I took my “good camera” to work Tuesday just do I could check out Tulsa’s Woodward Park at lunch. The tulips and azaleas and other plants are blooming right now and the old park was putting on a show.
There were hardly any people there and I had the place pretty much to myself. I ended up taking 72 photos. Makes me glad for digital photography. I love film and have several film cameras but it is an expensive habit to get into.
It is such a beautiful time of year.
Even the hula hoopers were out.
I went out to the Tulsa Botanic Garden and checked out their daffodils. I know that I’ve already posted about daffodils but is it okay if I do two this year? There is a slippery slope factor here for sure because what would stop me from posting three times about these flowers? Anway, they have planted 101,475 bulbs of “Brushstrokes” with art-deco inspired styling. (i am not sure what that means.)
I didn’t count them all but I believe that are telling the truth. The math nerd in me is trying to figure out how long it took to plant these bulbs. There are 86,400 seconds in a day so maybe one guy worked like crazy and got it done a little more than a day. But then, the engineer side of me is wondering who would be bringing the bulbs to him? How many people would that take, and how many bulbs in a truck load. What I come up with was that it took a bunch of people a lot of time to plant all those bulbs. Pretty impressive calculations huh? Told you that I was a math nerd. Check my work if you must. See what you come up with.
I dropped the kid off at his Improv workshot Saturday morning and headed out to the Philbrook Museum of Art to see if they had any flowers up. And yes they do. I don’t think it is peak yet but there were lots of daffodils up and it was cold and windy so there were hardly anybody out there looking at them.
I’ve come to love these early spring flowers. They are so beautiful and so fragile. They are the spring color I need after the long grey colors of winter.
Hey I found some daffodils with a garden cat. Groan, I know, couldn’t help myself. Philbrook does have two or three garden cats. Last time I was there I was inside the museum and one of the cats was outside wanting in because it was so cold. I didn’t let him in. Do you think I did the right thing or am I heartless and cruel?
And how about a daffodil reflection shot. Strange how they pop out in the reflection against the blue sky but are lost in the lighter colors on the bank.
And another, subtler daffodil reflection photo.
That’s all I got for today folks is several shots of one kind of flower.
It is Spring here in Tulsa, lots of rain mixed with sun and warm temperatures and things are blooming all over like these roses at Lafortune Park.
And these begonias (I think, let me know if I am wrong of course) at the Mayo Hotel downtown.
And this lonely assemblage of flowers near the Williams Tower. In Williams fight with Energy Transfer on their proposed merger I guess the flower budget got shorted. Ever more money for lawyers is the rule these days. What do you think the world needs, more flowers or more lawyers? I vote for flowers!!
I’m linking with Ruby Tuesday Too
Sunday was Mothers Day and Heather went to a local nursery. Heather went to gather plants for her mother’s pots. I went along to take pictures.
I can’t believe nurserys let people take pictures for free. Talk about a target rich environment for photographs.
I love the plants and also the ornaments. That is Heather in the background. Somebody should be helping her don’t you think? Oh, yeah, well I was busy also.
I found a whole flock of pink flamingos. Heather didn’t really act like she wanted one.
She didn’t want these statues decorating her garden either.
And back to Heather. She is having almost as much as fun as I am. She is a certified OSU Master Gardener so she knows her plants.
I also know my plants. For example these are yellow flowers. In the background are some red flowers. Impressive huh?
I love these rusty sunflowers. Here in Oklahoma you better tie them down good unless you want to see them sailing off in the wind.
And then we went to Home Depot. I was amused by these two guys who were having trouble getting a fitting on a hose. You should have seen the tools they were using to get it done. Remember when the Home Depot guys knew their stuff?
Home Depot has some nice flowers also.
And I love this wind vane. Made me want to sing “The wheels on the truck go round and round… round and round…”
Anyway that’s a wrap on our trip to the nursery.
What have you been up to?
I have been incognito lately on the good ole interwebs and I am sorry about that. I hadn’t return visited any commenters or checked on my friends or any of that good stuff.
Our internet service went on the blink for a few days. I finally got it going again Sunday. It took lots of magical incantations from our tech lady and muttering and such for about an hour but by gum she got it fixed.
Plus Logan is fixing to graduate and has a lot going on plus we are doing a little house updating. I wish magical incantations would update the house. So far it is taking cash, the cold hard kind.
So anyway, I don’t know if anybody missed me or not but I’m back for now.
Plus Logan has a small role in a musical that his school is doing. They are doing Footloose and I’m looking forward to seeing it. Of course I’m also signed up to hush the kids back stage one night and I get to usher the adults one night, and tell them to hush also.
And so anyway I did a get a few hours free Saturday to go to the Tulsa Botanic Garden and take some pictures of their tulips. They were all over the place. I know all the technical names for the tulips. For example the those above are yellow tulips and down below we have purple and red tulips. Pretty impressive huh?
They are beautiful and just kind of speak for themselves I think.
There were not that many people there. The garden is located out in the middle of nowhere way out of town and they are new but they are growing and filling in and it will get more and more popular.
It is a must see for those who live in or visit Tulsa. Check their website for directions and hours.
Easter is time of rebirth, new beginnings and hope.
The flowers symbolize all that for me.
Not an especially good shot but that is my boy blurred out in the background
They are just so beautiful
Happy Easter to you!
Spring is here, last week, (when Spring wasn’t quite here, I guess) I took the big camera to Tulsa’s Linnaeus Gardens and took a few pics. I loved these flowers in the planter. The flowers seem a little overpowered by the mass of the rocks in the planter and the ultra heavy duty lattice above it but with the flowers, with the bright colors, overcame that mass. At least that is what I think. I used Topaz’s Glow to bring out the grain of the wood and the texture of the rock.
I’m linking with Digital Art Meme
Here is the conventional view
I don’t mind Winter too much here in Oklahoma where it generally is not too severe and given my trailrunning and geocaching hobbies late Fall and Winter is really, really nice because I don’t have to worry about the many vipers we have here and the ticks, chiggers, bees, hornets, spiders, and wasps which have each sent me to the doctor before. Anyways Winter isn’t too bad but Spring is just great. It is great for baseball coming back and wonderful for the flowers especially the daffodils. I just love daffodils.
How about we get down to the ground and look up?
Tulsa’s best spot for daffodils is Woodward Park. This years “crop” seems a little sparse compared to previous years but still just spectacular.
How about zooming up the iso, and reducing the fstop to get narrow depth of focus. I know it is not much but I love this shot.
I went at lunch one day last week and the light was hazy. I thought it made for a nice effect.
Woodward Park is almost as good as the State Fair for people watching. We Tulsan’s love Woodward Park
I saw this lady get out of her car and she sat in the middle of a daffodil patch and brushed her hair really good and put a blue ribbon in and made a bunch of selfies. I thought it was really sweet. A couple years ago a guy and his girl were there and he set up a tripod low to the ground and he filmed he and his girl rolling around kissing and groping each other in the daffodils. That wasn’t too sweet.
On this past Wednesday during our Spring Break staycation the family indulged me by going to Philbrook Museum to take pics of the daffodils. They seemed kind of sparse there also. Still beautiful.
They had some of these very pretty blueish purple flowers also. That’s not the latin name for them, it is the Okie name.
And the purple flowers falling over the ledge is great also.
The best daffodils at Philbrook were in the front of the museum. They don’t charge you to look at these. We are members at Philbrook so its all the same to us. I love flowers in abundance. I’m greedy that way.
I know I am posting way too many pics of them. I promise not to post any more. I might change my mind though. Can you tell that I am a potential politician?
Here I found the abundance I was looking for. I fixed the focus about one third of the way down which left the flowers in the back kind of mushed (that is a very technical photographic term) in an effect that I kind of liked.
So this is my daffodil mania post. No filters, not even any cropping!
So, did I post too many photos? I’m trying to figure out what blogging means in this day of Instagram, twitter, and facebook. I love Instagram and post two or three pics a day with minimal text. Twitter I use mainly during breaking news plus it is a best way to keep abreast of industry news. Facebook is for friends. So I am trying to figure out where blogger fits in. I like getting to know people in blogging and it is kind of hard in Instagram and Twitter. With facebook I already know you. At least I thought I did until you started posting the My Little Pony videos. (hah)
So, how are the flowers where you are?
I hate to say it but I have been uninspired by our skies lately. Either is overcast and gloomy or we have beautiful days without a cloud in the sky. So I dug up a photo from April a couple years ago of a yellow flower in the sky. All I can say now is “Come on April!!”
How about you, are you looking forward to April? I know I am but first we have to have the Super Bowl.
I’m linking with Skywatch Friday today.