Tag Archives: jigsaw puzzles

Skywatch Friday – On the Move Edition

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Me and a friend continue to hike on Turkey Mountain and other places. This is a moon gate leading into The Sanctuary section of Turkey Mountain. I go right through it, my friend goes around it. I don’t know why.

Turkey mountain has maybe nine lakes on it, plus two or three more in The Sanctuary. Anywhere else they would be called ponds. Three interesting things about the lakes (at least they are interesting to me) is, first, that the Wildlife Department stocks the lakes for fishing. Second there is a big colony of beavers on the mountain and they move as a group from lake to lake cleaning out all the fish in each pond. I think that is hilarious. Third, the beavers move up and down the Arkansas River and migrate to and from Turkey Mountain via Mooser Creek which is the northern border of Turkey Mountain. They know this because the wildlife has tagged a bunch of beavers so they can track their movements. I have a feeling that beavers are going to outlive humans.

This is a pipeline for one of my former employers running through Turkey Mountain. Last year another former employer of mine laid a pipeline adjacent to this one but they drilled the little swale you see instead of putting in a span like the one above. Drilling pipelines across tough spots has been all the rage for years. Contractors can now drill across the Mississippi River for large pipelines and hit the other side a mile away within a few feet of their target. They also do it in culturally sensitive areas like ruins and such. They can stand off a few hundred yards and drill way underneath the ruins instead of having to go around. The problem with going around is that you often run into more ruins.

The tree house in The Sanctuary. If you look close you can see a couple of swinging porch benches underneath. A nice place to wait out a rainstorm.

Anyway on this hike, it was almost exactly five miles. That’s my sweetspot.

Switching gears to the backyard. Sunrise!

Mid-day from my front yard looking east.

And a late sunset, looking west.

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Later that night, the Full Snow Moon. I love full moons on a clear night.

And a shot from the neighborhood green belt.

I’ve continued working on jigsaw puzzles on my ipad. I love beach scenes.

And a windmill jigsaw puzzle. The windmill is cool and I love the house. except not many windows upstairs. I like the lightning rods though. Random thought, I am sure that windmills get hit with lightning. Do they burn down?

I am linking with Skywatch Friday

Skywatching at Home

Son Logan drives me around these days. So I get to take photos while he is driving like this sunset in the neighborhood.

Here is a skywatch photo from my front porch

And from the backyard

Another from the front porch looking west toward the sunset

And a skywatch photo from my driveway looking east.

While walking the dog in our neighborhood greenbelt

A sunrise looking east

Teton sunset jigsaw puzzle

And a jigsaw puzzle. These look like the Teton mountains in Wyoming.

And the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Along with a peacock.

And a jigsaw puzzle of a cool little cabin in the woods.

Lifeguard Station

And a beautiful lifeguard shack on the ocean at sunset. Ignore the US flag flying in a funny manner.

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Over 200 million Americans are going to get hit with a polar vortex in the next day or so. For Oklahoma it is going to be the worst since the 2011 winter storm. Here is an action shot of me shoveling snow in that storm.

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And here is an action shot of our Maine Coon Chrissy during the storm. She loved the fireplace. I don’t know how she didn’t spontaneously combust.

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I picked her up and took her outside after all the snow fell. You can tell that she was not a happy kitty. I’m glad I had my heavy canvas coat and leather gloves or may not have survived this photoshoot.

I’m linking to Skywatch Friday

To my fellow Americans in the path of the oncoming storm. Stay warm and safe!!

Skywatch Friday – After the Rain

Earlier this month I was at the Y taking a yoga class. When I went in, the weather was sunny. When I got out, the ground was soaked and the skies were full of clouds that had lots of rain still in them.

Looking South

Looking East

Looking West

We had had torrential rain. I drove home, about four miles and it was dry as a bone.

Full Buck Moon

We had a Full Buck Moon on July 10. Clear skies so I was able to get a halfway decent image of it.

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Not my photo and I don’t own the copyright.

I started working Ipad jigsaws puzzles again. I have a very old Ipad and the app wouldn’t work because I needed to upload and install a new Operating System and it wasn’t working. Drove me crazy!! So I was googling like crazy and then I got on Microsoft’s Copilot AI and asked it how do I upgrade and it said just load itunes on your laptop and then plug in your ipad to the laptop and it will upgrade all by it’s lonesome. I did it and it worked!!

This AI deal is a little scary. I asked if it would take one of my photos and make a postcard out of it and it said sure, upload a photo, and tell Copilot what text I want on the card, what style a card and it would be happy to do it. So I haven’t done it yet. Maybe I’ll have one next week.

I hope that you are all okay!! Word is that ICE is supposed to hit Oklahoma hard starting today. So pray for all us Oklahomans.

Skywatch Friday

Skywatch Friday – Last Week of January 2025

I went looking for a geocache last week that was supposed to be near the site of a former World War II era prisoner of war camp near the Tulsa suburb of Bixby. There is no trace of the camp left, nor was there any trace of a geocache. Bixby has some of the most expensive land in Oklahoma. It is Arkansas River bottomland, flat as a pancake. Used to be huge vegetable and grass farms here but they are pretty much gone and real estate development is taking over. You can see to the right of the photo that there is a new subdivision is going in there. Flat is good for both agriculture and subdivisions I guess. Just between you and me though, I wouldn’t live in a flood plain. I think here in the USA that climate change can jump up and bite you in the rear end.

Coming home I came across this building close to the house. I have always loved this structure. Very clean lines and lots of glass. I love the little sunshades they have on the south side (to the left).

I was picking up pizza at rush hour the other night. I loved the light in this photo plus a big dark cloud was hanging out over town. It was ominous.

This is from the parking lot of the pizza place. I love the cloud and the cars in traffic and the whole thing. I have the technology to take the sign down and the power lines but you know, doing that just causes more problems in my opinion. I am sorry the photo is so grainy. I shot it in RAW on my iphone using the Halide app.

And another jigsaw puzzle. This one of an arch somewhere in the high desert. This one was harder than I anticipated by I “got-r-done.”

So that is it for this week in my unexciting, waiting on knee replacement surgery, life.

Skywatch Friday

My Corner of the World

Woodward Park Before Quitting Time

One day back in early December I was a little early picking son up from work. So I ventured over to nearby Woodward Park and took some photos.

It’s a small park but it is loaded with trees, ponds, and other interesting things to explore.

Still lots of Fall Color back then and they had a pond that made for some good reflections.

The sun was low, so much the better for the light.

Plus it was still warm in the late afternoon.

And I was shooting RAW using the Halide App for my iphone. Shooting RAW eats up memory and the plain photos are awful to look at but you can run it through Lightroom or Snapseed and since to get them looking better.

So i had me a ball taking photos for about 15 minute before I had to go fetch the kid.

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I ran one photo through my DynamicAutoPainter Program.

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And this is a jigsaw puzzle that I recently completed of the Canyonlands area of the Southwest USA. I didn’t take the photo so I don’t own the copyright but I am sure somebody does. It was a lot easier to do than I thought it was going to be. First I did all the edge pieces then I did the edge of sky vs land and then the no cloud vs clear sky andthen there were all sorts of horizontal lines to work on. It was fun.

I’m linking to Skywatch Friday and My Corner of the World.

Christmas Skywatch – 2024

Hey you know life goes up and down and so does Christmas. This year was a restrained Christmas in our family. My sister came to visit for a few days beforehand and that was definitely a boost. Other factors came in that kind of restrained things. So we had a quiet Christmas. The sun didn’t shine and it was kind of misty rainy so above is my Christmas Skywatch photo. I’ll take it. Not much of a sky but I love the tree. And yes that is a filter I used on my phone. About four of them in fact.

And this is a shot from our driveway a few days beforehand. I kind of liked it. A wag on instagram said that the chemtrails ruined the photo. Get this folks, chemtrails are not real. There, that is my Christmas message to the world.

Another day, same driveway, looking the other way. I used distressedfx on this.

And this is a jigsaw puzzle that I did on my ipad.

Another jigsaw puzzle.

About this time of year, if you are on social media, you get all sorts of hits about apps that will do a yearly recap for you. So I bit on one, I did a couple of 2024 rehashes, one was about my life in general and another about 2024 skies. I saved the resulting videos and then cancelled my seven day free membership. I then inputted the videos to youtube and so above is my 2024 skywatch rehash. It only lasts 30 seconds and then starts over so don’t do what I did and watch it over and over until I realized what I was doing.

I watched a couple of NFL football games including a miserable Baltimore – Houston game that ended 31-2. Tell you what though, Beyonce performed the halftime show. And what a show it was! Came in on a horse and just killed the performance. She should do the Superbowl halftime show. And I am not even a Beyonce fan!

I hope that everyone of you who celebrate Christmas had a good one.

Skywatch Friday

Skywatch Friday – This and That Edition

We try and walk our dog every day. It kind of smooths him out and reduces his anxiety. I captured this sky on such a walk. A photoblogger always has at least his phone him at all times in all places is my motto.

My other motto is try your front and back porches first for sky shot.

This one I actually walked from my front porch about a100 feet to the street. No need to drive all over the place if you do not want to do so.

In November I ventured up to the suburb of Collinsville for geocaching meet up. The host had a bunch of caches for us to find. I got stuck on this sculpture. Nothing to do with geocaching I tried all sorts of different angles.

So we found nine different geocaches of several different types at the park. It only took about an hour.

Geocaching Meetup

A group pic that I stole of facebook. That’s me with the black hat off to the right. Note the lady holding her “geodog” off to the right. Everything is geo with geocachers, geodogs, geocars, geowifes, geotents. Also nobody calls anybody else by their real name, it’s always their geocaching handle. So I’m yogiabb. The two other guys and the other lady have each found over 20,000 geocaches. I’ve been at it for twenty years and only have about 2300 or so. Amazing. The lady to the left of me said she only slowed down finding them once after getting bit on the hand by a copperhead. I’ve never been snakebit but I have been bitten by wasps, bees, hornets, chiggers, fire ants and ticks.

And this is another online jigsaw puzzle I finished on my ipad. A rustic western scene with a little bit of sky.

And that is a wrap for this week. I am linking with Skywatch Friday

Getting Started on Christmas

Recently we visited Rhema Bible Church in the Tulsa suburb of Broken Arrow. They put on a great show of Christmas Lights ever year. They have lots of lights and almost infinite parking and although traffic is congested it’s doable. We like to go when we can park the car and walk around.

I loved the carolers in a Victorian vibe.

Santa’s Sleigh and the Reindeer. I don’t know where Santa is.

One of my favorite things is the walk around the pond. There is always great reflections. And the ducks and geese think they are part of the attraction.

At home, my wife has decorated but that will be a different post. Looking at how she decorated the bakers rack I guess you probably saw right away that she loves Snowmen. We are invaded by snowmen.

I participate in a nice social media thing called Postcrossing. To simplify it is where you send and receive postcards from all over the world. I’ve been doing it for years. I’ve sent and received about 350 cards. I do about one a week. I’ve made some new instagram “friends” and even found a few geocachers out there. And it is free!! Except you know international postage is expensive and you have to buy the cards from wherever you buy cards. Check out postcrossing.com if you are interested. The above is a card I picked up in Santa Fe last summer showing Christmas in that town. I sent it to someone in Belgium.

And switching gears a little I am back to doing online jigsaw puzzles on my ipad. I had misplaced my ipad charger and ordered another and fired up the app. I love it. I have to tell you sensory wise, the cardboard back side of real life jigsaw puzzles is a No Go for me. Plus what do you do with the puzzle when you are done. What I really love is that once you place your last piece, the jigsaw lines disappear and you can save it as an image. Plus there are no lost pieces and it doesn’t take up your tables, and the pieces all oriented right.

That’s all for this week. I’m linking with My Corner of the World.

A Late Autumn Hike

I went on a late afternoon hike recently at Turkey Mountain. They are putting a new sign up. Kind of cool in that it is also a topographic map of the park. I think maybe they are going to make it into a planter of some sort.

I took the Lo Chi trail which goes downhill to the Arkansas River. It passes this beaver pond on the way down.

And the trail goes under this flyover for one of the downhill bicycle runs. I guess this is technically a table top because you don’t have to catch air. But you can if you want. A real flyover would be a gap. Talking to the bikers they have their own language. Many older people like me would “roll over” this rather than try and jump.

And I found this baby backhoe that the contractors use to build trails. I’ve lost track on the new trails. This looks like they are building a new trail already.

Lo Chi doesn’t get as much use as some of the other new trails. I only saw one other person on my two miles outing.

And the sun started setting. I was on the east side of the ridge so it immediately got a little cooler.

We still have some pretty good fall color on the mountain.

And some more color. I walked a short segment of the RiverParks bicycle trail as part of my route.

Only two miles but hey I had a good time.

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Back at the parking lot, these two women had set up their apparatus on one of the pavilions and were having a lot of fun twirling around. I don’t know what you call this but it looks challenging.

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Pretty darn athletic is what I thought. They would climb up to the top of the pole and invert with the their legs holding them up. I couldn’t do that in a million years. Got to have a strong core for just start plus not get dizzy twirling round and round upside down.

Changing course, one morning in our back yard.

Found this giant Santa Claus inflatable in a nearby neighborhood.

And we are slowly getting our house decorated for Christmas.

Jigsaw puzzle

And after a long hiatus I started doing jigsaw puzzles again on my ipad. I love doing them even though they take a lot of time. A great advantage is that you can’t lose any pieces and I use the option to orient the pieces in the right direction. Plus the texture of cardboard gives me the heebie jeebies and so I avoid that as well. And! there is no table with the puzzle on it when you are not working on it.

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And today (December 7) is Pearl Harbor Day. Let’s not forget the heroes that day.

And, I am linking with Skywatch Friday!

Skywatch Friday – Anybody have NASA’s phone number, the moon is missing!

I’ll explain myself in a little bit. Just hang with me.

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From Tulsa’s fabulous Gathering Place looking across the Arkansas River to the west bank. The power plant is Tulsa Power Station. Way back when I worked for the natural gas pipeline company that supplied power to that plant. If you want to check out Pirtek USA Cost, you can click here! Believe or not I took great pride in doing a small part in providing energy to Tulsa. I know that burning hydrocarbons contributes to global climate change and fully support efforts to convert to carbon neutral sources of energy.

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A scene at the YMCA on Turkey Mountain.

Me playing around with my drone and my trail camera in our backyard. Sorry for the intense expression. I still have lots to learn about drone piloting.

The same day, a view of our backyard from 50 meters up. I posted a similar photo a couple years ago and a very conservative, very distant relative got very upset with me about violating my neighbor’s privacy online. I actually had to take her step by step through unfriending and blocking me on facebook. So she did me, and I did her. I hope she is happy, cuz I am very happy to be rid of her. Tell me, am I violating anybody’s privacy? Careful what you say or I might block you as well.

Looking northwest at 50 meters above my back yard.

Front of our house

And this is my front yard.

I walked down to where my brother’s apartment is. That is his window. Whenever I drive by I honk.

Walking back from my brother’s apartment I passed this pond in an adjoining neighborhood. They used to have swans but I didn’t see any. I hope they are okay. Something about swans in our Tulsa neighborhoods that drives people to hop fences and attack the swans. What up folks?? Why do people do that? I am actually glad if you cannot imagine why somebody would attack a swan.

We have had lots of rain this spring. Lots and lots even though not far away in western Oklahoma they have had a severe drought. The past few days the temps and humidity have gone way up here. I have this feeling that things are going to dry up here as well.

One day when it was so hot I went to a park nearby that has some huge trees. I loved getting underneath the trees and looking up. Lots of shade in those old trees. I went on a spurt of hiking and trail running the a couple weeks ago and I am paying for it now. My right knee is killing me and only just today did it start to calm down after lots of ibuprofen and rest. So I have been spending lots of time inside and its killing me. I’m an outside kind of guy regardless of the weather.

So we have gone from nice cloudy skies to colorful clear skies. They are colorful because of smoke from way distant forest fires in the west and southwest.

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The strawberry moon is Tuesday night. I went out to take a photo of it and came back in all in a panic and told Heather to call NASA because the moon is missing. I got on my skyguide app and oops, the moon is underneath the horizon just yet. So this is a photo of the moon from a couple days before so it is only 94% full. I told Heather to tell NASA to stand down and stand by. We found the moon. Tell the truth, I don’t think Heather ever actually called them but that is okay.

Jig Saw Puzzle

This is not my photo. It is a jigsaw puzzle I finally finished after a few weeks. I’m really slow at them but I love online jigsaw puzzles. Everybody had their own way of doing them. I look at boundaries so I focus on the boundary betwen the street and the sidewalks, and the roofs and the sky and I focused on the fence a lot. I love solving them on my ipad.

I am linking with Skywatch Friday come join the fun!