Tag Archives: Saturday’s Critters

Saturday’s Critters – Winter Storm Fern Edition

My hiking friend and I went on a five mile hike on Tulsa’s Turkey Mountain on Thursday. The weather was almost shirtsleeve warm. We saw this great blue heron fishing in one of the ponds. All I had was my cell phone so sorry about the graininess.

After almost a year together our two dogs, Kodi the Pom, and Sadie the Terrier have almost started playing together. I guess if this were human kids it would be called adjacent play. They seem to enjoy each other’s company now.

Kodi hides under this table when my wife is gone. He always has such a tragic expression.

Lizzie checking on the goings on out in front of the house.

This fiberglass penguin has its own geocache.

Winter Storm Fern came to northeast Oklahoma last night. This was the scene this morning. Not too bad. Not even an inch of snow. We are supposed to get more later on today and tonight.

And the backyard. Kodi the Pom got up this morning and went outside and did his business. He loves snow. Sadie is having a hard time. She wouldn’t do her business last night so she needed out at 3 am. I took her out and she peed and ran back into the house. She was in a world of hurt this morning. She needed to poop bad but wouldn’t go outside and wouldn’t go on a pad in the house. Finally I carried her out and plopped her in the middle of the yard and she saw a squirrel and she ran after it, completely forgetting about the snow, and then did her business. She felt so much better, she was running around the yard. (Sorry if this is TMI.)

We have a steady stream of visitors to the efeeder. Here is a short 12 second video of a male and female cardinal and a dark eyed junco taking advantage of the suet and seeds that I put out for them.

That’s it for now. We are staying home today and maybe tomorrow depending on road conditions. If you are in the winter storm, please stay safe.

I am linking with Eileen’s Saturday’s Critters. Lots of great bloggers post there, check them out.

Saturday’s Critters – 17 January 2026

I was in the backyard playing fetch with one of our dogs and I saw on our property fence a dog sweater moving along the top of the pickets. I was like uh! I saw then it was a squirrel running with a small dog’s sweater. I ran in the house to get my wife and she come running out and the squirrel had already jumped onto a tree and was trying mightily to get it up to a nest close to the top of the tree. By the time I got my good camera out it looked the sweater was stuck good on the various twigs on the tree.

I left for a minute and came back out and the squirrel had the sweater unstuck and was stuffing it into the nest. I guess her babies are going to be nice and warm this winter. I have no idea where she go the sweater. Some years they attack our lawn furniture cushioning for nesting material.

And here is our queen B, Lizzie resting. Naps exhaust her so she has get up and rest every now and then.

Tulsa’s amazing Gilcrease Museum was shut down and demolished a few years ago and they built a new museum. The structure is complete but they are not going to open until 2027. They had a public input meeting concerning the landscaping around the immediate vicinity of the museum. They hired the same landscaper, Michael Van Valkengburgh Associates, that designed Tulsa’s Gathering Place and the Master Plan for the Turkey Mountain Urban Wilderness area, and they were giving a presentation for their concept of the gardens at Gilcrease. It’s a treat just listening to these guys talk. They know their stuff and one of the big things they are interested in is getting public input on the concepts. Check their web site at the link above and see some of the projects they have been involved in. (Oops, I diverge).

I got so excited about their plans that I went down into the backwoods are of Gilcrease that has recently reopened to the public to check out some of the sculptures they talked about in the presentation. I had not seen them for years so it was kind of like seeing old friends again.

So the plan is they are taking these sculptures that are scattered in the back woods and bring them up close to the museum so more people can see them. I second that plan. It was a one mile hike to see these and lots of people will not do that, or cannot do that.

I was at the At Home Store and saw these Easter Bunnies for sale. I felt they were a family and couldn’t believe they were breaking the family up for money. I guess that I could have bought them to keep them together forever but I know that wouldn’t go over well at home. So I just took a photo. Photos are still free in most stores. Some stores have signs that say no photos, but that just encourages me.

And then I ran the photo through a filter and posted it on instagram. I post everything on instagram. If you want to join me my tag is @yogiab.

Last week I brought the ebird feeder out from the garage, cleaned it out put it back up again and restocked it with bird food. I’ve had quite a few customers so far. This is a short video.

I also fired up my trailcam in the backyard and got a few stills and videos in this video. It is very short also.

That’s about it. I am linking with Saturday’s Critters.

Saturday’s Critters – American White Pelicans and More

A few days ago it warmed up enough to go for a bike ride on the Arkansas River Parks Trails here in Tulsa. I took my superzoom camera with me and captured this pod of American White Pelicans in the river. They are a happy sight for me. They do not get very close to people.

I stopped for a rest and drink and I could hear this Northern Mockingbird singing but I really couldn’t see it against the glare. My cell phone was hopeless but by elderly Nikon superzoom got 85% of it.

A short and unremarkable video of our terrier rescue playing fetch. She lives to play fetch and I do it with her about four times a day or more. She never gets tired of it. She is so enthusiastic though that I don’t mind too much.

I’m linking up with Eileen’s Saturday’s Critters. Check it out, animal lovers from all around post photos of all sorts of critters.

Saturday’s Critters – White Tailed Deer

A couple of legacy photographs of deer at Tulsa’s Oxley Nature Center.

A lone deer on one of the water pipeline rights of way that run through the park. Oxley is my go to place for finding deer.

Another legacy photo that I had on the default setting of private that indicates that I have never published this photo before. A group of three deer including one looking at me right in the eye.

I’m linking with Saturday’s Critters

The Goats of Turkey Mountain

I follow the Turkey Mountain social media pretty closely and had been reading with interest the news that they have been using goats to manage the invasive plant species on Turkey Mountain. They are provided by a third party who monitors them and they are guarded by a special guard dog. I knew roughly where the sheep were supposed to be but I had never run into them.

On of my recent hikes I started smelling what I would call a barn smell or a ranch smell The smell of animals and their manure and a little ways later I ran into them on a legacy trail.

They were totally chill, some were eating, some were resting. None of them looked stressed in any way. I thought this is cool. I have volunteered at Turkey Mountain and other places and sometimes we work on invasive special removal. It is hard work!! Other methods such as controlled fires are great but require the right weather and the availability of a crew to manage it. Mechanical mulching works well but is expensive and it really tears the forest up temporarily.

These goats were happily munching away. I found a source, goat foraging dot org, and they discuss that the manure that goats poop out also builds up the soil, their hooves help break up the soil and mix the manure in. The goat’s digestive systems also destroy the seeds as they pass through the digestive system.

It’s all pretty low cost and sustainable and provides another tool in land managers’ tool box to help manage the land.

I didn’t see a guard dog, nor a shepherd and no fencing but I’m assuming they maintain control over the herd somehow. I’m all about stuff like this.

I’m linking with Saturday’s Critters

Saturday’s Critters – Real and Imagined

Here’s Lizzy doing her favorite activity. She is a world champion sleeper.

Here she is reluctantly posing for a Christmas photo.

Nothing cuter than a newborn calf on a ranch in western Oklahoma.

And I fired up my jigsaw app on my elderly Ipad. Google tells me that it is either a green sea turtle or a ridley sea turtle. I suspect the photo is AI. I was amused because you can buy the same exact image from various places on the web.

I’m linking with Saturday’s Critters.

Saturday’s Critters – Our Pets

A post for our pets.

Our female terrier mix, Sadie, in a rare moment of hanging out with her older, but littler brown brother Kodi the Pomeranian. Kodi is kind of a pill to have around and our vet suggested a female terrier mix who was bigger than he was. That is why we got Sadie and it was worked out wonderfully. Sadie is a little sweetheart and not aggressive at all until Kodi lunges at her and then she flips on his back and puts a paw on his chest to hold him. That has done wonders for his attitude. After all these months he is starting to try and play with her. So progress is being made.

One even recently when my wife was at an event at night, Kodi was all morose, walking around with his tail hanging down. I took my favorite throw and just put it on the floor by my chair. He quit whining and went over, laid down on it and went to sleep. He likes me okay but after he bit me early last spring and I had to go to urgent care and get four stitches I am very leery of him. I got a new knee in February and got strict instructions that if I get a dog bite to get an antibiotic right away. They said the bacteria will go the metal in my new knee and there could be complications.

Little Sadie is having a tough time this winter. Kodi has a thick enough coat it doesn’t bother him. Sadie loves playing outside but she gets cold and heads for a throw to snuggle up in.

And Lizzy, the sweetest of the three. It is hard to get a sleep photo of her because she always wakes up. She was fast asleep on the couch and woke up when I got close.

Our animals are such a blessing to us.

Saturday’s Critters

Saturday’s Critters – At Home and in the Woods

A variety of critters for this week.

This is our sweet cat Lizzy.

This is our sweet terrier mix, Sadie in a rare moment of napping. She is always on the go. No photos of the Pomeranian Kodi this week.

We play fetch several times a day. She never gets tired of it. I quit before she ever does. She’s our cheerful dog. This is how we started out Thanksgiving morning. Over and over again. (only a ten second video)

My wife’s cousin sent me a couple of photos of the cows on their ranch in Western Oklahoma.

Another photo of the cows at the ranch.

This is my own photo of a cow, I went hiking on a rails to trails trail in Osage County. It cuts through ranchland on an old railroad bed. I know nothing about cows but they always act curious when people show up.

I went hiking on Tulsa’s Turkey Mountain Wilderness Area early Friday morning. My friend and I saw this deer checking us out.

I attended a geocaching event at Tulsa’s Mohawk Park and encountered these people horseback riding through the park.

That’s it for this week. I am linking with Saturday’s Critters.

Saturday’s Critters – White Tailed Deer of Oxley Nature Center

During a hike at Oxley Nature Center last Sunday I saw a few deer out and about. They were not in the open they were in brush and trees. So I got to practice simultaneously manual focusing, and aperture. Not that good at it but I got a few decent photos.

I love seeing deer out in the wild.

It is always so unexpected.

Saturday’s Critters

Saturday’s Critters – The Last Cardinal of Fall

Nobody naps as hard or as peacefully as our Lizzy the cat. She loves taking naps on the back of our sofa. Sometimes she’ll use one of the dog beds.

I walked into our family room the other day and all three critters were staring at me. What were they up to? I never figured it out. From left to right is Kodi the Pomeranian, Lizzy the Cat, and Sadie the terrier.

I’m a bad efeeder owner. I let the feeder run out of food and just plain forgot about it. I decided to take it down, clean it out and store it for a little while. While checking the app, the only bird that showed up the last several weeks was this lonely, hungry male cardinal. Boy did I feel bad. It’s only an 11 second video.

I’m linking with Eileen’s Saturday’s Critters. Go check it out, lots of animal lovers and great photobloggers link up with her.

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