My wife and I went to Philbrook Museum on Valentine’s Day and found this valentine’s squirrel out and about.
I took my “good” camera to Ray Harral Nature Center. I saw all sorts of birds and squirrels but the brush was so thick I couldn’t get a decent photo of anything, but I got this body shot of a squirrel with no head.
And they had a nice bug hotel. Does that count?
Kodi the Pomeranian and I are getting along a little bit better.
He had the zoomies the other day in the back yard and was quite playful.
Things change fast around here in northeast Oklahoma. Just a few days ago it was freezing and we had snow on the ground.
And then it warmed up! Way past my sweet spot. My sweet spot in the winter is in the 40’s. It keeps the snakes brumating and the ticks and chiggers at bay.
So it has been pleasant the past few days.
On Valentines Day Heather and I spent the afternoon together. We toured Philbrook Museums galleries and gardens, lunched at the tony Utica Square shopping center and then shopped at Trader Joe’s.
Today, son Logan and I hiked two miles and change on Tulsa’s Turkey Mountain. It was glorious.
I saw this strange double bent tree. My bet is that it is haunted. Turkey Mountain has a long history of outlaws, moonshiners, fourtune hunters, drug labbers, railroaders, ranchers, and worst of all oilfield workers (aka oilfield trash.) So yeah, there is a lot of haunting going on.
They are busy at even more things to play on the mountain. We chatted with the guy building this thing. He and his 87 year grandfather are working on it. It’s going to be for mountain bikers. It looks like a crappy way to die to me.
Sometimes I think I do too much social media type stuff. One of the things I do is PostCrossing. It’s a site where people from all over the world exchange post cards. If you send a card to somebody, then somebody else sends you card. I have exchanged 321 cards over the years with people from 49 countries. Most exchangers are perfunctory but I always check and see what their interests are and if they are on social media. So far I’ve added a few people that way on instagram and found a few geocachers.
You can request what kind of cards you want and I say I like art so I get quite a few cards showing photographs of art works from all over the world. I got a card from somebody from the Ukraine with the above image on it. The back of the card said “I want to introduce you to the Belarusian artist Leonid Afremov… He lived in in Mexico and the USA for many years.” My interest was piqued because here is a guy from Belarus painting a bull fighting scene. I googled Leonid Afremov and sure enough he was an artist who lived in the USA for several years and then moved to Play Carmen, Mexico and then died there.
His family still runs his studio and offers his art up for sale on the internet. I love his style to extravagant and colorful and the prices are reasonable. Go check it out.
The bad part of social media is the creeps you end up running into. The good part is how you can learn things about people from one to one interactions. I have online friends all over the world and I value them tremendously. I hardly ever get the opportunity to meet one in real life.
My son and I have been on a couple of hikes lately on Tulsa’s Turkey Mountain. We found this old oil well pumpjack foundation. Oil was discovered on the mountain in the 1920’s and production continued until the 1960’s. There are lots of old relics of the industry scattered about on the mountain. I personally know people who worked on these wells.
We went by this old wellhead. Don’t worry it’s safe.
I fired up the trailcam again the other day (It had run out of juice and I forgot to set the clock and calendar) and there was a rabbit in it, for hundreds of photos.
That’s the bad thing about trailcams, weeding through all the photos. If you have video it is that much worse. So this rabbit has been having a party in this corner of the backyard.
Captured a squirrel image as well
Son and I went hiking on Turkey Mountain the other day. We found this great blue heron fishing in the Arkansas River. There was heavy brush along the banks so I didn’t get his head very good.
Nearby, this fat robin was looking right at me.
I heard a distinctive “snuffling” sound in the leaves close to the trail and sure enough, an armadillo.
I love armadillos. You can get really close to them.
Life sure is better when you can get outside and do things!
Launched my drone again from my back yard. I thought the sunset was going to be better than what it was. Better than nothing though.
I pointed the aircraft west and oriented the camera down a little bit and caught the west side of our neighborhood.
Son, Logan and I went for a hike on Turkey Mountain the other day. It was beautiful. We spent some time on the paved trail next to the Arkansas River.
We had a good time.
I went geocaching the other day. The sky was pretty cool, and I had a successful hunt. It was close to residences and I was feeling watched.
Found some more at a neighborhood park in an older part of town. It was an historic park. For one thing it was close to aircraft manufacturing plants during World War II. The men were at war so the housewives worked. There was an old retired guy who looked after the kids at this park during the workday. I bet that was a zoo.
I got lucky and found a very small geocache, It still counts.
I went to the Tulsa Boat Show on a rainy day last weekend and here he is what I saw.
Lots of personal watercraft on display. I’ve never been on one of these and I think it would be a blast. I know people who cannot afford boats buy these things now. They are the size of a small boat.
I loved the color of this boat.
Our sheriff’s department brought one of their boats. I think riding in one of these would also be fun.
There were a couple of vintage wooden boats on display, not for sale. This is a 1959 Riva Ariston built in Italy. It is named Bella Vita which means “Beautiful Life.”
I cannot imagine putting it in the water. It is number 219 of 1021 built.
This is a 1955 Chris Craft Cobra 21′. It’s also gorgeous. Number 18 of only 56 built.
And back to boats for sale. They had a bunch of pontoon boats. My in-laws had one and it was fun.
And bass boats. I saw one for $91,000. I bought a used bass boat when I lived near a lake in Texas back in the day. It was used and I think I paid like $400 and sold it back to the guy I bought it from for $400. The two happiest days of my life were the day I bought and the day I sold it.
Lots of little light weight travel trailers. I love the retro design of this one. It had the door at the back.
This was probably the most popular trailer. I had to stand in place for a while before traffic cleared out so I could take a photo. A trailer with a back deck and loft sleeping areas. It also is a rear entry.
The interior is cool.
Here’s another two story trailer but not near as nice. So I guess the kids sleep up top to give mom and dad a little privacy?
And some RV’s. Here is a truck conversion.
And here is a deluxe version.
They had four wheelers for sale.
And two wheelers.
Anyway, it was a nice day to spend a rainy couple of hours. I don’t buy anything, I just like looking.
We were without a backyard fence temporarily until one could be built so when our dog had to go outside one of us went with him. So this is really a long shadow selfie from our backyards, clear across the greenbelt and to the property fence on the far side. I love looking tall and skinny, Kodi loved looking like a big dog.
I went on a little bike ride last week on the RiverParks Trails and stopped for a little rest in the sun.
I also went on hike on Turkey Mountain and took this shadow and tree selfie.
We’ve had a warm spell lately and life is glorious now. I can fly my drone without it going all “Danger Will Robinson” on me.
We have had a contractor replacing our backyard fence in something besides a rainy/snowy/icy windstorm.
I was able to go hiking without risking hypothermia.
And I went on a long bike ride Monday along the Arkansas River. It was crowded, every old retired guy in town had the same idea and were out cruising the river in their cargo shorts.
