I get lots of skywatch photos from my front and back yards, and that is great except…
The Overlook on Tulsa’s Turkey Mountain
I like getting out as well.
On our street looking east. I love this mackerel sky.
Another day, looking west again.
We have no daffodils in our yard though. Gotta drive to them.
I always love a flag snapping in a strong, cold, spring breeze.
The school where I tutor a first grader is honoring all their teachers, administrators, cafeteria workers, janitors, tutors and everyone else who helps out.
The other day the knee was feeling strong so I fired up the electric mower and got the job done.
On another day the wife and I went to a big box store and bought some cushions for our patio furniture. The cushions were cool but these roosters take a better photo. Can you believe stores let you walk in and take pictures of their stuff? Some stores say no photos but I ignore those signs.
The afternoon after I mowed, I decided to go take a hike at Turkey Mountain on a little bit more challenging trail. Only a mile long but the killer was about 300 feet of elevation change.
Here is some switchbacks on the 300 ft climb.
I loved the br
You can tell I really liked the bridge since I took two photos of it.
I was out and about in Tulsa’s Woodward Park the other day looking for daffodils and tulips when I found this family of cardinals. Dad, at the top, Mom and a couple of chicks.
I had my macro lens on my “good camera” so I got a closeup of dad. I think he is close to needing a touchup.
One day back in early December I was a little early picking son up from work. So I ventured over to nearby Woodward Park and took some photos.
It’s a small park but it is loaded with trees, ponds, and other interesting things to explore.
Still lots of Fall Color back then and they had a pond that made for some good reflections.
The sun was low, so much the better for the light.
Plus it was still warm in the late afternoon.
And I was shooting RAW using the Halide App for my iphone. Shooting RAW eats up memory and the plain photos are awful to look at but you can run it through Lightroom or Snapseed and since to get them looking better.
So i had me a ball taking photos for about 15 minute before I had to go fetch the kid.
I ran one photo through my DynamicAutoPainter Program.
And this is a jigsaw puzzle that I recently completed of the Canyonlands area of the Southwest USA. I didn’t take the photo so I don’t own the copyright but I am sure somebody does. It was a lot easier to do than I thought it was going to be. First I did all the edge pieces then I did the edge of sky vs land and then the no cloud vs clear sky andthen there were all sorts of horizontal lines to work on. It was fun.
I had an hour to kill before before picking up son from his work the other day so I ventured over to nearby Woodward Park to see what I could see. The sun was getting low, which is great if you love taking pictures!!
I have taken lots of images of the greenhouse over the years. I think it is a beautiful structure. You notice I got a shadow selfie here.
This is the nearby Carriage House of the Tulsa Garden Center. The Garden Center started out life back in the early 20th century as the mansion of an oilman. Back in the day, the female servants had spaces to sleep in the attic of the mansion. The male servants were quartered in the second floor of the Carriage House. No upstairs/downstairs hanky panky here!!
This is Carl Linnaeus and his shadow in the nearby Linnaeus Demonstration Gardens.
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.
Got me a silhouette
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.
More reflections
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.
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.
Here’s a sculptural critter, some sort of heron I think at the Linnaeus Demonstration Gardens.
And another artistic critter. This little girl on the back of a turtle at the Tulsa Botanic Garden.
I hardly ever use my drone for critter photography and this is “Appeal to the Great Spirit” at Woodward Park. I used my drone to get a different perspective on this sculpture.
In the backyard I got this squirrel getting his photo taken.
And a bunny out past 3 am.
And this leaping squirrel.
And some birds buzzing the backyard on a high speed low altitude run.
And these guys going for suet feeder.
And a Canadian Goose at Woodward Park contemplating the pros and cons of staying vs migrating.
Appeal to the Great Spirit sculpture by Cyrus Dallin.
The sculpture has an interesting history. Their are lots of copies out in the world. The original is at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Read the Wikipedia Article.
I have 27 photos of this sculpture in my archives. I feel drawn to it whenever I visit Woodward Park. These photos are from 2014.
A wedge of Geese at Tulsa’s Woodward Park. (I just love the various collective nouns for the different kinds of birds.)
Also at Woodward Park, an equestrian sculpture, “Appeal to the Great Spirit.” It used to be at high school in Tulsa that got torn down. Fortunately it was saved. The original was by Cyrus Dallin in 1909 and is on display at the Boston Museum of Fine Art.
A bison mural I found while working an Adventure Lab Geocache.
And I was in a creek bottom in south Tulsa replacing a geocache that went missing when this guy showed up to see what was going on. Usually I see snakes in this area, never any venomous snakes just rat snakes but no snakes today. I would rather see turtles.
I headed up to Tulsa’s Wooward Park to see if the Daffodils were blooming.
And oh, man!! They sure were blooming. The blooms were fresh and people hadn’t picked them, yet.
They were beautiful. There were a couple of young women sitting in amongst them (they were carefully making sure they were not trampling photos) and taking selfies. Usually I take photos of all people doing selfies but I left them alone to enjoy the flowers. They were probably taking photos of me and posting about the creepy old guy lurking about.
They also had lots of hyacinths.
And tulips
They had forsythia shrubs blooming
And rebuds. I’ve always loved that stone staircase.
The big trees don’t have their leaves yet.
And they still have remnants of trees knocked down on during our Father’s Day Windstorm in 2023.
