My wife and I were taking our dog for a walk the other day and we came upon this guy/gal. INaturalist says it is a Ruddy Shelduck. It had three friends nearby and they had a very cool vocalization that I did not capture. I come to find out that a neighboring subdivision owns them and they escape quite frequently.
My wife put up bird feeders and the grackles really appreciate it. Talk about loud and noisy though.
Lizzy gave me a big yawn when I was trying to get a portrait.
Here is a sculpture at a nearby park of a dog flushing some bobwhite quail.
We visited Tulsa’s Botanic Gardens today and in addition to the beautiful flowers, shrubs, and other plantings they had an exhibit of animals made out of Legos by an artist. This is a spiny anteater.
That’s a wrap for this week. I am linking with Eileen’s Saturday’s Critters. Check it out.
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.
I had some time so I went to check out the “The Herd” at Tulsa’s Lafortune Park. The county parks department commissioned an installation of a herd of bison at Lafortune Park. They had been there forever but wrapped up in plastic so I noticed that the plastic had been taken off so I went to check it out.
Here’s the little red dog or calf.
Here’s the dad. A huge old bull.
And the mom. As with all species the hardest working family member of all. I didn’t get very good photos. Taking photos of bronzes in full sun is some thing I need to work on.
So I sneaked off from the Herd and around the side of the little league ball parks.
And found a geocache. This is unique because it was actually 3D printed from a computer app. That takes geocaching up a notch from the recycled Bismati Rice plastic jars that I like to use.
And then I went by this pond on my wat back to the car. I can’t go by a fountain or pond without taking a photo. This one has a bit of a rainbow on the left side.
It is July 4 Season where we celebrate the Declaration of Independence gaining our freedom from Great Britain. A day of fireworks and eating way too much. Our family will be going to Tulsa’s Veteran’s Park to watch the fireworks show, and eat too much.
Tulsa’s Gilcrease Museum has a certified copy of the Declarationsof Independence and for the first time in several years they brought it out of the vaults and put it on display to the public and so I went and checked it out. It was awe inspiring to see it and astonishing to see how faded it was. They were allowing photographs and I did not take one because it would not have been a good photo. Still, being able to view such an ancient, important, and foundational document was uplifting.
After I viewed the Declaration of Independence I wandered outside and found some flowers.
I also found a fabric art installation by Rachel Hayes. I used by Lensball to take a photo of it.
And I ventured further into their grounds (which are not gated and are free!!!) to the far end to see the Frontier Woman Statue. That lady has been churning butter and looking to see something for about twenty years now. Probably waiting on her husband to come home.
And their is this cabin nearby. The door is always open and I always close it because there is nothing worth looking at inside and it takes a better photo with the door shut. Otherwise I get this big dark spot right in the middle of the photo.
And I stopped by on the way back to the parking lot I stopped to say hello to the Twins. That is the name of this sculpture by Jay O’Meilia. I love it.
July 4, 2019 Tulsa, Oklahoma
Thanks for staying with me on this meandering SWF post, that doesn’t show much sky.
It is incredible how they time the fireworks. Here is a double stack.
Of course this being an American blog, you can expect some fireworks as we celebrated the Declaration of Independence on July 4.
Triple Stack
A couple of my Brit friends posted “Happy Treason Day, You Ungrateful Colonists” on facebook. All in good fun of course. At least I think it was all in good fun.
Quadruple Stack!!!
Enough of fireworks!!! How about a stainless steel tree!!
Tulsa’s Howard Park right on Route 66 in the city’s gritty industrial west side has a brand spanking new monument consisting of three big sculpted pillars of Indiana Limestone by Utah artist Patrick Sullivan.
The pillars depict Tulsa sights like Cain’s Ballroom, art deco architecture, the energy, aviation, and railroad industries and Native American heritage.
I love stuff like this. This monument is here to stay. An F5 tornado may topple them but they are not going anywhere.
An article from Route 66 News with video and a lot of the backstory on the monument and the artist who created it.
Friday at lunch I hauled the Nikon over to Tulsa’s Woodward Park to take some pics of stuff. You know Spring type stuff, daffodils and such. I got those pics and I got this one. Actually, this sculpture is hard to photograph decently because it is dark and the shadows and all that so I bracketed it with three photos in succession each about 2 fstops different; under exposed, right exposed, and over exposed. I then combined the three pics with some software I had and I got something halfway decent.
At least we can see her face and the background isn’t blown out. If I were a photographer instead of picture taker I could monkey around a little more but this what I get. This sculpture is named Poems and Promises and it was gifted to the City of Tulsa back in 2010 by the Sculptor, Rosalind Cook, and her husband. I think it is incredibly beautiful!!
I got to thinking that I had posted this art before and sure enough I posted some film photos back in 2012 so I went back and checked it out and and what stunned me were the first two commenters: EG CameraGirl and Birdman. EG CameraGirl was a Canadian blogger whopassed away at the end of February as a result of car accident where her husband died and Birdman was from Maine and died of a heart attack just after retiring from a long career as a high school teacher.
They were both full of life and had unique blogs and were lively, interesting, and humorous comments and both very encouraging. I never met either one in real life but I feel that I knew them. I know that I miss them both. So this post is dedicated to them.
