First Ride of the Year

The Christmas Break involved more than just school. Logan’s Therapeutic Horseback Riding Lessons also went on hiatus. Last Saturday we started back. Breaks are a good way to relax and recharge but hey its time to get back to work at the good old horse arena where nothing ever changes. Whoa, hold on what is that at the far left?

Hey Bob must have got this for Christmas. I like it. I like so called Cowboy Art. I think when it is good it is ironic, good hearted, and funny, without being vicious.

Cowboy sound systems though… They need a little work.

The various halters, leads, and bridles for the horses. They are all tagged individually for each horse.

Logan rode Seven today. Seven is a trained cow pony but the arena got him for a song because he has a trot that will “scramble your brains.” Bob had Logan riding the horse doing things and then answering your questions. Logan got them all except “What is your Dad’s middle name?” So, then it is like “Daaaadddd? What is your middle name?????” “I don’t know buddy, if I tell you you will laugh at me.”, “No I won’t!” Well he did.

The good instructors know how to keep the kids engaged and interested. It takes more than instructors though. It takes an army of volunteers to brush the horses, saddle them up, unsaddle them, feed and water them, muck out the stalls, clean the horse poop up, and just generally help out.

It’s all about the “clients” at this place. Most of them are kids but they have some adults also.

It’s all good at the horse arena. I’m glad to be back.

Our World – Keystone Ancient Forest

New Year’s Day here in Oklahoma was very nice and mild. Neither son nor I give a flip about college football (I’m an NFL fan) or watching parades on television so we went to see the Keystone Ancient Forest about a half hour away.

The Forest is a preserve owned by the City of Sand Springs and operated by an army of friendly and informative volunteers.

The preserve is over 1300 acres and conserves one of the few remaining original crosstimbers forests in Oklahoma. Many of the post oaks are over 300 years old and some of the cedars are over 500 years old. Originally the crosstimbers covered 30,000 square miles in a swath from north Texas, through Oklahoma, and into southern Kansas. Much of it is gone, cleared for farms and ranches and other development. The land of the preserve is very rough and rocky so the area was left alone.

The crosstimbers were a major barrier to settlement in the area. Washington Irving during his tour of the area in the 1832’s wrote that they were “struggling through forests of cast iron.” From what I read the Keystone Ancient Forest is the very first preserve of the crosstimbers.

The trees and landscape isn’t really spectacular, the trees are old and very tough. They have survived drought and fire and had to put down roots in hardscrabble rocky soil.

The preserve is only open two weekends a month now and their schedule expands to every weekend in March. They open at 8 and close at 2. Of course I would like to see it open more but of course that takes money and volunteer time.

They have three trails so far. One of them is an ADA compliant paved trail about 0.8 miles long. The main trail, the Frank Trail, takes off from the paved trail and is 2.8 miles out and back. It is a wide dirt track in excellent shape that takes you a great overlook of Lake Keystone below.

They have a brand new trail, I think it is the Wilson Trail. It is about a mile but is reportedly very challenging. Son and I started down it but it got a little backed up with groups of kids fooling around so we decided to save it for another day.

(I keep forgetting to stick my chin out so that I can at least count my double chins)

We had a good time. What a way to spend New Year’s Day.

What did you do for New Year’s Day?

Our World Tuesday

Further Links for the Keystone Ancient Forest Preserve

City of Sand Springs including a link to the Schedule

The Nature Conservancy, information about the Preserve.

A TravelOK article about the site. (TravelOK is by the State of Oklahoma)

A Youtube Video about the Preserve by Oklahoma Gardening

Shadow Shot Sunday – Bright and Low

This time of year it is pretty cold, seeing how it is January and all, and the sunny days are just beautiful. They may be cold but they are nice and the sun is very low also. I shot this during my daily lunch walk at noon. Notice how low the sun is. In just seven short months the sun will be straight overhead and I’ll be dying from the heat. That’s okay as long as I’m still moving.

Shadow Shot Sunday 2

IPhone Phriday – Gillette-Tyrell Building Lobby

The lobby of the Gillette-Tyrell Building (sometimes called the Pythian Building) in downtown Tulsa, built in 1930. It was originally supposed to be 13 floors tall but they stopped off at three because of the economic crash. This was one of the first art deco buildings in Tulsa and one of the oldest left standing. It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Check the Tulsa Preservation Commission for more information.

Previous Post

This is my first Iphone Phriday post. I may have cheated a little bit. I don’t have an Iphone. I’m too cheap to get one. So I used a Pantech generic android phone. Then, I confess, I pimped the pic on PicMonkey. I am not ashamed although I freely admit I should be.

IPhone Phriday

Skywatch Friday – Mammatous Clouds over the Keystone Ancient Forest

New Year’s Day I roped Logan into going hiking with me at the Keystone Ancient Forest. The trees are old and gnarly, not very big, but tough as iron, mainly post oaks and cedars. Many of them are over 500 years old. The land is rocky and rough and all up and down with canyons cut through it. Not much good for anything besides just being a forest, and that is why it is still around and is now preserved and well loved.

The sky? We have a front coming in so it started out clear and brilliant and then cloudy, then clear, well you know…. I’ll be posting more about this remarkable forest later. For today, I have clouds.

Skywatch Friday

New Years Eve Geocaching – Finding Tom’s Turkey Mountain Homestead – Finally!!

There is a geocache named Tom’s Turkey Mountain Homestead located at an old Moonshiner’s Camp on Turkey Mountain. I have been looking for this cache a long time. The owner of the cache, kimbotjr, finally took mercy on me, or got tired my whining, and gave me a clue. I didn’t know when I was going to be able to get back up there because our weekends are pretty full and it is dark after work. Luckily though we got let our early at work on New Year’s Eve. So off I went in my work clothes.

I did change my shoes though. But otherwise I was the sharpest guy on the mountain on New Year’s Eve. Especially the hat.

The shadows were getting long so I didn’t have time to waste to use my precious clue.

Every time I’m up there I see things that I can’t explain. Don’t ask me what is going on here cuz I don’t know.

I had the clue but providence provided me with another aid to find the cache. Meet my new friend Soshie. Believe me or not but Soshie is no regular basset hound, he is a gold sniffing dog. That’s right, he can sniff out gold. Plus he likes me. So what the heck I took him along. I don’t know if that is cheating or not. My friend Trail Zombie used a metal detector to find this very same cache. If that is legal then using a gold sniffing dog is legal also. And probably not any help if there is no gold in the cache. Plus the cache is supposed to be a microcache, so it is pretty small.

Well guess what, we got there at the cache site and Soshie found the cache. Yes, he did and it was not a micro. Look at what we found.

The cache was as big as a bank vault! And loaded with gold. The site was not a moonshiner’s cabin. It was a gold mine. I found the lost treasure of Turkey Mountain! I don’t know how I missed it! Now, the cache is a mystery cache and posting pics of the cache is a nono but I hope that kimbotjr is understanding. If he is not he can delete my find. A find is worth a lot more than gold to a geocacher.

Pondering the Mysteries of New Years

You know the whole New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day thing has always just confused me. I mean it follows Christmas. You know the season of good will and cheer and generosity and all that. Just loaded with gingerbread men and hot chocolate and decorations and snow and the whole bit. We go through all that then we open up our presents on Christmas and then you know what happens. Sure you do.

The kids all get whiny and “Is all that I got?” and their parents who got dragged out of their beds at 5 am are all tired and cranky. Somebody has got to leave the tree party to make breakfast and then start on the Christmas meal. You know something is wrong then.

And the next day many people load up all the stuff they got and return it. Me, I’ve never returned anything in my life if it fit, or if it was a short sleeve dress shirt and tie. I mean that is just so exhausting.

And then there is this tension about the Christmas tree and decorations. Gotta get rid of it, gotta get rid of it. You know what I mean. Suddenly we are sick of Christmas. It’s gotta go. Plus, we have to figure what to do about New Year’s Eve. Are we going to a party, where? Plus resolutions. I have never made a resolution in my life. I have carefully cultivated my bad habits most of life. Why would I get rid of them?

Researching the origins of New Years on the web gives a confusing story of changing calendars, conniving kings, evil emperors and other such stuff. The web is No Help!! Sorry Al Gore. You need to look into that. I mean since you invented the web and all.

Well, I’ve thought about it long and hard and I have the answer to what New Year’s is all about.

It’s a wake up call that is what it is. It is a cold water in the face or maybe for some of us a cold slap in the face. Or a shot of ice cold vodka or a jigger of hot sauce. It is time to wake up! What am I talking about?

I am talking about two things. First Christmas is like being a drugs. All that eggnog, and candy canes, and soft twinkling lights plus whipping out the credit card. It’s bad for your brain folks. It is like crack cocaine. New Year’s forces you to realize, wow, what did I do, how am I going to pay for all that crap I bought? How am I going to lose all this weight I gained?

Second thing is that oh wow, I’m another year older and nothing much has really changed. Not only am I older, I’m fatter, slower, balder, and a little dumber. Oh no, I need to get myself back into shape.

So there you go folks. New Year’s is a slap in the face to wake up! You get one last day off and then off to your cubicle you go. You got credit cards to pay off. You have just got to start eating right. Go ahead, take a break, watch some football. Enjoy it because you have a long hard cold winter ahead of you and a long time until Memorial Day. And for goodness sake get the tree and lights down as soon as you can!

Got it, enjoy!!

If you have made it this far, I wish you and your family and friends a Happy New Year!

Our World – Geocaching on Turkey Mountain

I have geocache named Rock City hidden deep on Turkey Mountain. The last person who looked for it reported that they couldn’t find it although they looked twice. I knew that somebody had probably “muggled” it. Geocacher lingo for stealing or vandalizing a cache.

So I made me another cache out of a Bismati rice jar and some camo duct tape.

Son and I packed it up and headed up to Turkey Mountain. You can see the finished cache container sitting on the sign to the left.

A mountain unicycler came on by. Ultra cool. I have seen unicyclers on the mountain before but they had poles. This guy just had pure balance.

We passed this thing. I told Logan that it is the skeleton of a the TurkeyMountasaurous dinosaur. He quit believing in his Dad’s stories a long time ago. Shows you how smart he is. Compared to me at least.

This is Rock City. It is quite the meeting place. Stay here long enough you will see runners, hikers, bicyclists, geoachers, and micro car enthusiasts all converge here. One of whom stole my cache. I hope they quit. Anyway I replaced it. Here is the story of when we planted the cache two years ago. I put recyclable cameras in the caches I plant nowadays and ask finders to take pictures of themselves. Here are some pictures of people who have found the cache.

Then for grins and giggles we went over to another cache to Tom’s Turkey Mountain Homestead to look for it, again. I have been here at least a half dozen times the last year looking for it. I spent about a half hour rooting around looking for it. It is a micro so it is very small. I didn’t find it this time either.

As we left I noticed that a nearby tree was laughing at me. I don’t blame him. Next time I might bring my axe and see how he laughs then. (Just kidding folks!)

On the way out we passed Pepsi lake. Oddly enough it has a bunch of old Pepsi truck bodies sitting on the dam. I have no idea why. It is also the site of another evil little microcache, What are These Doing Here. I found it finally last year kind of by accident.

We finished our little adventure tired and a little muddy but we had a great walk in the woods.

When was the last time you had a nice walk in the woods?

Our World Tuesday

InSPIREd Sunday – The Church of Saint Mary

(I love that big massive cross. Didn’t use to but it has grown on me. My various lomography cameras throw the guys at Walgreens off sometimes. I don’t know why these images are reversed.)

The Church of Saint Mary is a Catholic Church located just off Peoria in the Brookside area of Tulsa. It is close to the rec center where son has done his improv comedy workshops the last couple years or so. So I have scoured the park, the church grounds, and the surrounding neighborhood with my camera while he is in his class.

(I can’t wait for Spring when everything will be lush and green.)

The grounds of the church and associated school are quite extensive and well landscaped and has a lot of interesting things to see and photograph.

Of course my favorites are the statue of Saint Mary and the bas relief carved into the bricks of one of the the walls. I also like the massive concrete cross at the front of the church.

(Double exposure, fisheye. I’ve posted this before.)

Plus the school has a very colorful playground.

(I’ve posted this before. Note the shadow selfie.)

I’ve never got tired photographing it. I’ll probably be doing it for a couple more years.

Do you have an area that you return to many times to photograph?

InSPIREd Sunday

Pinhole Photography: Holga 135PC – First Roll

My MIL Nana gave me another film camera for Christmas, a Holga 135 PC. It doesn’t have a lens, it has a small hole (one fourth of a millimeter) where the lens is supposed to be. This is getting back to basics on photography. It has a manual shutter also. The shutter opens when you press the button and closes when you release it. This is because very little light gets through the pinhole and thus the shutter needs to be open for an extended time.

In bright sunlight you just open and close it as fast as you can. For shots in shade it may require up to 10 seconds. Inside shots can require a minute and a half.

(This is our dove nursery. We always get at least one dove nest here every year. Last summer I think we may have had three. Not all at the same time. We try and leave them alone and not stress them out.)

These cameras are known for making soft dreamy shots. Also, there is no focusing as it has a large depth of field.

The hard part is figuring how long to expose the film. A lot of chatter on the web about buying light meters and blah blah blah. Fortunately there is an app called PinholeMeter that I downloaded to my Ipod Touch. It uses the Touch’s camera along with the fstop and film speed to give you an exposure time. It worked great. Complicated light situations like the above are fun. I took readings on the rock wall, the shadowed glass, the wreath, the hedge, and the shadow. I got widely different exposure times so I used the wreath setting. As a result the rock got a little overexposed. It makes me appreciate all the ciphering that a digital camera does when it sets the aperture and exposure time.

(My tree shadowed on my neighbor’s wall. So you legal experts out there, who owns the shadow?)

All I need now is a “Take the Lens Cap Off” app. I took about ten shots before I realized that the lens cap was still on. Oh well.

(I love garden decorations. You don’t have to water them for one thing.)

I took the first roll of shots in and around the house just to test it and the app out a little bit. I am really pleased with the results.

(Neighbor’s willow tree. Pretty but I hate those long strings that fall in our yard. They don’t mulch very well when I mow the yard. They don’t rake up very well either.)

Of course this camera requires a tripod because of the exposure times. I am also going to get a cable release for the shutter. Anything to cut down movement of the camera is helpful.

(Old school red wheelbarrow. How do you store your wheelbarrow?)

These images were made with 400 speed film. I have now loaded it with some slower 100 speed film and will be taking it out and about a little bit.

(I see lots of opportunities for double exposures.)

I love my digital cameras but there is something about film that really gets me. The richer colors of film, the nostalgic look, I don’t know exactly what it is but I just love film. I know that film in general and pinhole cameras in particular are pains in the butt and the effort is worth it to me.

(Hey, how about a shadow selfie. Holding down the shutter.)