We enjoyed a warm weekend, following cooler days and almost cold nights. But no hard freeze just yet.

Today was windy, and it’s been dry a while, so dust kicked up from the baseball diamond was visible from my back yard.
By contrast, when it’s been raining a lot, patches of quicksand form, trapping unwary little leaguers. Well, maybe not. Apparently grade-schoolers aren’t even afraid of quicksand anymore, which means that people aren’t watching enough Tarzan movies.

Saturday we took walk at the Crabtree Preserve, which is a 1,000-acre unit of the Forest Preserves of Cook County that we’d somehow overlooked before, even though it’s only about 15 minutes away. It’s a pleasant place to walk on a warm October day, with trails that wind through woodland and restored, or mostly restored, prairie, and a small nature center with some exhibits.

I read that it’s been a boom year for dragonflies, but haven’t seen so many myself. Maybe that’s because I don’t live that close to lake-sized bodies of water. But as we followed the trail around Bulrush Pond and Bulrush Marsh, we spotted a few clouds — swarms — squadrons of dragonflies, especially ones with long red abdomens.