cool watching the load go up during extremely hot or cold weather. Lots of people worked hard to make sure the lights stayed on.

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Here is another action camera shot of this person riding an escooter on the RiverParks trails.

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And somebody else walking their dog and a guy in an electric wheelchair crossing the river on the new pedestrian bridge. A big variety of people use Tulsa’s RiverParks. I’m always amazed.

Tulsa Sunset

A sunset drone shot from 50 meters above my back yard.

And a stormy weather drone shot about 30 meters above my back yard. Stormy means windy and my little microdrone doesn’t like wind.

That’s sall this week folks. Sorry I don’t have a theme besides skies.

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday

2024 Tulsa Veterans Day Parade

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Monday was Veterans Day so I went to downtown Tulsa to see their annual Veterans Day Parade.

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The Tulsa Police Department opened it up with their motorcycles and right behind them was a Junior ROTC Marine Color Guard looking sharp in their uniforms.

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And then dignitaries in vintage military vehicles.

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And then the floats. This one was done by my former employer. ONEOK (pronounced One Oak) always shows up big for the Veterans Day Parade.

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And then a bunch of ONEOK employees followed the float. Other companies had floats as well.

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And then another JROTC color guard.

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The Booker T Washington High School Marching band shows up for the parade looking snappy in the uniforms.

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And the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Department shows up with one of their armored vehicles.

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And if you know tornado belt culture you know that Storm Trackers are celebrities. When they are not working they go to events and will sign autographs for you. Here is Van Castor’s pickup truck. These guys follow the storms and tornadoes as they develop. Here in Oklahoma we don’t run for shelter when the tornadoes come, we run outside to take a look at them.

One veteran didn’t make the parade. Here is my brother Bob.

Twenty years in the Navy and more afterwards as a civilian employee. This is his door wreath put together by our sister Ellen.

He is in assisted living here and living life. Left to right, Irv (Career Army Vet), his wife (and sister to Bob and I) Ellen, son to Heather and I, Logan, and kneeling my wife Heather.

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A photo I took of Bob several years ago when he turned 66.

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Here he is in Tulsa several years ago. He used to visit and run in our local half marathon. He’s run over a hundred half marathons and over fifty full marathons. He doesn’t run any longer but he gives life everything he has.

I’m linking with My Corner of the World

Saturday’s Critters – Flying Squirrel & a Sitting Hawk

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My backyard trailcam captured this image of a squirrel jumping up on a bird bath. It looks like it is giving the camera some side eye, like “watch this!”

Hawk on fence

Earlier in the week we had another backyard visitor. A Cooper’s Hawk came and sat on the back fence for maybe a half hour. Probably on the lookout for squirrels. Sorry for the fuzzy photo I shot it through a window and it was raining.

Saturday’s Critters

Skywatch Friday – The New Gilcrease Museum and the Old Gilcrease Mansion

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Tulsa has a great western themed museum, The Gilcrease Museum, which has a great collection of art and documents collected by oilman Thomas Gilcrease. He found out that oil prices can go down, just like they go up and he ended up selling his collection to the City of Tulsa back in the 1950’s. The city acted quickly and the museum was established on the grounds of Gilcrease’s estate.

The original museum was cobbled together over time with a collection of additions but it became unwieldy to manage and reportedly the lack of good climate control endangered the collection. So the citizens of Tulsa passed another bond issue and got a lot of private money as well. The original museum was closed in 2021 and knocked down (after the art was moved off site of course.) The new museum was started and the exterior is almost finished so one recent Sunday afternoon I packed up my camera and drone headed off to see what I could see. The new building is very modern and beautiful and overlooks the Osage Hills to the west.

And you have a good view of downtown Tulsa to the southeast. The museum sits up on a hill. I remember looking at it through binoculars from office downtown.

Also on the property is Gilcrease’s old mansion. I think it is empty now. Reportedly ghosts inhabit it and the formal garden. There is Thomas Gilcrease and seven Native American children who lived in the house as orphans. It all sounds very ghostly to me. I’ve been there a number of times and looked through the windows and taken lots of photos and I’ve not seen any manifestations. But hey you never know.

The house is pretty cool with a big porch wrapped around three sides. It doesn’t quite seem big enough to be a mansion. I love the green tile roof. You know that it produces quite a clatter during our Oklahoma hailstorms.

I’d sure like to check out the inside though. It looks like some sort of sunroom upstairs here.

Here is a view of the museum. You can see it is very close to the house.

Some autumn color on the northwest side of the house. I love the covered driveway. I don’t think there is a garage.

The Thomas Gilcrease House in Tulsa

The roof sprawls. I guestimate a cost of one gazillion dollars to replace it.

The new museum is due to open in 2026. They have to complete the interior then they have to install the art. I’ll be leaning on the door when they open it.

Check out the museum web site. They have 28,000 works of art in their digital museum which you can visit for free!!

I am linking with Skywatch Friday

The Colors, Reflections and Refractions of Autumn at Philbrook Gardens

Last week I posted about an special art exhibition at Philbrook Museum of Art here in Tulsa. My last line was that I was going to the gardens. The gardens at Philbrook are every bit as special as the art inside the building.

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The signature feature of the gardens is the tempietto overlooking the reflecting pond. Philbrook started out life as a mansion for a rich oilman back in the day. The reflecting pool was the swimming pool and the change rooms were underneath the tempietto.

Philbrook Museum Gardens

I love all the views and reflections that are possible in the pond.

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This is a highly edited (can you tell?) photo of the main building at Philbrook (Villa Philbrook) from the steps of the tempietto. Sorry I couldn’t resist.

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There is always something blooming in the gardens.

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I revived my glass sphere and brought along a point and shoot camera that has a macro setting. I got this thing years ago and used it a lot and it ended up in the back end of my Subaru. I saved it. I still love the photos that one can get out of it. It took me a while to figure out how to do that. I also learned how to hold it. If you hold it in your hand in bright sunlight it’ll burn a hole in your hand. It acts like a magnifying glass. So I hold it off to the side or from the top. Technically I think this is refraction and not reflection.

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This is a shot of some of the pumpkins on display. The sphere gives you an upside down view of the scene so I feel free to cheat and turn the whole photo upside down if I have to.

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Blooms in the water.

I always feel chill after just a little time in the gardens.

I am linking with My Corner of the World.