~ Scissortail ~ Marilyn Monroe Moment The Scissortail is Oklahoma's State Bird. I caught this one's "Marilyn Monroe Moment" and tailwind recovery on the perimeter of a pasture on GlenMar Ranch in Caddo, Oklahoma. _____________________ I'm Mike in Tucson, your preferred Tucson Arizona Mortgage Lender. NMLS #223495 SUNSTREET MORTGAGE LLC ~ Correspondent Mortgage BankOffices in Mesa, Tucson, Sierra Vista & Nogales I don't copyright my photos. I enjoy sharing them with you. Right click on my image, copy and use it to your heart's content! 04/19/2011

We were celebrating Sue Simpson's 89th birthday at the Caddo Cafe when the tornado siren went off. Sue is the matriarch of GlenMar Ranch in Caddo. The Caddo Cafe has a television in one corner, and we all looked up as the newsman announced that a tornado had touched down west of us in Tishomingo, and was moving to the east.      Tornado Alley Living as they do in "Tornado Alley,"  Oklahomans take these violent storms seriously.  You didn't hear anyone in Oklahoma on the news saying "I couldn't believe that this could happen.  It was like a movie." I expect that's why so few lost their lives compared to the rest of the country as it moved east through Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and North Carolina. Still, we were fortunate to escape the path of the tornado.  Caddo (on the ... 04/17/2011

Dogwoods in bloom on GlenMar Ranch, Caddo, Oklahoma   ___________________ I'm Mike in Tucson, your preferred Tucson Mortgage Lender. NMLS #223495SUNSTREET MORTGAGE llc ~ Mortgage Bankers, Not Brokers!Offices in Scottsdale, Tucson, and Nogales, AZ, and Albuquerque, NM. Reach me any time on my Blackberry  (520) 349-9090 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              (520) 349-9090      end_of_the_skype_highlighting photos copyright Mike in Tucson 04/18/2010

Friday afternoon the Colonel picked me up at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.  Tucson was cold when I boarded the plane at 6:45 a.m., much colder than it had been only a day ago.  It was raining in Dallas when we landed, but as we drove up Interstate 75 and crossed the Red River into Oklahoma, the sky was clearing to the west.  To the east, however, that squall line you see above was forming as the sun set in the west. The Colonel, retired USAF, spent a career flying military transports around the globe.  Looking out the window to the east, he commented that he'd never seen a cloud formation like this one.  The eastern sky was painted by the rays of the setting sun.  Here's the whole panorama. On Saturday, we worked 150 cows, bulls and calves.  Nobody got hurt, so it was a grea... 04/04/2010

The crescent moon and the morning star were visible in the eastern sky when I started my morning walk at 5:55 a.m. today.  There was something unusual in the way the clouds scudded past, pushed by a brisk westerly wind, and the sunrise was spectacular. I'm used to a vivid pallette in my hometown of Tucson, Arizona, especially at sunset.  The colors this morning here in Caddo, Oklahoma rival anything I've enjoyed at home. Nothing materialized weatherwise, and by the time I was headed back down Hat Powell Road to GlenMar Ranch, the morning light in one of the pastures gave me this beautiful little paintbrush to share with you. We all say that real estate is "location, location, location."  Sometimes I think the location doesn't matter so much as what we bring to our day. Here's hoping yo... 04/23/2009

                    Taffy is an ususual name for a working ranch bull.  That's what happens when you let a five year old name your animals.  Kristin named Taffy.  Yesterday I tricked him out in his new bright orange fly tags so he could impress the ladies.  That red tag in his left ear is his number tag. GlenMar ranch is a cow/calf operation.  When the young ladies (heifers) come of age to be bred, you want their first calf to be relatively small.  That's where Taffy comes in.  His daddy was an itinerant Coriente and his momma was a "black baldy."  As bulls go, he's on the small side, weighing in at about 1,400 pounds. Yesterday four of us worked most of the herd.  By the end of the day, only one of us had been kicked, and there were no broken bones, thank God! Today's cleanup work con... 04/22/2009

Lenn Harley got to laughing at me "working cows."  I told Bessie here, and she took exception.  I shoulda' had video with a sound track!  (You can imagine what she's saying!) We had a lightning show the first night we were here (Saturday) and I got a lucky shot of one of the clouds backlit by a bolt of lightning. Three of us started out this morning at 7:00 a.m.  We worked the replacement heifers on the Eighty.  They get number tags in the left ear to identify them, and that orange tag in the right ear is called a "fly tag."  It's loaded with an insecticide to keep the flies away.  We replace the fly tags in the spring, and the number tags when they're no longer readable at a distance. The herd is semi-wild, as they have 1,400 acres to roam during most of the year.  In order to get them... 04/20/2009

This was our sunset this evening.  The location is GlenMar Ranch in Caddo, OK.  My Darlin' and I come out here every April, and have been doing so since 1996.  Working cows is so unlike everything I do the rest of the year that it's a vacation to work the spring roundup. It used to take us more than a week of hard work--my friend Dick Carson and I--to get everything done.  Now we hope to be done in two or three long days.  Shots, medical attention, fly tags, ear tags, banding the bull calves to make little steers out of them....  You have a GREAT week, and thanks for stopping by to comment! ____________________ I'm Mike in Tucson, your preferred Tucson, AZ Mortgage lender.Think of me as your Tucson mortgage expert. Call me if I can help you with a purchase or refi mortgage; (520) 349-9090 04/19/2009

You're looking at history.  The creekbed is solid limestone, a layer geologists call the Goodland layer.  It runs through the GlenMar Ranch in Caddo, OK.My Darlin' and I spent a day together, walking the creek, looking carefully at the limestone beneath our feet.  It had just rained the night before, and the creek was flowing.We were looking for a specific fossil, an ancient animal that lived under the sea.  It's called an Ammonite.  Most of them are two or three inches in diameter.  Bigger Ammonites existed, though.  I've seen fossilized Ammonites the size of steering wheels at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show in February.They're right there, buried in the limestone.  Sometimes all you'll see is a tiny ridged curve in the stone.              We each found one.  We're driving back to Tuc... 04/19/2008

No one has written a history of the rock post.  They anchor barbed wire fences on most of the ranches in southeastern Oklahoma.  This post on your left is a typical rock post along Route 22 between Caddo & Kenefic.The Colonel isn't a typical rancher.  He's made his rock posts into works of art, as evidenced by this post on the right.  It graces a fence corner near the house and barn.Folks wondered for a long time if the dark rocks were painted.  They're not. I'm Mike in Tucson, your preferred Tucson, Arizona Mortgage LenderThink of me as your local expert. 04/19/2008

Pastures in Southeastern Oklahoma are full of rocks.  Ancient rocks, actually.  There's one layer of rock called Kiamichi.  Pieces of the layer are laying in the pasture there on your left.  Look closely, and you'll see fossilized oyster shells from way back when.  The entire place used to be at the bottom of a sea.  That's the subject for another post, though.  Snakes live under these rocks.  Some of them are poisonous Copperheads.  Others just look like Copperheads.  This young corn snake is a look-alike.  The similarity is designed to keep predators away from the snake.  In this case, however, the similarity cost him his life.I'm Mike in Tucson, your preferred Tucson, Arizona Mortgage LenderThink of me as your local expert. 04/19/2008

Southeastern Oklahoma is blooming with color by the beginning of the third week of the month.  That's when my Darlin' and I visit GlenMar Ranch in the little town of Caddo, OK.  My friend the Colonel (pronounce that KerNel if you're not a military type) spends many hours during this period of spring behind the lens of his camera.  He's documented many of the wildflowers that color the creek bottoms and pastures.  Most of them are unidentified, since one person's wildflower is another person's weed.  Most ranchers wouldn't care.  The colonel, though, is an artist at heart, in my humble opinion.   You won't see the flower in the pasture, but it's there.  The single blossom is only about a quarter of an inch in diameter.It's amazing what you'll find when you stop to look at what's all arou... 04/19/2008

Mike in Tucson will be less visible on the blogosphere for the next ten days.  I'll be working cattle. "Well, who will you get to help work cattle in the spring?"  I put the question to my friends Dick and Olivia in early 1995.  Dick, having retired from the Air Force, had decided to ramrod a cow/calf operation on Glen Mar Ranch in Caddo, OK.  The ranch has been in Olivia's family for four generations."I guess I'll hire someone," was the reply.  "Don't hire anyone this year," I answered.  "I'll take a vacation and we'll work the cattle together."  As a kid, between high school and college, I worked cows on a dairy farm in upstate New York.  I like cows, and they get along with me just fine.My Darlin' and I are leaving in the morning for the ranch.  We'll drive out and back.  This will b... 04/11/2008

 Southeastern Oklahoma is home to some very rocky soil.  Ranchers anchor their long barbed wire fencelines with "rock posts" because it's a whole lot easier than sinking anchor posts.It's cheaper, too.  You don't have to buy the rocks; you just pick them up.My friend Dick Carson in Caddo has taken this to a whole 'nother level.  He makes art out of his rock posts with different colored stone.He calls this one "Jack Flash."If you've seen rock posts like this, you may have been in Caddo once or twice.Judi Barrett over in Idabel knows Oklahoma real estate.  Check out her Active Rain profile, and call her if you're looking for a ranch (big or small.)I'd love for you to send me photos of other rock posts if you have them.  Who knows, they might end up as a feature in my blog posts! Mike in T... 08/20/2007