Tag Archives: Skywatch Friday

Woodward Park Skies and a Moon

I was loving the light and the reflections

My son not only has a BA in History, last summer he finished a certificate program to be a paralegal. He is working his way through the formal certification tests and has been looking for a job as a paralegal.

Oklahoma Fall Color is a lot of yellows and browns.

He got a call asking for him to interview a law firm in mid town Tulsa for a paid intern paralegal job. So at the appointed time I drove him to the firm and then headed out to nearby Woodward Park to wander around, see what I can see, and maybe take a few photos.

Stumbled on a wedding going on. I wish them a long and fulfilling marriage.

It was late in the day, the sun was low and the shadows were long and it was a beautiful Oklahoma autumn day. Autumn here lasts ridiculously long.

So I wandered around doing my thing and when I was about finished, son called and said he was done. I picked him up and he said the interview went well and they would let him know in a few days.

They came through with a full time, paid, temporary intern job at a salary about 50% higher than the box store job that he has. So of course he said yes.

The sculpture is Rosalind Cook. A very talented artists who is retired and lives in Tulsa. This is named “Poems and Promises” and was a gift from Ms. Cook and her husband to the City of Tulsa.

Monday morning my wife took him to work and I picked him up at the end of the day. I have picked him up after work countless times over the years and he never had the big smile that he had that day. He had a great first day. He was nervous at first but his training kicked in. He had such a sense of accomplishment.

I don’t know who the artist is for this work but this little lady is going to get pretty frosty this winter. I have photos of her with a robe made of snow.

His boss sent him an email saying he did well.

Appeal to the Great Spirit. I have been posting a lot recently of this sculpture. I love it even though it is controversial to some degree for cultural misappropriation. I’m pretty “woke” especially for Oklahoma but sometimes a scupture is a sculpture.

His second day went well also.

I fired up my Hyperspektiv App and made a glitchy video of the work. I kind of like it.

Who knows where this is going, they only promised a temporary job, but for now his Mom and I are happy just enjoying the work he is doing.

IMG_3610_HDR — It kind of looks like a skinned grapefruit.

And here is that moon I promised you. The full Beaver Moon shot a few days ago in my back yard.

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday

Skywatch Friday – The New Gilcrease Museum and the Old Gilcrease Mansion

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Tulsa has a great western themed museum, The Gilcrease Museum, which has a great collection of art and documents collected by oilman Thomas Gilcrease. He found out that oil prices can go down, just like they go up and he ended up selling his collection to the City of Tulsa back in the 1950’s. The city acted quickly and the museum was established on the grounds of Gilcrease’s estate.

The original museum was cobbled together over time with a collection of additions but it became unwieldy to manage and reportedly the lack of good climate control endangered the collection. So the citizens of Tulsa passed another bond issue and got a lot of private money as well. The original museum was closed in 2021 and knocked down (after the art was moved off site of course.) The new museum was started and the exterior is almost finished so one recent Sunday afternoon I packed up my camera and drone headed off to see what I could see. The new building is very modern and beautiful and overlooks the Osage Hills to the west.

And you have a good view of downtown Tulsa to the southeast. The museum sits up on a hill. I remember looking at it through binoculars from office downtown.

Also on the property is Gilcrease’s old mansion. I think it is empty now. Reportedly ghosts inhabit it and the formal garden. There is Thomas Gilcrease and seven Native American children who lived in the house as orphans. It all sounds very ghostly to me. I’ve been there a number of times and looked through the windows and taken lots of photos and I’ve not seen any manifestations. But hey you never know.

The house is pretty cool with a big porch wrapped around three sides. It doesn’t quite seem big enough to be a mansion. I love the green tile roof. You know that it produces quite a clatter during our Oklahoma hailstorms.

I’d sure like to check out the inside though. It looks like some sort of sunroom upstairs here.

Here is a view of the museum. You can see it is very close to the house.

Some autumn color on the northwest side of the house. I love the covered driveway. I don’t think there is a garage.

The roof sprawls. I guestimate a cost of one gazillion dollars to replace it.

The new museum is due to open in 2026. They have to complete the interior then they have to install the art. I’ll be leaning on the door when they open it.

Check out the museum web site. They have 28,000 works of art in their digital museum which you can visit for free!!

I am linking with Skywatch Friday

Family Fun at the Tulsa Botanic Garden

A couple weeks ago or so we loaded up the family and headed up to the Tulsa Botanic Garden. They always have good stuff to see in the Fall.

We checked out the scarecrows and decided it was a down year for them. These were my favorites.

A stiff breeze was flying and our flag was flying proudly. It reminds me for my fellow US Citizens. Vote on November 5th, unless you have already done so.

The garden had opened up something new. An arboretum with a pergola at the top. The pergola had rocking chairs so the other two appropriated those.

The cover of the pergola was cool! All these leaves in it. Made a great pattern on the ground.

And the beams on the side, reflections, projections and shadows. I love little details like this. Costs a lot of money but hey that is what rich donors are for, right?

When the water is running I always take a short video of the water running down the terraces.

We went for hike on their trail. It is a cool trail than meanders through the woods and prairie sections.

One immediately sees that they have had a controlled burn fairly recently. I love good controlled burns. It clears out the undergrowth, kills invasive species and opens up the forests for a more natural and healthy effect.

I was sure glad to see it.

And then we went to the Childrens Garden section. I guess I am wondering if the parents threaten to feed their kids to the monster there if they don’t behave?

We had a great time!!

I am linking with Skywatch Friday

Skywatch Friday – New Perspectives!

I went out to the Tulsa History Center to check on the revamped installation of the Oklahoma’s Five Moons. The installation had been damaged by some dummy who stole one of the metal sculptures and then tried to sell it at a metal recycling place. To their credit the recyclers called the police and the guy was apprehended. The sculpture took some time to be repaired and the History redesigned the installation.

Left to Right: Maria Tallchief, Marjorie Tallchief, Yvonne Chouteau (in front), Moscelyne Larkin, Rosella Hightower.

The Five Moons are five Native American ballerinas from Oklahoma who achieved worldwide fame in the late 1940’s and 1950’s. After their performing days were over they became instructors and promoters of their art. Here is a good summary of their careers.

I brought along my drone this day. I have many photos of the ballerinas but they are all on stands and up in the air so I thought that with the drone would provide a new perspective. And I think it worked pretty well.

It was a windy day and my little featherweight drone was struggling to stay in one place but I made it happen.

The lady in the background in the photo above showed up in the middle of my flight and asked what I was doing in a friendly manner. We got to talking and turns out that she is an Urban Sketcher. Which I have come to find out means to sketch on location. So kind of like being an instagrammer except on paper. I thought it was very interesting. You can find out more about Urban Sketching here. She is on instagram as well so we followed each other. We also talked about the Five Moons. We both agreed that not five Oklahoman’s out of hundred know who the Five Moons are. Which is a shame.

So buoyed by my experience with the Five Moons I headed over to nearby Woodward Park and launched the drone on the “Appeals to the Great Spirit” Sculpture. It is really tall.

I think the overhead shot adds to the effect of the sculpture here as well.

It just goes to show that you don’t have to fly way high to use a drone effectively.

I am linking with Skywatch Friday and My Corner of the World.

Here is a previous post on the Five Moons

Skywatch Friday – In the Neighborhood

Here’s a sunrise one morning from our driveway

And a sunset from the same driveway on a different day

And some trees changing color at Pepsi Lake on Turkey Mountain.

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday

360 Degree Skywatch over my Backyard in Tulsa

Recently I posted some sunset photos from my drone. I had forgotten that I made a 360 video of the same thing. A video from my drone at 150 meters over my backyard.

It’s only 35 seconds long.

I start out looking straight west and then go to the right. Not often you get color everywhere one looks at sunset.

I am linking with Skywatch Friday.

Skywatch Friday – Oklahoma Sunset

The other day the sky looked promising for a decent sunset. It seems the best conditions are high thin clouds. If they are too thick they kind of smother the sun and you get no color. And the thing is the colors don’t last so you have to be ready to go or the opportunity is gone. So I was home, my drone batteries were charged up so I launched it from the back yard.

If you are lucky, and I was that day, you get opposite sunsets which is where you get colors in any direction. So this is looking north.

And this is looking south.

And this was the west, the day before.

And this is looking down. You can see my orange landing pad. I do think that is my new roof. We color matched it to the old roof so there it looks the same. I do only periscope flights. I go straight up from the backyard and look around and then come back down. I don’t fly the drone over other people’s property or anywhere where I can’t just legally walk over and pick it up if something goes wrong. That’s just me though.

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday

Skywatch Friday – Grab Bag of Skies

Tuesday I noticed that there was a hole in the sky so I took a photo of the hole.

I love power plants, especially those powered by natural gas and if they light up really good and have a cool sign then so much the better. This is Public Service Company’s Tulsa Power Station located on the Arkansas River in Tulsa.

This is a backyard sunrise shot from earlier this week.

And a shot of my neighbor’s sprinkler reflecting the sunset one day against a cool sky. Hey I’m opportunist and don’t apologize for it.

And this is from back in 2012 when our family went to Seattle for our vacation. We took a day trip to Mount Rainier National Park. I tried to take this photo but we were blacked out because the sky and the mountain was so bright. I figured out how to correct that on the iphone Lightroom app using their new masking capability, and I was able to bring us out from the dark. You can tell that I didn’t do that good a job on the masking but you know sometimes enough is enough.

I am linking with Skywatch Friday

Skywatch Friday – To the Moon and back to Earth

Wednesday night was the Full Harvest Moon in Tulsa. Fortunately we had clear skies in Tulsa.

A friend in Arizona asked me if we had a lunar eclipse going on and I said, not as far as I know. Right after that the local news came on with a shot of eclipse so I grabbed my camera and went out and got my own shot.

Went on a bike ride again earlier this week. My knee held up pretty well and I was kind of babying it a little anyway. Anyway, I took another photo of our brand new dam and pedestrian bridge across the Arkansas River here in Tulsa. This is a view from the southwest side.

And this is a view from the northeast side. The river sure looks good with water in it.

And I rode back to my car down the east side of the river. Stopped for this photo. The hill on the other bank is the Turkey Mountain Urban Wilderness Area.

Sunday night I was taking our refuse and recycling carts to the curb for weekly pickup and I noticed this reflection of the sunset. Photographers are always droning on about leading lines. So after nearly 70 years of picture taking I finally got a leading line. So proud of myself.

I am linking with Skywatch Friday and My Corner of the World.

Skywatch Friday – Sunset with Half Moon

I got sidelined for a few days with a sore knee. I finally went to the bone doctor and he gave me a range of treatment options from continue using OTC Ibuprofen to getting a steroid injected in the knee to a “surgical solution.” I opted the steroid in the knee. And it helped but I’m not 100% yet. We’ll just have to see how it goes.

I’ve been out and about. My wife and I had our 35th anniversary the other day and so we went to the zoo and 16,000 steps later my knee was calling my name!!! It felt great at first.