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| throwback to the good ol' Nova days |
James and I both grew up in sunny soCal where there are basically two seasons-sunny and gorgeous or sunny and fry your skin in 15 minutes. It is always bright enough to need sunglasses, warm enough to have a pool party on Christmas day, and, because of this, people get excited if there's a slight drizzle in the forecast. I suppose that's why it's a tourist destination and people pay gobs of money to live there. (Sure, there's the occasional earthquake, but it's been a while since a big one hit so no prob, right?)
We were excited to experience seasons in the southwest, even if it meant getting acquainted with the infamous Tornado Alley. At the top of our home project list when we moved in was 'install storm shelter'...aaaand now it's been over two years...no storm shelter. Oops. Too many other projects needed immediate attention; besides, we're hoping to win the free one from a lottery. Ain't no better price than free! Plus we've watched Twister a couple times so we know exactly what to do: hide under an overpass or tie yourself to a pipe. Thanks Hollywood for keeping us safe.
Fortunately we moved here a month after the 2021 polar vortex hit the area and God has been incredibly merciful in giving us relatively mild seasons.
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| March 2021-1st trip to Hafer Park |
Signs of Spring
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| ...and here they are! |
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| Daffodils pushing up... |
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| Our baby apple tree blossoming |
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| Blueberry blossoms |
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| Stunning redbud trees...my favorite |
Don't get me wrong-we are definitely in the routine of checking the weather every day. Temps can quickly jump or drop, at least compared to soCal standards. And let's just say it only takes one time of being surprised at 5 a.m. with tornado sirens and your phone's emergency broadcast system blaring into your bloodshot eyes to make you respectfully attentive to your local meteorologist...
The wind here WILL quite literally blow your socks off and is not to be reckoned with. So far we've only gone to our 'storm cubby' a few times...though it's always a good reminder of our mortality. The breathtaking thunderstorms seem to be our Creator flexing His power and beauty. Blinding lightning cracks across the skyline, thunder growls its heavy voice and rain gushes from angry clouds. I could watch it for hours. If I'm inside our cozy home that is. If I'm walking out of PetSmart with my baby girl and jet black fingers are reaching down from the heavens, I'm not so keen on waiting around to see what happens next. (Give me a few more years; then maybe I'll be on my roof like a local, lounging in a beach chair while the sirens are going.)
We recently received our largest hail and good Lordy it was loud! God was certainly golfing from the heavens and it made an impact. The pictures don't do it justice...will work to improve my photographic skills for next time.
Our first spring had gushing rainfall, more than we'd ever seen in our lives. Lush green growth was everywhere and I fell in love with gardening. Call me an old lady but I'm embracing it openly now. Okay don't call me an old lady because I'm still processing this new decade of birthdays...but you can call me a wannabe gardener. I love dirt. There are so many different kinds!!! I love seeds and the miracles they contain. I even love bugs. Well maybe not the biting ones. I'm sorry ginormous black widow for ending your date with your husband...I tell myself I saved him from heartache and cannibalism? I'm sorry army worms that you have poor timing skills and so many of you were flattened by our garage door. And I'm sorry Lord for the baby spider genocide I committed when I found (unbeknownst to me at the time) a mama wolf spider in the middle of my kitchen floor. I still feel horrible.
But MOST bugs I do stop to admire (without bringing harm to them) because they are absolutely incredible. Not only are they impressively and uniquely designed, most Oklahoma bugs are as polite as most Oklahomans themselves. They take turns swarming the state, staying for a few weeks and then dissipating when the next plague-er-population comes into town. Our first year I believe it was crane flies-soldier beetles-potato bugs-fireflies-flies-mosquitoes. The next year army worms arrived instead of the soldier beetles and wiped out all the best lawns across our county. Apparently they have expensive taste?
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| Innocent-looking army worm with insatiable appetite |
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| firefly out past its bedtime |
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| flying spider, aka ginormous crane fly that my girls abhor |
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| Oklahoma aliens, aka cicada & grasshopper skins/shells |
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| Mr. Wolf Spider... Mrs. Wolf Spider couldn't make the photo due to tragically unforeseen circumstances |
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| Beautiful little Jumpy: enjoys long walks on the trash can lid & freaking out teenage boys a bazillion times larger than her |
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| This is why you have to balance arm & leg days at the gym. *joke credit goes to my east coast bro |
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| Romantic last date night... |
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| Over-achieving zipper spider |
Almost every time I work outside, I see a new creature. Then I spend way too much time googling what it is. One time, there were tiny fairy-like stairsteps that had been swirled around the base of the watermelons. Spaced perfectly apart, with such precision, I was immediately intrigued.
Turns out that green lacewings have to space their eggs apart so the babies won't eat each other in the larva stage of development. Uh okay..wow...suddenly my children's conflicts seem trivial.
Leggies & winged things...
It is interesting that sometimes the ones who look the most dangerous in the garden are the best helpers, while those who look cute and harmless will actually devour everything in their path overnight. Even weeds are excellent deceivers in this way. They may start with delicate blossoms or fluffy fern-like stems-then a week later they'll have thorns that can pierce through your rubber gardening gloves like a medieval weapon.
Signs of baby creatures...
The orchestral crickets and shouting cicadas usher in summer. The blazing heat slows everything down except for sweating and ice cream trips. We long for relief and thank our gracious heavenly Father for our sweet, sweet air conditioning. Our first year we only had a couple weeks of intense heat but last summer we had triple digits for quite a while. Much of our stalwart grass died, as did our blueberry bushes and all but one of my roses sadly. But we enjoy celebrating all the kids' summer birthdays, heading to the YMCA pool and special events like VBS, church camps, the circus and Dude Perfect. (Not to mention way too many hours on Xbox or Youtube...I'm sure it's educational somehow, though-right...?)
Eventually the days grow shorter and cooler nights bring relief from the summer heat.
The trees show off a million shades of gold, red and purple. The bugs disappear for the
most part and it’s easier to focus our attention on the squirrels-especially after the leaves
have fallen. We can track them through the highways of bare branches, admiring their
agility and hilarious personalities.
We built a squirrel house, hoping to have as much success as Mark Rober...but since I'm not a
NASA engineer and I'm too cheap to buy walnuts (supposedly their fave)...the roof blew off in
less than a week and I think birds ate the peanuts. Can I somehow blame YouTube for giving
me falsely high expectations? :(
The birds thrive surprisingly well through the changing of the seasons, even when nests become revealed in the trees, and their ponds freeze halfway over. But they are excellent scavengers like the squirrels. And they seem to thoroughly enjoy surfing on the tumultuous Oklahoman wind currents.
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| Oklahoma ducks and geese chillin on the ice- aren't their feet freezing?! |
Even though fall school schedules speed up daily life, the natural world seems to slow down,
becoming stark and quiet. This is about when we start praying for snow…which happens to be
one of the top perks we were looking forward to when moving here.
Both winters we've had magical snowfall and every time it quietly makes its entrance it makes
me giddy like a kid on Christmas morning. Our first snow experience made its entrance late
on New Year’s Eve 2021...pretty fantastic.
Maybe in a few years I'll be over the excitement, but for now it is still one of my absolute favorite
things about living here.
