We're OK in Oklahoma

We arrived here in Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge on August 2. This beautiful 60,000 acre refuge was opened in 1905 by the Department of the Interior and is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It is located in the remote southwest corner of Oklahoma approximately 20 miles west of Lawton.

We have "no service" on our cell phone and have found no reliable TV stations using our roof antenna. We are happy to have a Wilson Cellular booster system in our fifth wheel and can usually get two bars of cell service for our outgoing phone calls. I think our associates here wish they had one of these contraptions, too. We have been told no one has ever been able to use a cell phone here at the Compound (what they call this little village where the rangers and volunteers live). We are breaking new ground. It sure beats sharing the available land based party line provided by the refuge. They do provide a good WIFI connection so we are using that for Internet and e-mail service as our VZ broadband (Air Card) will not function here.

We are both working three days a week. Presently, Virginia spends one day a week at the Refuge Headquarters digitizing images and old newspaper articles for the archives and two days a week helping at the visitor center. Kurt is assisting the maintenance staff with various projects including repair of livestock fencing. Kurt has also has been dabbling in Biology (Natural Resource Management) by trapping and relocating problematic raccoons in the volunteer RV Village.

Rush hour traffic here involves stopping for groups of bison or Texas longhorn meandering across the road or waiting while a prairie dog or coyote runs across. This 92 square mile free range refuge contains over 1,000 elk, 650 bison and 1,000 Texas longhorn. So no telling when you will see a critter.


Each September the refuge staff round-up and coral the longhorn herd and then count, sort and check all the animals. Surplus animals are then sold at auction here at the refuge. A similar round-up occurs each October for the Bison. We are encouraged to help with these events. This should prove to be pretty interesting.

Upon arrival we placed our bird feeders. We have been amazed at the steady stream and variety of birds that have come to visit. Besides the usual suspects (cardinals, titmouse, chickadees) we have enjoyed seeing summer tanangers, painted and indigo buntings, humming birds, red bellied woodpeckers and white breasted nuthatch. We have a daily visit from the three wild tom turkeys who clean up the spilled seed.