The other day Heather and I went to Joe’s Farm in Bixby to get a few things. The sign above is from previous years. This year the farm didn’t grow any produce, they planted a cover crop to replenish the soil. They still had blackberries and flowers as well as produce from other farms to sell. Heather loves blackberries and asked if the blackberries were still available. The lady there said they are pretty much all gone but if we wanted to we could see if we could find some for and gave us a container to put them in. So off we went.
We passed the fruit trees.
And before you get to the big tree you hang a right and…
And there are the blackberry bushes. I had never picked blackberries so…
I asked Heather, are these blackberries and she said yes but they are not ripe. The ripe ones are very dark. Okay, I get it. And the blackberries were pretty much all picked over but we went up and down several rows and gathered enough to fill the container. It was fun, kind of like geocaching, except for berries.
And then on the way back we stopped and looked at the flowers. They sell cut yourself flowers. Photos are free! And yes I used a filter on the photo above (and below). Flower photos demand impressionistic filters is what I think.
I forgot to take a photo of the blackberries we picked. Heather made a blackberry crisp out of them and that was pretty tasty.
The Big Burn was a giant forest fire in August, 2010, that ended up consuming three million acres in Idaho and Montana. Upward of ten thousand men fought the fire, 78 of whom died during the fight.
US Forest Service photo – Yellow Lake Fire in Utah, 2024
The devastating fire caused the US Forest Service to change the way they fought fire. You see, the Big Burn started out as dozens of small fires that converged into the destructive force it became. The thinking went, we are going to put out the small fires as soon as we can so they can’t join other fires. So when a fire was spotted it was put out as soon as possible.
US Forest Service photo – Yellow Lake Fire in Utah, 2024
That’s great except fire isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Fire does a lot of good. It clears out and thins the forest. Fire is needed to grow some trees. For example lodgepole pine trees have serotinous pine cones which means they need high temperature to open up and disperse their seeds. (My dad was a forest ranger and this was his favorite lesson to tell people about why fires are not necessarily bad.)
US Forest Service photo, 2024 Babylon Fire Manti-La Sal National Forest, Utah (My father worked on the Manti-La Sal National Forest back in the 1960’s)
So after decades of such policy allowed the amount of fuel in our forests to grow. You couple this with global warming (yep it’s a thing) and the fires of today are nothing like the fires my father and his coworkers fought fifty years ago. This is having an effect on people’s lives. For example, one place where we used to live years ago was in the White Mountains of Arizona. I try and keep up with things and the fire situation has gotten so bad that insurance companies are not renewing policies for people who moved out to the woods to be by themselves. The risks are too high.
Shasta-Trinity National Forest firefighters practice digging a containment line during readiness review exercises near McCloud, California, June 3, 2025. (USDA Forest Service photo by Bob Doucette) (Hey I happen to know Bob Doucette!)
The Big Burn is a great book with a compelling story. It is mainly about the birth of the Forest Service and how the Big Burn helped solidify their start. It is also about Theodore Roosevelt and he is always fun to read about.
Sunday morning I rode my bike up and down the west side of the Arkansas River. It was hot, and I was exhausted at the end of my 14 mile ride but I was happy. I had my trail camera on my bike capturing the scenery including lots of other bicyclists, walkers, runners, and escooter riders. Here is a collage of a few of the people I saw.
We continue to get a lot of rain here in Tulsa. When it rains and I want to go hiking I use one of the sustainable trails in town rather than splash through the mud on my regular haunts. So this time I went to Ray Harral Nature Center in Broken Arrow, OK. Their trails are mainly asphalt with some gravel.
There are always lots of birds at Ray Harral but I hardly ever see them. At least with the Merlin App I can figure out what they are. I got lucky this time.
I spotted a couple of cardinals and they stood still long enough for me to get a fuzzy photo (or maybe phuzzy photo) of them. One in a shrub.
And one on the ground.
I saw a couple squirrels as well. In town they are not shy at all, out in the woods they hide. So I got one in a tree.
And another on the ground.
And this is our son, Logan, captured mowing the yard with my trailcam. He got offered a job yesterday (and accepted it) as a full-time paralegal for a law firm here in town. He’s worked very hard to get to this point. We are very proud of him. He’s going to have to give up shorts and tee shirts in exchange for a shirt and tie but hey, he can do it.
Earlier this month I was at the Y taking a yoga class. When I went in, the weather was sunny. When I got out, the ground was soaked and the skies were full of clouds that had lots of rain still in them.
Looking South
Looking East
Looking West
We had had torrential rain. I drove home, about four miles and it was dry as a bone.
We had a Full Buck Moon on July 10. Clear skies so I was able to get a halfway decent image of it.
Not my photo and I don’t own the copyright.
I started working Ipad jigsaws puzzles again. I have a very old Ipad and the app wouldn’t work because I needed to upload and install a new Operating System and it wasn’t working. Drove me crazy!! So I was googling like crazy and then I got on Microsoft’s Copilot AI and asked it how do I upgrade and it said just load itunes on your laptop and then plug in your ipad to the laptop and it will upgrade all by it’s lonesome. I did it and it worked!!
This AI deal is a little scary. I asked if it would take one of my photos and make a postcard out of it and it said sure, upload a photo, and tell Copilot what text I want on the card, what style a card and it would be happy to do it. So I haven’t done it yet. Maybe I’ll have one next week.
I hope that you are all okay!! Word is that ICE is supposed to hit Oklahoma hard starting today. So pray for all us Oklahomans.
Over a week ago, several dozen trail lovers and various politicos gathered on Turkey Mountain to dedicate a new area. The Sanctuary with 88 acres (some sources say 90) and six miles of trails. The contractor has been working on the area since last fall and it is now fully opened up. It is on Turkey Mountain but across the street from the main area of the park.
The trails were built on land already owned by Tulsa RiverParks through a $2 million grant from the Daryl and Julie Christner Foundation. Above is a family representative talking about how his dad loved being outdoors. I saw him later leading a group of mountain bikers on the trails.
I was standing right next to Oklahoma’s Lieutenant Governer, Mike Pinell. Rather than take point blank photo, I took a picture of his cowboy boots. So I am on oil and gas twitter (or X if you must) and one of the ongoing things there, tongue in cheek, is that round toed boots are lame and square toed boots are cool. You can see he is wearing round toes. I elected not to call him out on that. (True confession, I have two pairs of square toe boots and one of round toes.) His big mission as lieutenant governor is publicizing and pushing Oklahoma and he does a good job of it.
He talked about how everybody is always welcome at Turkey Mountain. He also said that Tulsa is the most philanthropic city in America and how many public private partnerships go on here. He mentioned that Oklahoma has 34 sovereign nations within our borders (talking about the Native American tribes) and twelve ecosystems.
So the speeches were limited, and then everyone was invited to hike a quarter mile to treehouse for refreshments.
So off we went. I had a peanut butter cookie and chatted with a few people I knew.
That’s the heaviest duty treehouse I have ever seen.
I studied on the posted map a little bit and decided I was going to go on a hike.
I love the trails. They are all single track and some of them are pretty rocky. So you have to kind of pick your way carefully, especially if you are an old codger.
It was a bright sunny day, and there are lots of trees so there were lots of shadows.
I head lots of birds but they wouldn’t come out and sit still for a photo.
At one of the trail hubs I found this headboard. I was thinking. I have seen that before!!
I saw it in 2014 when this was all privately owned and some outlaw trail builders built their own trails on the property. Take a look to the left and behind the headboard.
It’s an oil well! A relic of Turkey Mountain’s past. It looked familiar as well.
So here is my wife and son at the same well eleven years ago.
So we were pioneers of the Sanctuary. Somebody got hurt crossing the road back to the main part of Turkey Mountain and the owners of the property posted it and so exploration of the property came to an end.
Enough of past history. I finished my hike and went through the moongate at the main entrance. I just love moon gates.
So a little over two miles. A friend and I hiked about three miles on a different route a few days later.
At least one Tulsa News Station had a crew there. Channel 6 news. Check the link for several videos.
And another real critter. This is Sadie, our rescue terrier. She is very energetic and wants all the love. She is very sweet.
And sculptural. Somebody made an Adventure Lab geocache using some of the animal sculptures on Tulsa’s RiverParks trails. This is what I call the Bear Fountain. It’s a nice place to rest on a bike ride.
And a bobcat trying get duck or something. Very lifelike.
And some otters frolicking.
I completed the Adventure Lab. Completing it is its own reward!!
And here is a 20 second video showing some of the birds that visited my camera feeder this week.
I went on a bike ride at Tulsa River Parks on a pretty clear day the other day. The trail runs north and south, I always check a weather app to see which the way the wind is blowing. I like the wind at my back wind I am heading back to my car.
It was a south wind so I started close to the north end of the trail system. I love this mural and it’s setting on the river.
I went a mile further north and crossed the river at the 11th street bridge and took this photo looking south.
We had some nice clouds that day. I love fluffy white clouds.
I crossed over to the west side of the river and went a couple miles south and crossed over the Williams Crossing pedestrian bridge. You can see that the river is still running full. The Arkansas River’s basin is huge. It starts close to the Rocky Mountains in Colorado so if is rainy there is potential for a lot of water.
I looked the other way to the refinery oil storage tanks. I was reminded of one time when I was on the bridge and group of people came by and one of them wondered what the tanks were for. One said it is for the refinery, another one said with air of authority, that those were water storage tanks for the city of Tulsa’s water system because everybody knows oil storage tanks are illegal inside city limits. Just so you know, the Arkansas River water is pretty nasty. Way back when, the city layed a pipeline to a lake northeast of Tulsa and that is where most of the drinking water comes from.
I crossed back over the east side of the river and went down to what I call the Bear Fountain at 71st street. It’s a great place to rest up a few minutes. A new friend of mine hid a geocache near here. I spent some time looking for it but couldn’t find it. So I’ll try next time.
Turned around and headed north. The kayak boat ramp is closed. The river is too high and moving too fast. You’d be swept downstream fast.
So a little less than 14 flat miles at a leisurely pace. The red marker is where I started. My knee is coming along nicely. The first half mile or so is still “ouch ouch ouch” as I turn over the pedals but after that it’s fine after that. I’m still building up strength and endurance.
“The Vault” is a restaurant in downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma that was formerly a bank. It was a Mid Century Modern designed bank that incorporated rooftop parking and drive through facilities. It closed and sat empty for years until a local person converted it into a cool restaurant. They kept the circular stairs but they don’t want anybody using them. The restaurant has been in business for years now and is very popular.
