Are you ready for a tornado?

Are you ready for tornado season?

Is your storm shelter ready? Don’t procrastinate in getting your storm shelter ready until you see the funnel cloud in the sky.

Make an inventory of what you need to do. Spend a few hours sweeping and cleaning so that it will be pleasant when you get down there. You don’t want any “surprises.”

What else and who else is down there in your tornado shelter?

What else and who else is down there in your storm shelter?

• Dust?
• Cob webs?
• Mildewed pillows?
• Rusty batteries?
• Damp matches?
• Wood-rotted shelving?
• Canned goods in Mason jars from 1973?
• Damp matches?
• Mummified frogs?
• Snakes?

Do you have everything you need in your “fraidy hole?”

Getting Ready for Spring Storms

Each year you may want to consider putting the following items in your storm shelter:

• Fresh pillows, sheets and blankets on the bed
• A bed — or two
• Folding lawn chairs
• New batteries for flashlights and radios
• Two or three working flashlights
• A portable “weather” radio tuned to the National Weather Service or to your favorite local radio station that gives frequent updates when severe weather occurs
• A portable television — so you don’t have to keep running upstairs to check the radar to see where the storms are tracking
• A kerosene lantern
• Extra lamp oil
• A box of wooden matches
• A couple of packs of cards
• Some games
• Dog beds
• Fresh water
• A car jack for pushing open the shelter door if a tree or some other large object falls on it
• A heavy chain that attaches securely to both the door and a bolt in the floor of the shelter — remember that first scene in Twister?

A powerful tornado acts like a giant vacuum cleaner. I have heard of them literally sucking the plumbing out of the ground. It’s a good idea to take precautions.

Install an underground tornado shelter and keep it ready.

A newly installed underground tornado shelter

Also, don’t put a lock on your storm cellar.

It’s neighborly to allow others to come and join you or to use your shelter even when you are out of town.

You want to allow anyone driving down the road to be able to take cover if they need shelter.

Consider yourself as one entertaining angels unawares.

Be Ready to Get Downstairs Fast

When severe weather strikes, it often happens quickly. Don’t hesitate to run down there quickly.

Teach your children and your pets how to get into the shelter quickly.

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Take a look at these listings of homes, farms, and ranches in and around Tulsa, Oklahoma which have storm cellars:

[idx-listings linkid="311681" count="10" showlargerphotos="true"]

Find homes with Storm Cellars throughout Northeast Oklahoma.

Find homes in midtown Tulsa with storm cellars.
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Call Debbie Solano at 918-724-8201 to set up a search for a home with a basement.

I can send listings of homes with basements to you.

My automatic search allowing you to search the MLS without calling me does not yet work to pull homes with basements, so you will have to call me to get the listings.

Shortlink: http://oklandandranches.com/?p=1022

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Copyright© 2013 by Debbie Solano — ALL RIGHTS RESERVED — Oklahoma Land and Ranches — It’s Time to Inspect Your Storm Shelter and Get Ready for Tornado Season

Oklahoma Facts: The Name Oklahoma Means “Red People”

The name “Oklahoma” comes from the Choctaw words:

• “okla” meaning people
• “humma” meaning red

The state’s name literally means “red people.”

Are the People in Oklahoma Really Red?

• No, of course not.
  • Noticing differences among people has historically been used as a way of setting up distinctions for purposes of self-differentiation, aggrandizement and control.
  • In that respect, Oklahoma shares its history in the worldwide annals of discrimination and oppression.
  • The Red Earth American Indian Festival and the Red Earth Museum were seen by some to exploit the culture of the native peoples of Oklahoma, even after years of what could only be interpreted as oppression. (See Dan Jones’ article entitled, “Oklahoma Skins: Red People.”)
• I’ve lived in Oklahoma for nearly thirty years and I have never met an Okie with red skin.
• Union Redskins in Tulsa look like any other high school sports participants
• Occasionally I think that my friend John’s skin looks redder than mine, but that’s usually when he has been outside working in the sun.

The Dirt is Red in Many Parts of the State of Oklahoma

• The Northwest Region of Oklahoma is called “Red Carpet Country”
• The dirt in Eastern Oklahoma is brown, especially in “Green Country” or Northeast Oklahoma
• When you travel westward, the dirt starts to be red about half-way between Tulsa and Oklahoma City
• My geologist friends tell me it is the iron oxide in the dirt that makes it look red

Shortlink: http://oklandandranches.com/?p=813
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Copyright© 2012 by Debbie Solano — ALL RIGHTS RESERVED — Oklahoma Land and Ranches — Oklahoma Facts: The Name Oklahoma Means “Red People”

Finally, Oklahomans will be able to purchase a home and know that flood insurance will be available. Notwithstanding the fact that FEMA seems to have managed to almost triple the size of the flood plains throughout much of Northeast Oklahoma, this is wonderful news for homeowners and people who are looking to purchase homes within the 100-year flood plain.

Here is information provided by the Greater Tulsa Association of REALTORS® in their July 2012 issue of GTAR World (p. 6):

Big Win: 5-Year Flood Insurance Reauthorization

After years of effort by REALTORS® to secure long-term reauthorization of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), the House and Senate on Friday, June 29, passed the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012 as a part of H.R. 4348, the Surface Transportation Conference Report. The President is expected to sign the measure this week. This is the culmination of a multi-year campaign by REALTORS® involving five calls for Action since 2008 and a final push at NAR’s Midyear Legislative Meetings & Trade Expo in May, which included the Rally to Protect the American Dream on the National Mall in Washington. Congress had been extending the flood insurance program a few months at a time since 2008. Twice this led to shut downs, including one that stalled more than 40,000 home sales in June 2010 alone.

Passage of this 5-year reauthorization will bring certainty to real estate transactions in more than 21,000 communities nationwide where flood insurance is required for a mortgage. The bill ensures the program will continue long-term for the more than 5.6 million businesses and homeowners that rely on it, and it achieves one of NAR’s top legislative priorities for the year. It also means taxpayers will spend less on federal assistance for flood disasters over the long run. NAR will continue to monitor the legislation as it is implemented.

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Are you looking for a farm or ranch with a spring or creek?

Check out these properties with creeks or springs:

[idx-listings linkid="308310" count="10" showlargerphotos="true"]

Shortlink: http://oklandandranches.com/?p=761
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Copyright© 2012 by Debbie Solano — ALL RIGHTS RESERVED — Oklahoma Land and Ranches — Congress Reauthorizes National Flood Insurance Program for Another 5 Years

The ruling is consistent with the view of the National Association of REALTORS® (the NAR), which joined other groups in an amicus brief saying the EPA doesn’t have authority to veto a permit issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and that it’s own analysts had previously reviewed.

This is important for Oklahomans and landowners in other states who are worried about infringement by the EPA on their rights as property holders.

In Oklahoma coal typically belongs to the surface owners not the owners of the severed mineral estate (“oil, gas and other minerals” in Oklahoma means oil and gas).

This ruling is a victory for landowners who own their land in fee simple or who own surface rights only.

Now we just need a similar ruling to keep the EPA from trying to infringe upon the rights of the owners of the mineral estate, as in the case of those mineral estate owners in the Allegheny National Forest, who have been under attack by the EPA.

Don’t get me wrong. I am warm and fuzzy about our environment. I just don’t want to see the EPA extending the police powers of the federal government any further over and against the rights of individual private property owners.

Thank your local REALTOR® by sending me your referrals to help you buy or sell land in Oklahoma.

Shortlink: http://oklandandranches.com/?p=332

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Copyright© 2012 by Debbie Solano — ALL RIGHTS RESERVED — Oklahoma Land and Ranches — U.S. District Court Judge Rules Against the EPA Infringement on Rights of Landowners

We all know what land is, or at least we think we know what land is.

Is land the same everywhere? Is land different in Oklahoma from other places?

Can land be bought and sold? If so, when we buy land and sell land, what is it that we are exchanging?

Theologians, lawyers, real estate agents, farmers, geologists, accountants, and sailors all have varying perspectives on what land is.

Today, I will examine the question, “What is land?” from a Judaeo-Christian theological perspective.

What is land from a Judaeo-Christian theological perspective?

The Preamble to Genesis describes the Creation of the World.

“In the beginning” of the Bible, “when God created the heavens and the earth” there was nothing but chaos, or what the Hebrew text calls the “tohu wa bohu” the traditional translation for which is “formless void.”

The newly revised New American Bible Old Testament (NAB. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011) says:

– and the earth was without form or shape, with darkness over the abyss and a mighty wind sweeping over the waters —

Hence, there was no land “in the beginning.”

The Preamble lists the generations of the heavens and the earth.

The Preamble to Genesis (Genesis 1:1-2:3) is a cosmological toledoth or genealogical list of the generations of the heavens and the earth, the birth order of the cosmos, or what came before history. This is the Priestly order of creation, just as the other lists of Genesis give us the birth order of human beings, the generations of humankind, followed by the toledoths of the patriarchs.

A serious student of the Bible is aware of the various strands of authorship that were woven together to form the final Biblical text. Even in third grade when I first began reading the Bible I noticed that the order of creation varies between Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 of Genesis.

Biblical scholars recognize that this Preamble of Genesis comes from the Priestly source (P) and is the first of the toledoths or series of genealogical lists that make up the structure of the primordial history (Genesis 1-11), which takes the reader from creation to the appearance of Abraham and the beginning of historical documentation in Genesis Chapter 12.

When the Redactor (R) of the primordial history put that part of the Bible together, he carefully, respectfully, and reverently combined the Priestly lists with the Yahwistic stories (the J stories from the southern kingdom of Judea which referred to God by the ineffable tetragrammaton, YHWH, translated into English texts as LORD and traditionally printed in small caps. This Yahwistic strand had probably already been flavored by a few Elohistic (E) elements (the strands or snippets from the northern kingdom of Israel whch referred to God with the word “elohim,” the Hebrew plural form of the word “God”). This northern Elohistic strand may have combined with the southern Yahwistic tradition after the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel around 620 BCE and the dispersal of its inhabitants, but prior to the the exportation of the southern kingdom to Babylon in 597 BCE.

The Bible Teaches Us through Brain Switching

On the one hand, the Priestly toledoths give structure to the Biblical text as bones of the human body provide structure and hold the body together.

On the other hand, the Yahwistic/Elohistic stories are like the organs of the human body, each having a specific theological teaching task to illustrate Biblical truths.

We enjoy reading the stories and find those easier to remember because they light up a different part of our brain.

We use a different part of our brain to memorize the items in a list.

Together these two elements are interchanged in a way that teachers call “brain switching.”

The beauty of the structure of the primordial history is that the brain switching from the left brain, sequential lists of the Priestly source, to the right brain, global stories of the Yahwist makes the entire text move quickly through the actual passage of a long period of geological time.

When teaching classes about the Bible, I always ask my students to think of a parade. What is the first thing that happens in a parade? You hear the drum beat of the first marching band. The drum creates rhythm. The bands help the whole parade march through both time and space.

The Priestly toledoths, or sequential lists are like the bands in a parade — orderly, rhythmic, mathematical — stimulating learning with our left brain.

The Yahwistic stories are like the floats in the parade — the whimsical interpretive elements of the parade — the meat and potatoes — stimulating learning with our right brain.

Sofia Cavaletti’s Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Level I curriculum illustrates this primordial history beautifully with the blue ribbon of the “fetuccia” and “fettucina” illustrating the long period of time which elapsed prior to the emergence of animals, which are introduced by the switch to a beige ribbon and followed by the appearance of human beings as “co-creators with God,” illustrated by a human hand embroidered on the beige ribbon. In this pre-school Montessori curriculum, three-year olds are introduced to geological time by walking with their catechist as she unwinds the 80-meter ribbon and introduces the children to the concept of salvation history.

Land is one of the items written in Old English script on a blue placard which the catechist places on the floor as she walks down the hallway with the children unwinding the gros-grain ribbon of salvation history, the Fettucia.

God created land through the act of separation on the third day.

Then God said: Let the water under the sky be gathered into a single basin, so that the dry land may appear. And so it happened: the water under the sky was gathered into its basin, and the dry land appeared. God called the dry land “earth,” and the basin of water he called “sea.” God saw that it was good. Then God said: Let the earth bring forth vegetation: every kind of plant that bears seed and every kind of fruit tree on earth that bears fruit with its seed in it. And so it happened: the earth brought forth vegetation: every kind of plant that bears seed and every kind of fruit tree that bears fruit with its seed in it. God saw that it was good. Evening came, and morning followed — the third day.

(NAB, Genesis 1:9-13)

The notes to the New American Bible point out that the literary structure of six days relates the creation events of the first thee days in a parallel way to the creation events of the second three days.

1. light (day) / darkness (night)         =           4.  sun / moon
2. arrangement of water                     =           5.  fish + birds from waters
3. a) dry land b) vegetation         =           6. a) animals b) human beings: male / female

This parallelism between the creation of dry land and the creation of human beings is less apparent in English than it is in Hebrew. In Genesis 2:7 the Yahwist tells us:

then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

The Hebrew word used is the same verb that is used when a potter throws clay on a potter’s wheel and shapes a pot. Hence, the notes to the NAB instruct us:

God is portrayed as a potter molding the human body out of earth. There is a play on words in Hebrew between ‘adam (“human being,” “man”) and ‘adama (“ground”). It is not enough to make the body from earth; God must also breathe into the man’s nostrils.

The Abrahamic Covenant Promised Abraham Land and Descendants.

In the Yahwist’s (J) version of the Abrahamic covenant with God, the promise of a son and heir is given in Genesis 15:1-6, followed by the promise of land in Genesis 15:7-21:

He then said to him: I am the LORD who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land as a possession. “Lord GOD,” he asked, “how will I know that I will possess it?”

(NAB)

In the Priestly (P) tradition of the same story, Abram’s name is changed to Abraham after God promises him many descendants. After that, God promises land in Genesis 17:8:

I will give to you and to your descendants after you the land in which you are now residing as aliens, the whole land of Canaan, as a permanent possession; and I will be their God.

There’s a catch, however, in Genesis 17:9:

God said to Abraham: for your part, you and your descendants after you must keep my covenant throughout the ages. This is the covenant between me and you and your descendants after you that you must keep: every male among you shall be circumcised.

Oops! Imagine your mortgage lender making that requirement of a home buyer today! Ouch!

Circumcision was a sign of the Abrahamic covenant (just as the rainbow was the sign of the Noachic covenant).

God promised that he would give the Hebrew people the land of Canaan and that he would be their God.

Modern-day political problems exist because both Muslims and Jews cite this scripture as part of their claim to the land of Palestine, since Abraham’s illegitimate son Ishmael was the ancestor of the Arabs and Abraham’s son Isaac was the ancestor of the Jews.

Land has been fought over for thousands of years

Much of the Old Testament is concerned with the conquering of land and possessing the land.

One of the punishments of disobedience was losing the land.

In one of David Noel Freedman’s last treastises, which he called The Nine Commandments, he explained that the Bible was put together in response to the question posed by the exiled Jews, “How did we lose the land and end up in Babylon?” It’s one of my favorite books. It’s an especially important book for Protestants and Catholics to read to understand how the Ten Commandments have been numbered differently. Put this book on you “must read” list.

David Noel Freedman was a scholar who can see the entire forest because he is able to examine each and every tree.

In case you never heard of David Noel Freedman, here is a video you can watch:

Shortlink: http://oklandandranches.com/?p=205
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Copyright© 2012 by Debbie Solano — ALL RIGHTS RESERVED — Oklahoma Land and Ranches — What is Land? A Judaeo-Christian Theological Perspective