We continue to get a lot of rain here in Tulsa. When it rains and I want to go hiking I use one of the sustainable trails in town rather than splash through the mud on my regular haunts. So this time I went to Ray Harral Nature Center in Broken Arrow, OK. Their trails are mainly asphalt with some gravel.
There are always lots of birds at Ray Harral but I hardly ever see them. At least with the Merlin App I can figure out what they are. I got lucky this time.
I spotted a couple of cardinals and they stood still long enough for me to get a fuzzy photo (or maybe phuzzy photo) of them. One in a shrub.
And one on the ground.
I saw a couple squirrels as well. In town they are not shy at all, out in the woods they hide. So I got one in a tree.
And another on the ground.
And this is our son, Logan, captured mowing the yard with my trailcam. He got offered a job yesterday (and accepted it) as a full-time paralegal for a law firm here in town. He’s worked very hard to get to this point. We are very proud of him. He’s going to have to give up shorts and tee shirts in exchange for a shirt and tie but hey, he can do it.
It has been raining a lot in Tulsa lately. It makes the trails muddy and I don’t want to damage them so I go places with more sustainable trails. Fortunately Ray Harral Nature Center in the Tulsa suburb of Broken Arrow has asphalt paved trails so that is one of my go to’s when I get the yen to go hiking when things are muddy.
I found this male northern cardinal. I brought my good camera and he was nice enough to sit still while I got his photo. I saw glimpses of other birds but didn’t get their photos.
Found this young squirrel playing coy with me.
I used the Merlin App to track who else was around. I got a glimpse of a red-eyed vireo. The Fish Crow called loudly as did the Carolina Wren.
I spotted this painted rock in one of the pollinator gardens at the center. I put it in my pocket and carried it around during my hike and then put it in a different pollinator plot not very far from where I found it. I used to love making painted rocks and hiding them. I am going to get some paint and sealer and try again. I’m not much of an artist and I settled on a yellow sunburst on a blue background. A friend of mine mocked me saying that Walmart was going to sue me for infringing on their logo.
When I first started I hid them way too well and nobody was finding them. I guess from my geocaching background. So I started putting them in more visible places and that worked out better.
A bunny wandered into range in my backyard trailcam.
And a brown thrasher.
Yesterday we got a reprieve from the rain so son and I mowed the yard. I mowed the front as he caught up on his beauty sleep. I trimmed the front and backyards. My 35 year old cord electric trimmer finally quit a couple weeks ago and I got a nice battery powered model to replace it. Much more powerful and convenient than dragging a cord around all over the place.
So son mowed the backyard. He likes to be creative in his patterns. Used to drive me crazy cuz of all the mohawks he left but now he is still creative yet no more mohawks. (Mohawks are unmowed strips of grass that look kind of like a Mowhawk haircut.) I think he got tired of mowing the yard twice.
It got hot, yesterday, here I am all cleaned up doing my zombie walk in the 105F heat. (I don’t think it got to 105 but it was still hot.)
Don’t forget to cheer for the Oklahoma Thunder Sunday evening when they battle the Indiana Pacers in the final game of the NBA Championship!
I am linking with Eileen’s Saturday’s Critters. Check it out. Lots of talented photographers participate.
This week I am going back ten years in my archives for this week’s Saturday’s Critters post. Back when my son was in a therapeutic horseback riding program. He did it weekly for years and got pretty good at it.
Back then I was very experimental with my cameras. I had a film fisheye camera. I loved the fisheye effect. I’ve settled down now. Film is too expensive and I can do fisheye photos on my phone. In this exercise, Logan was supposed to get the horse inside the square and stop. He did it!!
And here is a regular digital photo. Not that great a photo as I’ve cut the horse’s feet off. Part of the reason I call myself a “picture taker” rather than a “photographer.”
We kind of plateaued after a while and got tired of the 36 mile drive every Saturday morning so we dropped it.
Meet Wilbur, a Vietnamese Pot Bellied Pig. We ran into him at Bear World, near Rigby, Idaho in 2004 when we were visiting my father in Idaho Falls. We loved Wilbur.
Son Logan loved him the most. Wilbur just had one spot of shade under the hot sun.
I thought these photos were lost but I found an old tower PC that we had. I pulled out the hard drive and ordered an enclosure for it on Amazon. When that came I plugged the hard drive in and connected to my laptop and voila. Thousands of photos that I had thought were lost and are now found!! I’m so happy.
This past week the family spent some time at Hochatown, Oklahoma near Beavers Bend State Park for a little R&R. Since I am retired we can take a weekend getaway during the middle of the week and avoid the crowds! We are not big on crowds.
We rented a very nice cabin with all sorts of amenities. The best thing was all the deer that came by to visit early in the morning.
Deer are really graceful but very wary. As well they should be.
So we sat still on the porch as they came by.
We went hiking a few days in the park. We found this little armadillo on our first hike. They really are intriguing creatures.
But then we come across this snake that Heather almost stepped on. She thought it was a copperhead which is of course venomous. I kept telling her to get close enough to see the shape of the eyes to make sure. She refused. INaturalist confirmed it was a copperhead. It was laying right on the edge of the trail and refused to move so we just edged around him best we could. It was one of the biggest copperheads I have ever seen.
Later on during a walk around our cabin neighborhood we come across Bigfoot. Neither Heather or Kodi were afraid of him one bit.
Kodi loved our getaway. We didn’t take him on any hikes but we did lots of walks around the cabin and took him to a dog friendly brewery. He had a great time. As did we.
We went kayaking while down there, here is an action shot of Logan. We didn’t see any critters on the water except for birds.
Speaking of birds, have you tried the Merlin app. A free app and you download a bird song library and then you turn it on and it ID’s the birds by their songs. It’s amazing. The only thing is that it doesn’t locate the little buggers for you. So now I’m just taking screen shots of what it is hearing. It is truly amazing.
A view of our north fence with shadows from the bench and trees. By this time next week we should have a new fence to replace this well worn installation. I love the old patina but it is time to go.
Son and I are still practice driving. He’s actually doing pretty good.
Tulsa’s Lafortune Park now has a small buffalo herd. They seem to be managing the cold weather very well.
Christmas and the end of the year buzzed by really quickly this year. Sorry I have been incommunicado all the sudden but hey, I’m back. So I’ll bring you up to speed.
A few days before Christmas we joined another couple for a Christmas music show at historic Cain’s Ballroom featuring several very talented local singers and musicians.
Isaac Hanson, of Hanson, showed up and played a couple of songs. Heather and I remember when he was just a little boy and played for free at local events with his brothers. He’s all growns up now and has a whole bunch of kids of his own.
Heather made her traditional gingerbread cookies. They are always a hit.
They go fast.
We made a visit to my brother Bob at his residence.
And gathered around the tree.
On Christmas Day we went to my MIL’s house and we opened gifts and had steak and baked potatoes for Christmas dinner. Bad blogger me, didn’t get any family photos.
A couple days later Heather, son Logan, Kodi, and I drove a roundabout route to Colorado Springs. My sister and BIL were hosting their family for Christmas. We hadn’t seen them for years so they graciously assented to our presence.
They are an active and fun loving bunch. If you are going to hang with them you better get up early and be prepared to stay late. They were very welcoming to us crashing the party.
Here is Logan with my sister and BIL’s dogs. The little dog is Maisey and is very sweet the big dog is Aspen. Aspen kept trying to play with our little dog, Kodi but Kodi was intimidated.
Sister and her husband treated us all to the US Olympic and Paralympic Museum in Colorado Springs. It was great. There are lots of things to look at and videos of past performances and artifacts like the costume above worn by Peggy Flemming who won the Gold Medal in figure skating at the 1968 Winter Olympics. I always thought she was classy and elegant.
Back at my sister’s house, Kodi went for a walk and got to meet Jasper the horse and get sniffed and inspected really good by the horse. I think our city dog thinks he doesn’t want become a ranch dog.
On the drive back to Tulsa Kodi found an earth cache. A specialized form of a geocache. So now I call him Kodi the Geodog.
I also got a shadow photo of Kodi so I guess he is a shadow dog as well.
Tuesday night Heather, Logan, our Pom Kodi, and I loaded up and drove to the Tulsa suburb of Sapulpa to check out the Route 66 Christmas Chute in their downtown. We went last year and loved it!!
The city blocks off several blocks of Route 66 downtown and install these big frameworks and then people decorate them. You walk underneath the decorations. It is wonderful and you have great light for taking photographs. Also the merchants really go all out decorating their storefronts for the occasion.
Most of the restaurants are open if you are hungry or thirsty plus there are pop up shops selling food, drinks, and gift items.
Logan really loves gingerbread cookies.
Heather loves snowmen.
I love the reindeer and the sled.
Kodi loves Heather!
He also found two other poms to have a faceoff with. They were barking at him and he was just looking. He didn’t like being pulled away. I swear Pomeranians are the most spoiled dogs ever but we still love ours.
The Grinch was in a storefront!!
I figured out what Santa is going to leave me.
If you like Christmas trees, they have dozens of them, from little dinette sized trees.
My wife Heather in the distance. Leaving me behind as usual.
My favorite trail on our recent trip to southeast Oklahoma’s Beavers Bend State Park was the Lakeview Lodge Trail. We hiked a little over 4 miles. The trail had some up and down, some water views, and was in generally great shape. The woods were opened up and it was very enjoyable.
