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Saturday’s Critters – Mother’s Day 2025 Edition

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We finally took our new dog, Sadie, the terrier mix, to a dog park. It had been rainy and cold and we wanted to get our vet to clear Sadie so off we went on one sunny afternoon. Above is my wife Heather with Sadie and Kodi, our pomeranian, in tow.

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Sadie loved it. She’s a social butterfly with both dogs and people. She was running here and there making friends with everyone. She was right at home. We kept asking her if she was looking for a new home.

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Kodi has always like the park but is much more reserved. This time, our poor little dog, got run over by another dog and that was it for him. We were told when we got him that he is a little dog with BIG FEELINGS, and that is true.

Sadie is making friends with Lizzie the cat. Lizzie insists on boundaries though so even though they may be together eventually we hear a hiss and a paw whacking Sadie on the head when she forgets the boundaries.

Kodi being cute one evening. He looks like a little bear cub.

At Brookwood Pond in Tulsa, here is a Mother’s Day shot. Geese and goslings.

Also at Brookwood Pond, I’m sneaking up on Great Blue Heron. All I had for a camera was my phone.

And at Hunter Park in Tulsa, another phone shot of a Great Blue Heron.

In our backyard an Eastern Bluebird visited our camera feeder.

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I attended an event at Turkey Mountain Urban Wilderness Area and afterward went on a short hike. I was going along and I could hear all these birds up in the trees, but could I see them? No!! I then I got to thinking maybe they are not up in the trees, maybe they are down below so that is where I started looking and I started seeing all sorts of little birds close to the ground. I didn’t really have a good lens for taking photos so these are highly cropped and thus a little grainy. Above is a Carolina Wren.

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And this is a Tufted Titmouse I think.

I guess that I am not as smart as I thought I was. I have walked miles in the woods over the years listening to the birds up in the trees and that is not where they were. Anyway, I finally learned something.

And Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers.. None of us would be here if were not for our Mothers. This Heather with our son Logan and Kodi back when he was little.

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And here is my favorite photo of my mother. She loved fishing and she was good at it. She had mobility issues so she didn’t move around very much but she could catch the fish. This was her favorite spot on Birch Creek in southeast Idaho.

I’m linking with Saturday’s Critters

Dismal Shadows

The northwst corner of our backyard is looking a little dismal right now at the tail end of winter but I love teh shadow of our north/south fence projected on our east/west fence. And we got a bonus tree shadow from our neighbor and a bird feeder shadow. Just don’t look at the cast about yard furniture, random utility boxes, leaves and other debris.

Shadow Shot Sunday

Lizzie the Cat – A True and Constant Companion

Me and our cat Lizzy have always been good friends. With my knee surgery now we are really good friends. Part of my recovery has been putting my leg in a knee bending session every day for two two hour sessions every day. So I do that while laying on our bed. Lizzie joins me for at every session for at least an hour or two.

She naps mainly, I also nap, and read and post photos on social media. Believe it or not, it goes by pretty quickly.

She just kind of lays there. Every once in a while she gets up and sniffs my leg like she is checking on progress.

I love the company

I spend a lot of other time in the living room sitting up with an ice machine on my leg. I surf the net, read the news. Lizzie likes getting in my lap then. Nothing like a purry cat sitting on your sore leg.

She spends a little time, then leaves, and comes back after a while.

I get up really early these days. My meds kind of run out so I move out into the living room and reload on the drugs and ice. The other day Lizzie showed up and wouldn’t move out of my lap so no reading the paper for about an hour and half. So I’d pet her and she’d purr, and like I said before. Nothing like a purring cat for healing.

And here is the latest photo. I know its just the dressing. The stitches are looking good, very nice and tight. My wife and I are not much into hospital photos. I know other people like them, not me, not of me, nor of other people.

The unexpected thing was my ankle. It’s like a bad sprain. Both leg and ankle are healing up fairly well. I wish it were faster. In the meantime, I am glad Lizzy is around. What a sweet companion to have during recovery.

Saturday’s Critters

Shadow Shot Sunday – Shadows on the Trail

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

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.

Twisters, the Movie

Last weekend, the family went to the theater to see Twisters. A movie set in Oklahoma about tornadoes and Oklahoma’s family of Storm Chasers. It was a movie of course but hey it was pretty good. Here’s a trailer.

I won’t go into the plot. Nobody cares about the plot right! It’s got some great storm scenes, romance, a villain, heroes and great ending where everything is all wrapped up.

The big tornado in the movie hit the town of El Reno which is west of Oklahoma City a half hour or so. It turns out that El Reno was close to a real tornado (the El Reno-Piedmont Tornado) in May 2011 that had the highest winds ever recorded on the planet at about 210 miles per hour. It was so powerful it knocked down a drilling rig of one of my employers customers.

(not my photo, from Wikipedia Commons)

Believe it or not but drilling companies have safety protocols for drilling rigs. For one thing that put as much drill pipe in the hole as they can. This rig had 200,000 pounds of drillpipe. That helps hold down the rig. The drilling rig weighed 2 million pounds and is tied down by guy wires at four corners. The storm toppled the rig and turned it over several times. The contraption you see sticking out of the ground is the blow out preventer which is attached to the casing of the well. It is very stout and is still at a 30 degree angle or so.

The workers were sheltered in the “dog house” or changing room. Part of the safety protocol is the dog house is held down by four large helical anchors drilled into the ground. The anchors held but the structure suffered some damage but none of the workers sheltering in it were seriously hurt.

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My employer at the time elected to add underground tornado shelters at many of their surface facilities including this one at a compressor station in the El Reno area.

In the movie, the main tornado is shown going through a refinery. That didn’t happen in the real El Reno tornado but it did go through a large natural gas processing plant owned by one of my employers competitor/customers and put it out of commission for months. My employer was neighborly and had some spare capacity so we (and other companies in the area) helped tide them over until they get things going again.

I happened by the area about a month later and too a couple of photos.

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Trees were debarked, wheat fields were stripped bare of the wheat.

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It was kind of eerie. I didn’t take any photos of destroyed houses or businesses. I stayed away from those areas. The residents don’t appreciate snooping like that. Nine people died as a result of the tornado including several who were caught in their vehicles while driving on Interstate 40.

I’ve never seen an actual tornado but we have had to retreat to our “safe space” a bunch of times of the years. And of course we take our critters with us.

They don’t like it much.

One thing about the movie that is true is the storm chasers. They are folk heroes in Oklahoma and here is a page where you can track them when they are active.

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The storm trackers are celebrities. Here is Brandon Wells of Tulsa’s Channel 6 in last year’s Veterans Day Parade. I think he is on facebook.

Anyway, see the movie. It’s fun. I give five stars out of five.

Not my Mother’s Irish Music, Doolin’ and Skerryvore at Tulsa’s Irishfest

Last weekend Heather and I ventured out to Tulsa Irishfest. One of those long time events that came to an end when covid hit and this year they brought it back for the first time since. We were in the mood for a little Irish beer and some music. The only Irish music I know is the jigs and such and they are okay but nothing I could get excited about. Did I get woken up by what I heard.

There is this Irish band out of France, what? They call themselves Doolin’. And wow, they can play. They can rock!! We and the rest of the audience loved them. Check the link for their facebook site. Check the videos. Their songs are not about drinking and such, they are about life and love. The message is great.

The other Irish band we saw was Skerryvore. They are actually from Scotland. Again, they can rock and their songs have a great message. The lead singer has such a voice.

We saw some other bands as well but these were my top two. Heather and I went home and downloaded a ton of their music and that is all I have been listening to since. We are going back to Tulsa’s Irishfest next year and hope that these guys are returning.

Saturday’s Critters – Out and About Finally

Here’s Kodi the Pomeranian sitting next to me with Lizzy the Cat on my lap. They kind of like each other even though Kodi gets a little rough.

The weather warmed up so I was outside a lot more. I found this evidence of beavers at a lake on Turkey Mountain.

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And I spotted this hawk on my hike. iNaturalist seems to be converging on a Red Shouldered Hawk from the people that comment on my post of this photo.

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I also went on a bike ride along the Arkansas River and spotted these Canadian geese out for a paddle.

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Several miles downstream these geese were napping.

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There were lots of these. I guess they are seagulls out flying around. Most of them were beyond the effective range of my camera.

It was nice to get a break in the weather and get outside for a few days.

I’m linking with Saturday’s Critters. Go check it out.