Thursday Bits & Bobs

Some unusually cool days this week. I’m not sure whether that had anything to do with what happened at about 7:45 pm on Wednesday out on our deck. I was sitting out there, decompressing from a day of work and other tasks, when I saw a dark blob hit one of our deck loungers. Twack!
Two cicadas. Noiseless, though the cicadas have been doing their twilight bleating for a few weeks now. Crickets are also singing after dark, though maybe not as strongly as they will closer to their seasonal demise. By Thursday morning, when I next checked, the cicadas were gone.

Happy to report there’s a thin mosquito population this year, at least around here. Flies have taken up the slack. Seems like one gets in the house every day through the back door, including some of the metallic-colored ones that used to fascinate me as a kid.

Also in the back yard: blooming hibiscus. Could be Hibiscus syriacus. I can also call it rose of Sharon, though I understand that’s applied to other flowers as well.
At Starved Rock State Park recently, I spotted his plaque near the lodge. Looking its century-plus age, including countless touches of Lincoln’s nose.
GAR Ladies plaque Starved Rock State Park“Commemorating the deeds of the Union veterans of the Civil War,” it says. The Ladies of the Grand Army of the Republic erected it in 1914. Looks like the Ladies, who are still around, were trying to keep up with the Daughters.

Chronicling a lot of violence, but also a thing of great beauty.

Our most recent episode of Star Trek: “A Piece of the Action.” I suggested it as one of three options — an action/adventure story, or one of the show’s tendentious eps, or comedy. Ann picked comedy. I’d forgotten how much of a hoot “Action” is, with the high jinks gearing up especially after Kirk and Spock got into pseudo-gangster duds and Shatner hammed it up.

Oh, my, listen to that. My my my.

Illinois Heritage Grove in the Summer

During our Saturday walk at Spring Valley Nature Sanctuary, we wandered into the Illinois Heritage Grove, which is section of the sanctuary devoted to native woody plants. A mini-arboretum.
Illinois Heritage GroveThe last time I spent any time there was in the fall, when things looked a bit different: Illinois Heritage GroveSummer. Roughly the same view of part of the oval path through the grove.
Illinois Heritage GroveFor now, the grove’s bushes and trees are garbed in greenery. Such as the American plum (Prunus americana).
Illinois Heritage GroveThe hackberry (Celtis occidentalis).
Illinois Heritage GroveThe elderberry (Sambucus canadensis).
Illinois Heritage GroveRemember, your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.

Spring Valley Flowers, August ’20

On August 1 we visited Spring Valley again, about two months after our most recent visit. The place is flush with a different selection of flowers and other flora than in June.
Glad to see that cornflowers are still blooming there. I think of it as a July flower.
I take this to be a kind of lily, but not sure the details.
A Google reverse image search suggests peony for this, but I doubt it. Still, a nice little cluster.
A larger cluster. Valerian?
Looks similar, but a different color.
Hard to believe it won’t be long before Spring Valley will look like this.

Springfield Park

Another few days, another late afternoon walk around a suburban pond. The strolls might be merging into one warm green blur already. They certainly will after the passage of time.

The walk this time was at Springfield Park, which isn’t in the capital city of that name, or any other Springfield, but instead in Bloomingdale, Illinois. It’s a village park with sports facilities, a community garden and a large pond with an irregular figure-8 trail around it. We walked about a mile and a half all together, at least according to my phone. Somehow that’s often the length.
In fact, it’s pretty much sports park on one side, open-water marsh on the other. With an adequate number of benches. You can’t always count on finding those.Springfield Park, BloomingdaleLots of July wildflowers, of course.
Springfield Park, BloomingdaleSpringfield Park, BloomingdaleViews from the south end of the pond.
Springfield Park, BloomingdaleSpringfield Park, BloomingdaleA boardwalk.
Springfield Park, BloomingdaleWouldn’t be much of a suburban marsh without a boardwalk over the flora somewhere.

Beavers Attack! Olde Schaumburg Centre Park

Tucked off a busy northwest suburban street is Olde Schaumburg Centre Park. We were there not long ago just before sunset. Here in July, days are noticeably shorter, though not that much shorter yet.
Beavers Attack! Olde Schaumburg Centre ParkThough modest in scope, Olde Schaumburg Centre Park is a pleasant green space in the summer, and a lush wetland and wildlife preserve besides. The focus is a pond. That’s the wetland part of the equation.
Olde Schaumburg Centre ParkThere are trails and a gazebo. Schaumburg wouldn’t be a proper suburb without a public gazebo.
Olde Schaumburg Centre ParkPlus flourishes of flowers.
Olde Schaumburg Centre ParkAs for being a wildlife preserve, we saw clear evidence of beavers in the area.
Olde Schaumburg Centre ParkDoing what beavers do. Gnaw marks appeared on other trees, though no others were toppled. Does the village consider beavers a nuisance? They do seem to be attacking park trees, which take a long time to grow, but then again they might be a protected species in these parts.

The animals are a village concern, because the park is village property, not part of the Schaumburg Park District — something I didn’t realize until recently, despite all the years I’ve driven past the park.

The park is also part of a formally designated area called Olde Schaumburg Centre, which is an historic district: the OSC Overlay District, established in 1978. Much information about that and early Schaumburg has been published by the village community development department.

In the mid-19th century, the small farm village that would become a major Chicago suburb was known as Sarah’s Grove. Later, German farmers came in numbers, and Schaumburg schall et heiten!

The name Sarah’s Grove lingers. The subdivision across the street from in Olde Schaumburg Centre Park is called Sarah’s Grove, and so is a park district park near the subdivision.
Sarah's Grove ParkIt too focuses on a water feature, but without many trees or thickets.
Sarah's Grove ParkThough no one was there at that moment, I see people fishing at the pond pretty often.

Olbrich Botanical Gardens

High heat over the weekend, but come this morning, pleasant upper 70s F. Heat returns later in the week, I hear. That’s a northern summer for you.

On the way back from Prairie du Chien last week, we stopped briefly in Madison. Good old Madison — been going there since the late ’80s, and I think of it as the Austin of the North. Yet I don’t know it all that well.

This time we visited Olbrich Botanical Gardens, another spot in Madison I’d never seen. These days, its indoor components, especially the tropical conservatory, are closed. But the lush outdoor gardens are open to walk around for no admission.

Olbrich Botanical Gardens

Olbrich Botanical Gardens

Olbrich Botanical Gardens
Like most botanic gardens, there were signs. But not that many, and mostly I didn’t bother with plant names. It was too hot to concentrate on that anyway.
Olbrich Botanical Gardens

Olbrich Botanical Gardens

Olbrich Botanical Gardens
I hadn’t done much preparation for the visit, so I was pleasantly surprised when we crossed a water feature — Starkweather Creek, which flows into Lake Monona —
Olbrich Botanical Gardens
— and passed by some curious sculpture —
Olbrich Botanical Gardens
— and came to the Thai Pavilion and Garden.
Olbrich Botanical Gardens Thai Pavilion

Olbrich Botanical Gardens Thai Pavilion
“A pavilion, or sala, is a common structure in Thailand generally used as a shelter from rain and heat. Olbrich’s pavilion is more ornate than most roadside salas in Thailand and represents those found at a temple or on a palace grounds,” the garden web site says. “However, Olbrich’s pavilion is not a religious structure.

“The pavilion was a gift to the University of Wisconsin-Madison from the Thai Government and the Thai Chapter of the Wisconsin Alumni Association. UW-Madison has one of the largest Thai student populations of any U.S. college or university.”

I’d have never guessed that last fact. As I stood gawking at the thing, sun beating down on me, I felt just an inkling of being in Thailand again, near one of its impressive shiny structures, whose glint always seemed to accentuate the heat.

“The pavilion was built in Thailand, then disassembled and packed in shipping crates,” the garden continues. “The pavilion traveled seven weeks by sea, then by rail to Chicago, and to Madison by truck. Nine Thai artisans traveled to Madison to reassemble the pavilion after building it in Thailand. It took three weeks to reconstruct [in 2001].

“Amazingly, the pavilion is able to withstand the winter weather of Wisconsin with no protection because it is constructed of plantation-grown teak and weather-resistant ceramic roof tiles. The gold leaf, however, is delicate and not able to withstand the oils of the human hand.”

A pavilion and a garden, as the name says.

Olbrich Botanical Gardens Thai Pavilion

Remarkable simulation of tropical lushness, there in the distinctly non-tropical Wisconsin.

Thursday Jumble

Intermittent rain and thunder on Tuesday and Wednesday, and some vigorous warm winds. Enough to randomize the arrangement of our deck chairs but not, fortunately, to move the cast iron deck table. Mostly, though, recent days have been clear and agreeably summerlike.

They’ve aged remarkably well.

Last weekend, we made it back to Spring Valley to see the Peony Field, now in full bloom.


Also noticed a Little Lending Library at Spring Valley. I think that’s new. It encourages one and all to Be a Good Human Today.Spring Valley Little Lending LibraryNot as full as the one on my street, but it had a few items, including a stack of booklets whose subject is Baha’i prayers. I took one for a look-see. In each are prayers for various occasions and situations, such as Aid and Assistance, Children, The Departed, Healing, Morning, Parents, Tests and Difficulties, and so on.

Later in the week, we got takeout from an Indian restaurant we visited, and liked, a few years ago. Been buying takeout locally ever other week or so since sit-down restaurants closed.
New Delhi Restaurant Schaumburg
We feasted on sang paneer, malai kofta, paneer bhurji, lamb bhoona — that was mine — along with garlic naanm, roti and jeera rice. All good.

Spring Valley Flowers, June ’20

After dinner yesterday, we went to Spring Valley (in full, Spring Valley Nature Center & Heritage Farm). Temps had been about 90 during the afternoon, but were down by early evening. Our goal was the peony field. It blooms only for a few days.

Plenty of other flora along the walk to the field. No surprise this time of year.We arrived at the field to find not many peonies blooming just yet. But there were some in front of the nearby cabin.
We saw many more buds ahead of a full bloom.Spring Valley PeonyGuess the ants get some sustenance from the flower, without bothering it too much.

Deer Grove Forest Preserve

Another weekend, another forest preserve path where the problems of a wounded nation seem remote. The last day of May was clear and a little cool this year, good for a walk in the woods. Unlike last week, the path we took through Deer Grove Forest Preserve in Palatine, Ill., headed into a forest.Deer Grove Forest PreserveDeer Grove Forest PreserveDeer Grove Forest PreserveDeer Grove includes about 2,000 acres just south of the border between Cook and Lake counties — note Lake-Cook Road running along its northeastern edge.
Deer Grove Forest PreserveWe parked near the Camp Alphonse entrance, which I’ve marked with a small red dot. We walked roughly to the blue dot and came back the same way — a mile and a half, more or less.

The origin of the name Camp Alphonse isn’t readily available, but there’s also a nearby entrance called Camp Reinberg. This site at least lists Camp Reinberg as a temporary WWI camp, of which there many nationwide that left little trace. My guess would be that Camp Alphonse was one as well.

The woods were alive with spring greenery and lots of wildflowers.
Deer Grove Forest PreserveAn elegant spider web.
Deer Grove Forest PreserveA few dead trees still lording over the living ones.
Deer Grove Forest PreserveThe dog had a good time too.
Deer Grove Forest PreserveSnacking on leafy greens the entire way.

Paul Douglas Forest Preserve

Paul Douglas was a U.S. Senator from Illinois, in that office from 1949 to 1967. I’m fairly sure that the Paul Douglas Forest Preserve in northwest Cook County is named after him, not the radio man and movie actor in Panic in the Streets, a picture I hear is getting renewed attention these days.

On Sunday, as the heat of the day wore off, we went to the 1,800-acre Paul Douglas Forest Preserve. Forest is actually a misnomer in this case, and for some of the other forest preserves, since it includes not only conventional forestland, but also grasslands, wetland and (so I’ve read) a heron rookery.
Pleasant and now lush green.
Paul Douglas Forest PreserveThe seven-mile trail loops the edge of the more-or-less square preserve, which is fine except where it parallels the tollway (I-90).
Paul Douglas Forest PreserveWe walked from the parking lot westward near I-90 and then followed the trail as it bent northward, along the much quieter S. Freeman Road. We followed that for a bit and then doubled back, covering about a mile and a half all together.

Much more pleasant away from I-90; less noise and lots of visible grassland.
Paul Douglas Forest PreserveAlong with wetland flowers.
Paul Douglas Forest PreservePaul Douglas Forest PreserveEven late in the afternoon, it was still a little hot. The day was the first summer-like one of the year.
Paul Douglas Forest PreserveSoon after I took that picture, the dog found a muddy puddle. She not only drank from it — in preference to the clean but probably bland water we brought — but also cooled herself off by plopping down in the mud.