Tag Archives: Skywatch Friday

Skywatch Friday – Yule Edition

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We had a full moon just before Christmas. Usually known as the Cold Moon. I found a new name that I like, “Moon Before Yule.” It was bright, silvery, and beautiful here in Oklahoma.

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Also just before Christmas we had dinner with some friends and then went to Tulsa’s superb Gathering Place to check out the Christmas lights. We missed the lights but just walking through the place is great. Aboveis the Williams Lodge. 

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I’m continuing my geocaching trying to get to 2000 before year end 2019. I am finding myself in very out of the way places like the remote cemetery above where my only company was a few deer. We had a standoff for literally a minute or two with them and standing motionless until, I was like, okay you win and waved my arms and off they ran.

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My brother drove over from Tennessee for Christmas and we are having a good visit and sharing Christmas with him. Its always nice to have family and consider ourselves blessed that we can be together. 

I hope you had a Merry Christmas and I wish you a Happy and Prosperous New Year!!

Linking with Skywatch Friday

Skywatch Friday – Out and About

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To the right a brand new hotel in downtown Tulsa. Lots of hotels have been completed the last several years and they all seem to be doing well.  The tall building kind of in the middle is where I work.

Mohawk Skywatch

Earlier this week I went geocaching in Tulsa’s Mohawk Park. I had a pretty decent sky. 

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I turned around and this little doe was checking me out. We had a bit of a stare down until I decided to see if she would let me get closer. Nope, she had all of me she wanted and ran off.

I hope that you all are doing well. I know that Christmas is not a happy time for everyone. 

I am linking with Skywatch Friday

Skywatch Friday – Early December Edition

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This is a view from the office. Back on standard time and the days getting shorter we are starting to get more colorful skies.  One of the very few benefits of losing daylight savings time as far as I am concerned.

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Speaking of daylight savings time, I come across this sun dial recently that was an hour off. What’s up with that? How do you adjust it. That thing is grouted in. I thought I could discreetly rotate it to get the time right but it is not budging.

So that’s about it for this week. I am linking with Skywatch Friday

Skywatch Friday – The Return of Rascal

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Tuesday morning the sun was coming up in the neighborhood and so I grabbed a leaf and occluded the sun with it. I am an arty kind of guy you know. Especially the easy kind of art like this. I don’t think of it as being lazy, I think it is being efficient.

Cache Valley Topaz Studio HDR

On my way out of the neighborhood I stopped at the greenbelt and snapped another pic of the sunrise.  The greenbelt starts close to our back fence and loops around to the road I am stood on to take this photo.

Sunday night during our front that moved through with strong winds and icy temperatures we noticed that our Pomeranian, Rascal had disappeared. Further notice showed that our gate to the greenbelt had blown open with the wind. So I was walking in the pitch dark with a flashlight yelling “Rascal” over and over. Heather had started in a different direction doing the same thing. 

Rascal the #pomeranian #dogs #dogsoninstagram #igersok

I left the greenbelt and was looking for the dog on a street when Heather picked me up and dropped me off at the house so I could enlist social media to help. I put together a facebook post and sent it off and then a similar NextDoor  post. It was pretty amazing. We started getting responses right away and it turns out that Rascal had walked up to a couple putting up Christmas Tree lights and they took him in and posted something on facebook that somebody else reposted on next door and then somebody else let me know about the other post, and we were re-united fairly quickly which was kind of amazing because I thought we had lost him for good. Say what you want about Social Media but I like it and it does have its uses.

I am linking with Skywatch Friday

November Skywatch

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We have had a lot of cool days with blue skies lately and I have spent as much time as I can outdoors. Above is a tree that has already lost all of its leaves at Tulsa’s Mohawk Park.

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In a more forested part of the park there are a lot more leaves, and a lot less bugs and snakes than just a month ago.

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Some more blue sky from a lunchtime excursion into a slot canyon at Chandler Park.

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And some leaves and blue sky at Tulsa’s Turkey Mountain Urban Wilderness Area. 

Have a Great Thanksgiving Day!! And spend some time outside if you can.  

I am linking with Skywatch Friday

Skywatch Friday – First Snow of the Winter

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We had our first snow of the season on Monday, the 12th. According to Oklahoma lore that means we will have twelve snows this year. That kind of depresses me a little bit. I find nothing romantic about snow at all. 

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Things got cold and that is a good thing. I have revved my geocaching lately and I love cold weather. All the snakes and bugs are no longer a problem and the brush dies back. I have about 1574 caches found over the last 14 years. I want to get to 2000 in a year. What is geocaching you ask? It is basically a game where people hid containers out in the world with paper log books (caches) using GPS receivers to determine the coordinates and then they post those coordinates on geocaching.com and other people go find them and sign the paper cache and log on to the cache’s page and log again there. Check out geocaching.com or a post geocaching 101 I made several years ago.

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I find it a lot of fun and very challenging. Geocaches are everywhere.

Here is a map of geocaches within a few miles of our home. The yellow smilies are ones I found. The green boxes are the caches I haven’t found the few blue frowns are ones I looked for and did not find. The question marks are mystery caches where a puzzle hast to be solved to find the cache. I have hidden 32 caches myself.  I think there are about three million in the world now.

Anyway, that is what I am up to. What are you up to these days?

I am linking with Skywatch Friday

Autumn Skywatch

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Oklahoma City Starbucks Sky

The family loaded up earlier this week and traveled to western Oklahoma. 

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We went to Clinton, Oklahoma. I went over and took this photo early in the morning of their Route 66 Museum. 

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Later, I took this photo of this tree in our hotel parking lot. I love Fall Color.

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We were in Clinton for the funeral of a family member. He was one of those great guys in life. Not flashy or one to call attention to himself but very nice, very smart, and a great guy. He was married almost sixty years and raised a great family. He was also a John Deere mechanic for about the same amount of time. They said he bled green. 

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His employer, the local John Deere dealer parked these two huge tractors in front of the church in his honor. I had never seen anything like that before!!

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Back in Tulsa, I found this giant cottonwood tree in a tiny little park in East Tulsa. 

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Fall can even make parking lots look better.

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Close by I came across this church called “God’s Church.” I love the confidence in the name. I checked out their web site and they seem to be a vital and active part of the community ministering to their members and the community. What more can you ask of a church?

I think this is my blog post 3001 more or less. I’ve been doing this blogging thing for over ten years now and I really do appreciate the support I’ve got for my humble little slice of the interwebs. 

That’s about it for this week. I’m linking with Skywatch Friday.

Skywatch Friday – The Door was finally Unlocked

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Above is a very poor photo of  a building in downtown Tulsa owned by Tulsa Community College. The building is right on Boston Avenue and I’ve always been intrigued by the little projection it has over the street. Periodically I have wandered up there, acting like I belonged but the door from the inside to the deck outside has always been locked.

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Looking north on Boston Avenue

A couple weeks ago I was walking by on my noon stroll and I noticed a woman sitting up there. So hey, I went over and ventured up the elevator, found the door and there I was outside. I didn’t have my camera so I took some photos with my cell phone using a hdr app.

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That is Boston Avenue Church way down there. It was the subject of my last Skywatch Friday post.

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And here is a closeup. 

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And here is looking north again. We have some humongus parking lots here in Tulsa.

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And going to the west to Holy Family Cathedral. Tulsa is unique in that we have a bunch of big churches downtown and they are thriving. 

Anyway I stayed a while taking in the sights and then left.I guess I was legal. I didn’t see any no trespassing signs or anything. So I am going to be bring my Nikon some day. 

I’m linking  with Skywatch Friday

Skywatch Friday – A Walk in the Park

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This past weekend son Logan and I decided to take a walk around Tulsa’s Lafortune Park. Lafortune Park has a big playground, picnic areas, tennis courts, a high school, baseball parks, and two golf courses with a walking path about 3 miles long winding around it all. 

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I didn’t bring my camera, just my cell phone. Luckily there were some pretty decent skies.

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Part of the trail was a little muddy. In the 26 years we have lived in Tulsa I bet that I have either walked or run around Lafortune hundreds of times. 

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I love pedestrian bridges. Logan is now 20, when he was about 3 he liked to go hide under this bridge and pretend he was a troll. The kid used to drive me crazy!! Perfectly good playground 100 feet away. Oh well. 

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There he is. He lags a little behind but it works out because I take pictures and study on things and eventually he catches up to me.

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday.