Tag Archives: Skywatch Friday

Redbud Skies and More

Several days ago I was on Turkey Mountain checking out the Monarch Waystation. I water it when needed but it hasn’t needed a drink in weeks with all the rain and cool weather we have been having. I sowed some native prairie seeds a couple months ago and I was trying to see if any of them were coming up.

I don’t know a thing about wildflowers, and it looked like a bunch of weeds coming up to me. I guess that may be what some people call wildflowers. It may take a few more weeks and somebody who knows what they are looking to see if we are successful or not.

And then I ventured down the paved path and hung a right on the dirt road to the redbud grove. It is beautiful a whole hillside covered with redbuds. There are lots of the trees around town but I don’t know of any that are all together like this.

And then I ventured on the new Lo Chi trail. The old one was cool but kind of frustrating because it was an out and back along the base of the east side of the Mountain. I hate out and backs so I would do what other people did, climb up the side of the mountain to another trail. I’m too old for that foolishsness now.

And there is no need, the trail builders have made a loop out of with all sorts of cool switchbacks and other features to make it fun. You can enter and exit at different spots from the paved trail. Loops are fun, out and backs are boring.

So back on the paved trail I took a shot of the railroad tracks on the base of Turkey Mountain, next to the Arkansas River. They have only one customer now, a big Kimberly Clark Plant. So every once in a while, you can see a freight trail lumbering slowly along these rails. I am not a railroad expert at all but I would not think that these sketchy rails, ties, and roadbed could handle much of a load.

And then fast forward to Tulsa’s Woodward Park. The flowering is disappointing this year for whatever reason but one could find nice groupings here and there.

So it was worth going to but I wouldn’t travel far to see it.

The tulips looked nice in the overcast late day. I think they are almost at the end.

Tuesday we had dramatic skies in Tulsa so I made this low key photo.

Monday I rode my back on the RiverParks trails. My north turnaround was the Route 66 Sign Park. I took photos and then used the circular app on my iphone to twist them on top of themselves. I love this kind of stuff.

I did another one and it looked like a hot air balloon.

And I have been doing more jigsaw puzzles on my ipad. I love it. So these are not my photos.

I loved this one but it was booger bear. I worked from the inside out. I started at the steering wheel and moved outward. I put on the edge pieces as I found them but I didn’t stress about it.

I loved this one. It was a lot easier with the brightly colored sail and the stratified colors. On this one I started with the sails and the bright green sea.l

So that is it this week for Skywatch for me. I’m linking with Skywatch Friday.

Skywatch Friday – Geocaching at Okmulgee Lake Park

Last weekend I took some time and went to Lake Okmulgee south of Tulsa about an hour to do some geocaching and hiking. I like finding geocaches out in the woods instead of in parking lots and other places.

It was sunny, breezy, and cool. A perfect day. The vibe at the lake was chill. Not that many people there.

They had several geocaches located in the rocks. I always keep an eye out for snakes whent he weather starts warming up.

Nothing like a few hours out in nature to feel chilled out.

I think the WPA built the dam and a lot of the infrastructure. I find that sort of thing interesting.

There were a couple caches I found but couldn’t get to so they don’t officially count as finds. This one I could have got to if I had a long pole or something else.

This one is in a cedar tree. I felt that I could probably have climbed up there but I personally know two geocachers who got severely injured in this park geocaching. One fell of the side of a cliff and broke a leg in two places. The other was climbing up a cedar tree and a branch broke. She injured her back and was out of commission for months. Gravity is not my friend so I leave the climbing to others. Especially out in the middle of nowhere, all by myself.

I found a skull out there. iNaturalist tells me that it is a racoon’s skull.

We had a to say goodbye to our sweet dog Abby, here pictured with Logan. Abby was fifteen years old and was doing great, going on daily walks and living her best life. She loved eating, walking, barking at other dogs and barking at horses and cows on television. She was our happy go lucky clown who always had a sweet temper. She got lymphoma out of nowhere and it got bad very quickly. So we had put to sleep.

So I like to think she is cavorting around in dog heaven with her buddy Ginger who left us last year. Our critters just don’t live long enough is what I say.

I’m linking this post with Skywatch Friday. Come join in!!

Skywatch Friday – Things are Looking Up at Chandler Park

Early one morning last weekend I and along with several other members of the Tulsa Urban Wilderness Coalition met with some Tulsa County Park Officials at Chandler Park in west Tulsa.

They showed us an area that they have been reconstructing for some time. They are putting in a lot features and turning into much more than a place to have picnics. They have an event space, complete with substantial electric power capability and a pad that can handle food trucks, and area that can be used for big tents complete with tie-downs. It’s going to be great when they open it up to the public in a few months.

Then they took us on a hike on all three of their trails. Some of them still have some graffiti.

Other areas have been cleaned up with power washers. This area was used in the filming of the upcoming movie “Killers of the Flower Moon” and the movie people cleaned it up.

The “Lost City Trail” at Chandler is unique with all the rock walls, cliffs, and narrow passages. It is a hotspot of activity for the local climbing community.

It has several different overhangs.

They have a pond that they are finishing up. It’s pretty amazing all they are doing.

They are looking to partner with community organizations for events and other attractions. The energy and enthusiasm of the staff was cool.

Great things are fixing happen at the park. Do you want to get involved? Do you have some ideas? Check out the Tulsa Urban Wilderness Coalition and Tulsa County Parks Department.

I am linking with Skywatch Friday. Come check it out.

Skywatch Friday – The End of March

DJI_0453 — Sunset drone shot, looking north

This last week or so of March has been great for skywatch photographs here in Tulsa. I love all sky photos but it helps if you have clouds or something like that to provide a little texture.

The afternoon clouds have been good for sunsets and the winds have died down some days so I can launch my lightweight (249 gram) drone.

I’m still using my drone from my back yard.

In the woods one evening recently as the sun was going down.

A wrapped around pano shot of a local hospital.

A heavily edited photo from my car (while stopped) recently in the evening.

And this isn’t my photograph. It’s another jigsaw puzzle I completed this week on my ipad. They are fun!!

I am linking with Skywatch Friday, come join in!! Bring a friend!!

Skywatch Friday – Springtime!

Up first thing this morning and we had some color in the sky!! I was up early because I am experimenting around with yoga classes. I realized that the reason I got into yoga a couple years ago was because of the breathing and stretching and the classes that I’m taking have gotten away from that so I went to a “gentle stretch yoga” class Wednesday morning and it was wonderful. So first day of branching is a success.

This is from a family outing this past weekend. Pretty soon all these trees will have leaves on them.

The park is adjacent to old sand mines on the Arkansas River. The structure you see in the distance I suspect was part of that. There is a geocache located on it. I found it years ago. I went home, grabbed a foldable ladder carried it across the park and set it up and found the cache that way. Those columns are over ten feet in the air. Gravity is not my friend!! Here is my post on my initial look for the cache, eleven years ago! And here is post showing the big, scary, not scared coyote who was staring at me when I came back with my ladder.

Enough of the boring going down memory lane stuff. We went on the Bixby bridge across the Arkansas River. This is looking west. I intend one day to take some sunset photos here.

And here is “tiny planet” type photo that wraps a pano photo up. It is further north on the Arkansas in Tulsa looking at riverfront oil refinery.

And this is not my photo. It is another jigsaw puzzle I solved on my ipad. 440 pieces and it took me a lonnnnnnngggg time to complete it. Just love it. I hauled somebody to a doctor appointment last week and I worked on the puzzle out in the parking lot in my car. Try that with a regular puzzle!!

That’s it for this week. I’m linking with Skywatch Friday. Come join in the fun!!

Early Spring Skywatching in Tulsa

I went walking around Lafortune Park and found this tree near the tennis courts.

Found this scene on one of our nightly dog walks in the neighborhood.

Found this at a walk at nearby Ray Harral Nature Center.

Launched the drone from the back yard and captured this scene at sunset. It is actually looking northwest away from the setting sun.

Another view from a different angle. I launched prematurely though, as colorful as my captures were…

If I’d have launched 10 minutes later things would have been a lot more colorful. This is from my front porch.

Went hiking on Turkey Mountain. I’m loving the switchbacks on the new trails going up and down the hills. There should be a lot less erosion than the old trails.

Found me what I call a chandelier tree while on my hike. You can tell the weather has been lots better so I am getting out more. Snow and ice again tomorrow though!!

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday. Come join in the fun!

Skywatch Friday – The Sun! At Last!

The cold, sleet, ice, and snow went away so we have been able to go outside and it is liberating. I’ve been on a couple bike rides. I’ve been retired for a year and a half and I still feel guilty taking off on a bike ride in the middle of a weekday afternoon. Most days feel like the first day of summer vacation when I was a kid. They days are just full of possibilities.

Oklahoma history is different. One of my recent bike rides took me by this old cemetery in the middle of suburbia in south Tulsa. It is the Rentie Grove Cemetery named after the family that owned the property. The Renties were freed black people who were slaves owned by Creek Indians who brought them along to Oklahoma when the Creeks were forced to leave the southeastern Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears.

We’ve been taking on our dogs on daily walks during not too bad weather. We have a one mile route that takes them by many of their “friends.” They and the friends give each other a good barking. A side benefit is good views of the skies with trees. Yep, powerlines but hey that’s part of it.

With the better weather I’ve been launching the drone more. This is a sunset at 50 meters.

And this was another day with a lower elevation. No, I wasn’t spying on the neighbors. I just liked the view of the sky.

I’m crazy about Route 66. It’s quite a history of the country and Oklahoma has more Route 66 mileage than any other state. This is a sculpture installation on the Riverparks Trails called “Where East Meets West” showing the conflicts between the old and the new, horse drawn wagons vs new fangled gas powered cars.

I am seeing a ton of homeless people in Tulsa these days. From what I understand it is a nationwide thing. I don’t have any answers but am glad to know that Tulsa is decriminalizing homelessness. If you call the police non-emergency line they will send out people to try and get people services rather than just rousting them out or putting them in jail.

My mother-in-law gave me a camera that my father-in-law owned. It is a 1960’s model Pentax SLR. It doesn’t work but I took it to a good camera shop and the guy said it looked like it is stuck mid-cycle. He was going to have the mechanic look at it and give me a call let me know if it can fixed.

I’m hoping it can. My father gave me his Canon film camera from the 60’s and I love the feel and heft of it and the action is smooth as silk. I have high hopes for this Pentax.

I finished another jigsaw puzzle on my ipad. I’m really slow at these things and I love working them and love the finished photos. When you finish it the puzzle lines vanish and you can save the image.

#doubleexposure #hand #sunflowers #hipstamatic

I am thinking and praying for the Ukraine.

That is it for this week’s Skywatch post. I’m linking with Skywatch Friday. Check it out!!

Skywatch Friday – Turkey Mountain Reverie

Monday was shirtsleeves weather here in Tulsa and I went to Turkey Mountain for a hike and see the progress on the trails. In the above pic, if you squint really hard you can see a small tracked backhoe working on a new trail. I gave them room and went the other way.

The new trails, are wide, and rock free, for the most part. They are built to be kind of “flowy” so there is gentle bends from side and side and up and down to enhance the experience for moutainbikers.

The new trails are open to everybody except horseback riders. They are trying to get the trails packed down really hard. They have a bunch of signage to encourage people to share the road. The mountain bikers love the trails and can get going pretty fast. So far I have not had a problem with bikers not being polite.

The new trails seem to be encouraging more people to go deeper into the mountain park than before especially families. The old trails were very rocky and technical and not family friendly at all. So people are getting away from the parking lot it seems.

But even though there were a lot of people on a sunny afternoon, there was lots of room for everybody.

There was some recently opened new trail on the cliffs overlooking the Arkansas River. It is nice having professionally designed switchbacks. Before this, the vertical trails just went straight up the hill and given all the rain we have the trails turned into gullies quickly.

So it was a good day for chilling out.

The RiverParks staff likes to have fun with the visitors. They are also continuing to build more trail and I expect there will be networks and loops of professionally designed and constructed trail reaching deep into the park. I’m loving it so far!!

A brief video of my adventure Monday.

Wednesday night, Russia invaded the Ukraine is a puzzling power play. Lots of people have died already. Earlier this week I got a postcard from somebody in Berlin showing the Berlin Airlift back in 1948 or so. It’s so ironic that here we are over seventy years later dealing with Russian aggression in Europe.

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday. Come join in!!

Skywatch Friday – Close to Home

The skies from our driveway a few days ago. Just a little bit of snow remained.

A family down the street made a snow family. It is all melted now but I thought it was cool then.

Big treat, warm day and we went to Trader Joes!! I stocked up on my favorite snacks.

I took son to an offbrand video game store. I noticed this sign board off to the side. It looks like a relic from an earlier time. I love mysteries.

Heather and I went to the Philbrook Museum of Art. They had a special exhibit on the “The Transcendental Painting Group” a group of artists in the 1930’s in New Mexico. Pure art, no relation to the world at all but this looks like a sky to me. What about you?

This is from March 2016. A photo I took of the Tulsa Driller at the Tulsa Fairgrounds.

I am now addicted to online jigsaw puzzles on my ipad. When you finish, the make a great picture.

What have you been up to? I am linking with Skywatch Friday. Come check us out!!

Skywatch Friday – Meandering on the Mountain

Went on another hike on Turkey Mountain this week. Another cold, and to some, unpleasant day. To me, it wasn’t raining and I had the right clothes on so it was a great day.

Turkey Mountain has all sorts of relics from its past life. Near I guess what used to be a farm there is this grizzled old tree wrapped a bunch of times with barbed wire. Ouch!

The wire is holding up this old fence of some sort of chicken wire, hog wire, whatever wire.

And an abandoned cistern nearby.

Moving on to the west I came upon a cleared part of Turkey Mountain. It was cleared by the land owners at the time who were trying to sell the parcel.

They ended up in a contract with an outlet mall developer but that led to a huge fight in the city and the developer left in a huff and cut a deal with a suburb and started building the mall there but then changed their mind and there is now a few slabs, and some structural steel that is rusting away. Turkey Mountain missed a bullet is what I say. Money was donated to by the property from the owners and it is protected now.

Moving on, I was in a tree mood today. I love trees in all seasons. In the winter we get to see their bones.

Headed north to the revamped Y and came across an abandoned oil gathering line. Turkey Mountain used to be a prolific oil field but it played out but there is lots of remnants today. Old pipelines and pumpjack foundations scattered across the landscape, and a few old wellheads.

Getting closer to the Y, their abandoned disc golf course.

And their ropes course. You ever ropes? I think that ropes and other team building exercises are a huge scam. I participated in a bunch of them and I hated all of them.

And then the little lake at the Y where they have kayaks and canoes, fishing, and swimming. Now stuff like that is fun.

And then headed back to the parking lot, another mystery on Turkey Mountain. A deep hole, a homemade ladder and a camouflaged drier vent hose. Meth lab, the hangout of the last Democrat in Oklahoma? Who knows?

And here is my route of about three miles. I started at the very lower right corner, the upper parking lot and went in a clockwise direction and then returned.

And now a bonus sky, one morning’s sunrise with a reflection off my car.

And a drone photo from above my house looking south one evening.

And that is it for this week’s Skywatch post. I am linking with Skywatch Friday come join in!!

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