A sunrise this morning. We have a new dog, Sadie, and she gets up early, and that means we get up early with her. You dog owners know that when the dog gets up you better take it outside right away or face the consequences.
A neighborhood skyshot and reflection.
My volunteer gig with the Tulsa Urban Wilderness Coalition is kicking in. It’s Earth Day season. Here is me and my friend Marci at the local electric utilities employee Earth Day event.
And at a community event a couple days later in downtown Tulsa.
And speaking of electric utility, here is there power plant on the Arkansas River.
And the boat shed at Tulsa’s Gathering Place.
Here is my wife Heather. We attended a fund raiser for the local botanic garden. It was called “Sip and Stroll” so that we sipped and strolled, noshed appetizers and talked to people. Our first grownup date in a while and it was fun.
It had been raining in the gardens so the iris’s had raindrops on them. I love raindrops on flowers.
Here is the Full Pink Moon from just a few days ago. It’s not pink. It has not ever really been pink. Now if you insist, I have the skillz and appz to make it pink.
From the Tulsa Botanic Garden. They had ultralife size origami, only with other materials and they called it florigami. It was cool, I’m guessing this is a giant begonia. Sorry if I am wrong, I often am.
And these are some big lillies.
And these are some tulips.
My gym is part of a hospital system that I think spends more on landscaping than they do on medical stuff (I’m kidding.) So these are the tulips from my gym. Does your gym have tulips? Maybe you need a cheaper gym. Maybe I do also.
Me leaving PT earlier this week cuz I hit 120 degrees on the knee bend test. That is a critical point in knee replacement physical therapy. Hurts like you know what but things are getting better quickly. Also, this week I was able to get on the stationary bike and turn the pedals. That was also painful but I loved it just the same.
From my latest money making venture. I’ve been saving the families aluminum cans for a long time. My wife gave me the ultimatum that they needed to be gone by the time book group starts or she’ll get rid of them for me. Hey she never asks me for a thing or ever gets mean or anything so we she makes a request I’m all over it. (most of the time). So I bagged them up and weighed them. 30 pounds!!
Drove 22 miles to a metals recycling place in north Tulsa. Got in line drove through the hole into the building. They threw my bags on scales and they suddenly weighed 17 pounds. Got paid in cash and I’m still trying figure out where my missing 13 pounds of cans went. To be fair, the scales are literally big enough to drive a car onto so I am not surprised that they are not true in the entire range. I’m not sure that I cleared a profit but hey I got to see a different part of Tulsa society. I sure lead a sheltered life is all I am going to say.
Went for a walk and found these small bluish-purply blooms and thought they were pretty cool. Just so you know, in Oklahoma, bluish-purply is word.
Last Sunday our family celebrated a birthday, mine. A big milestone birthday, 70. Oops, how did that happen. I’m still here. Heather made me a great breakfast of blueberry pancakes, eggs, and bacon. It was great.
And then we headed to the Tulsa Botanic Garden. Their tulips were peak, in my opinion. It was a little overcast which makes the colors pop!!
All sorts of different colors and varieties.
As a bonus, they had a “florigami” exhibition going on. Florigami is like life sized origami. The works on display were incredible.
I loved this huge florigami tulip on top of the hill overlooking the gardens.
The tulips were everywhere. I have about twenty times as many photos of tulips as what will show up in this post and instagram. Oh well, I got them if I need them.
They had some beautiful wisteria also.
https://flic.kr/p/2qWghXi
And rotating florigami.
I stole this photo from Heather’s facebook page.
And then we went to Eerie Abbey Ales in downtown Tulsa and had a beer.
And then the nearby La Tertulia restaurant for some decent New Mexico style Mexican food. Green chili enchiladas.
Home for birthday cake. This one lasted three days. I love sheetcake birthday cakes.
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 went on a family outing to the Tulsa Botanic Garden. Lots of cool things to look at including this shadow featuring a handrail and other elements of steps in the garden.
For Father’s Day early this month, Heather and Logan treated me to an outing at the Tulsa Botanic Garden.
I see where taking photos at an angle is artistic, so here we are.
I loaded up my macro lens and off we went. I love taking photos of the blooms as wells as the whole plant. I know very little about flowers but I love the colors.
I loved the colorful yarrow
And all the other flowers
Daylillies were putting on a show.
I couldn’t get enough of them.
Zinnias are always a favorite.
The garden arranged for several sports cars at a local museum to be on display as well. I love the Jaguar E type. Who doesn’t love a twelve cylinder engine.
Vintage Corvette’s are the best.
And an MG-TC. A beautiful car.
I posted this photo on my of my blog entries last week. I didn’t know what the deal was. I called the Garden’s office on Wednesday and they told me that these bison are moved down to the gardens as part of their Christmas light show. So I will have to check it out later this year. Mystery solved.
On a recent trip to the Tulsa Botanic Garden they displayed a Lego Lawnmower in a Shadow!! It would be nice if it worked but it would probably shake itself into thousands of pieces.
Happy Easter to you and your family. Also, Lego Easter Bunnies!
A momma goose sitting on a nest on a sandbar in a creek flowing the through the grounds of Philbrook Museum of Art. Her mate was busy chasing people away, including us.
A little chubby squirrel snacking on the grounds of Philbrook.
Another squirrel perturbed by us sitting out on our patio.
Kodi the Pomeranian loves laying out in the sun.
A grackle getting a drink.
Kodi loves finding sticks. He exchanges them for a treat. Is that a spoiled brat looking face or what!
Lizzy the Cat gets kind of talkative every now and then. Critters are a hoot.
Another Lego critter from our trip to the Tulsa Botanic Garden. This one is a dodo bird. Which is extinct.
I have been busy. I love being busy. Especially being retired and doing the things I want to do.
I went out to Turkey Mountain and checked out the new board walk they installed over the western rock faces of the mountain. This is an area called Rock City and I love how they put the walk right in and over the boulders using cedar that was cut on the mountain.
It is a small network of new trails interconnecting with two trails, one on top of the rock faces and one below. I bet it would be fun on a bicycle. It looks like they put a mesh on top of the cedar to add a little traction for the bikes. You slip off the wood on a bike it would ruin your whole day. Me and gravity are not friends these days so I will never take my bike across this.
I ventured back to the parking lot on the Tiger Muffin trail. It’s the trail name for a friend of mine.
Last Saturday I put my cold weather gear on and joined a bunch of people from the Tulsa Urban Wilderness Coalition and Bike Club to clean up a trail called Mooser Creek Greenway. It had a lot of tree falls from Tulsa’s Father’s Day windstorm last year. The trails were cleared back then but a lot of the downed were a little unsightly. Plus there is a never ending chore of repairing erosion and wet spots on trails.
So I helped clear the limbs and trunks that were being cut up by people with chain saws.
I love the trail work days. Tulsa really responds to stuff like that and all sorts of people show up to help. I got a promotion with the Wilderness Coalition. I am now the Vice President of Government Affairs. My trail job didn’t change much. Moving limbs and cut up trunks off the trail is what I do along with whatever else needs doing.
Later that day Heather and I went out to the Tulsa Botanic Garden to check out the flowers and new projects.
They have added an event space in the middle of the pond. They are also converting some wild land they had into an arboretum. They have done a good job adding onto the gardens and it is getting more and more settled as time goes on.
The tulips put on a quite a show. Last year when we went some deer had gone into the gardens ate a bunch of the tulips and other plants.
They also had Lego animals scattered around the garden. I love this woodpecker.
And I always love redbuds. The Eastern Redbud is the State Tree of Oklahoma.
The Daffodils were putting on a show even though their time is short.
This was my favorite tulip. It looked black in the sun but is actually a deep purple. This one is the only one I spotted.
And to end up, we had an almost full moon the other day. I captured the image in the late afternoon so it was almost a daytime moon. I love the moon in all its presentations but I especially love a good daytime moon.
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.
