The greening of northern Illinois happens every spring, but I never get tired of it. Here are a few views on Saturday of the Poplar Creek Forest Preserve, a place we’ve been going for some years.
There are expanses of grass at the forest preserve.
Along with thickets.
The blooming dogwood.
And the eagerly exploring dog, mostly exploring with her nose.
Provided, of course, you take the dog out for a special-treat walk among the May greenery.
I noticed a sign today at Mallard Lake Forest Preserve, which we haven’t visited in nearly a year.
Uh-oh. I don’t think that sign was there last year. But now there’s evidence that the dread zebra mussel has invaded these waters, as it’s hopscotched across the lakes of the world. Wiki tells me that the mussel has come from its native lakes of southern Russia to be a pest in North America, Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, Spain and Sweden.
It’s no trifling matter. The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries tells us that, “Many water treatment and power facilities must now treat their systems to keep them free of zebra mussels, beaches must be periodically cleaned of decaying masses of dead zebra mussels, and bottom-dwelling organisms and fisheries have been negatively impacted. In the United States, Congressional researchers estimated that zebra mussels cost the power industry alone $3.1 billion in the 1993-1999 period, with their impact on industries, businesses, and communities over $5 billion.”
Fortunately, zebra mussels don’t invade the land to attack casual walkers on forest preserve paths. That’s all we wanted to do today, because once again the weekend was unusually warm for February, nearly 60 degrees F.
Instead of simply circumambulating Mallard Lake, we also walked along a spur called the Mallard Lake Trail, which leads to a municipal park called Heritage Park, which is part of subdivision I know nothing about. For a quarter of a mile or so, Mallard Lake Trail seemed remote, though it was an illusion, helped by the day’s strong winds, which muffled the sound of traffic off in the distance.
Within view of part of the trail is the West Branch of the Du Page River.
It might have been a natural-flowing stream at one time, but it has the look of a man-made channelization at this point. By the time we got here, the middle-of-the-woods illusion was punctured by houses in the background, and a school off in the other direction.
The West Branch of the Du Page River flows quite a ways south — including through downtown Naperville — to meet the Du Page River in Bollingbrook, Ill. The Du Page joins the Des Plaines at a place called Moose Island in Channahon, Ill., but very near there the Kankakee River joins the Des Plaines and they all form the mighty Illinois River, a direct tributary of the Mississippi just north of St. Louis.
So you might say we took a stroll in a very small part of the Illinois River watershed, which includes all of the little cricks and rivulets around here.
According to online sources, the temperature outside as I post is zero degrees Fahrenheit, with small negative numbers expected in the near future. Tomorrow will see highs in the positive single digits. So here we are, in the pit of winter.
Twenty-eight Januaries ago I was tramping around at one of the Du Page County Forest Preserves, maybe Blackwell Forest Preserve in Warrenville. I used drive out from the city periodically to visit a friend in Warrenville, usually on a Saturday. During the warm months, I’d help him tend his large garden, receiving a share of the produce.
In the winter, I forget what we did, besides watch videos and — on January 23, 1988 — visit a snow-covered forest preserve as the snow fell. I had my camera, and it was during a period when I was taking black-and-white pictures. We happened across a closed toboggan run.
I can’t pin it down now, or rather don’t want to spend much time at it, but I’m fairly certain that the local forest preserves closed their handful of toboggan runs sometime not long before I took the picture. Probably it was the expense, or the liability, or both.
On Friday afternoon, we took the dog for a walk at Poplar Creek Nature Preserve. A balmy afternoon. Most of the tree foliage is still green, but includes distinct tinges of yellow or brown. Goldenrod blooms profusely, and so do white daisy-like flowers, along with a larger version that’s lavender-colored, but not actually lavender. The tall grass is brown, the short grass green. The cicadas still buzz and the grasshoppers still hop.
The Woodfield Mall was busy in its own way on Saturday afternoon. I can’t remember the last time I was there, but it’s been a while. There’s a certain amount of renovation going on in the common areas, but nothing that affects the flow of people too much. A number of stores displayed Star Wars merchandise in highly visible ways. I haven’t been keeping track, but that must foreshadow a movie along those lines.
Sure enough, a line in the Sunday Tribune Arts and Entertainment section tells me that, “As a new Star Wars movie looms [interesting choice of verbs], many of the franchise’s original fans are as devoted as ever.” Guess the merch is partly for them and their offspring. As far as I’m concerned, the first three movies, while very entertaining in their time, need to go in a box labeled Things of the Past.
Most of Sunday was overcast, so I wondered whether I was going to see the lunar eclipse. A couple of hours before dark, however, the clouds cleared away, and at about 8:30 I went out to see the shadow of the Earth falling on the Moon. At about 9, Yuriko, Ann and I were out, and then again 15 minutes later for totality. The dog was out, too, but typical of dogs, she didn’t give a fig for the celestial phenomenon (no smell involved, I guess). The copper moon was a pretty sight, but it didn’t look any bigger than usual to me.
In time for the eclipse, the Atlantic posted these images, marvels of 20th-century manned space exploration. These images are more recent marvels of (mostly) unmanned space exploration.
Lilly was at a friend’s house on Sunday evening, so I did what you do these days, and sent her a text about the eclipse. Later she said she’d seen it. I’m also glad to report that at least two neighboring families on my block were out to see it, too. I noticed that while taking the garbage out under the dark copper moon.
I’ve driven by the edge of the Palatine Prairie Nature Preserve and the adjoining Riemer Reservoir Park many times, traveling on N. Quentin Rd. in Palatine, Ill. Last Thursday, I decided it was time to stop and take a look at the place on foot. It happened not be raining, but the evidence of frequent rain was all around in the lush greens of this particular patch of Illinois greenspace.
That makes it look like the middle of nowhere. It’s no such thing. At the northern edge of the Palatine Prairie is the Union Pacific Northwest line of the Metra commuter rail system (not the line I usually take). Here’s a train bound for Crystal Lake at least, and maybe further northwest, and making the prairie a little less quiet.
Not that the place is quiet. The roads aren’t far away. Palatine Prairie is the northern section of the greenspace; the somewhat larger Riemer Reservoir is to the south, and they’re separated by the small W. Wood St. A trail winds through both, and it’s a pleasant walk when it isn’t raining or too hot. The weather was just right for us last week.
The greenspace that isn’t completely given over to prairie also includes a disc golf course. Guys were out playing disc golf. They seemed pretty serious about it, too.
I’ve never played the game myself, though in the connected basements of Branscomb Quad at VU, we tossed frisbees at some kind of goals. Maybe the corridor doors, but I don’t think the rules were very well refined.
Ah, spring. When ants scurry through vast cities and elk eat weeds. We took a walk in the Ned Brown Forest Preserve (Busse Woods) on Saturday, among the flush of new green trees and carpets of light purple flowers in the undergrowth (phlox? They have five petals). Just next to the paved path I noticed the largest ant hill I’ve ever seen, distinguished by dark earth a bit darker even than the surrounding rich Illinois soil.
It had a rectangular shape, about 10 feet by four: 40 square feet of ant hill surface. Puny by world standards, but still big. A close look revealed a multitude of active mid-sized black ants. I don’t know exactly what kind, but does that matter? (They’re all bent on world domination.) Someone had put three footprints in the ant hill, probably just to stir up the ants. The ants marched through the foot-sized depressions without any trouble.
Wonder how deep it went. If a cursory investigation’s any indication, a fair ways down. Something I didn’t know existed: ant hill casts.
Other insects are emerging. The season’s first mosquito landed on my arm. It was sluggish, and in a moment I snuffed out whatever existence it enjoyed as a mosquito. But more of its ilk will soon be on the wing. At Busse Woods in particular, which is marshy in a lot of places, and sporting a lot of puddles, since it’s been raining nearly every other day lately.
We saw larger creatures too. Elk Grove Village maintains a small herd of elk in a large fenced enclosure near the intersection of Arlington Heights Road and Higgins Road. Usually they’re off in the distance, but on Saturday they were near the fence and easy to see: three males with short horns still, three females. Mostly going about ruminant business. They seem fond of dandelions.
The opening strains of the northern Illinois spring symphony have begun. The grass greened up almost overnight last Thursday after a sizable amount of rain. Large puddles were left over, too, though that’s not necessarily a harbinger of spring.
After a few days, it was merely a soggy, muddy patch. The dog enjoys the mud. She’s been with us two years now.
We took a walk with the dog at the Poplar Creek Forest Preserve on Saturday, and I heard throaty frogs awake and (presumably) singing for a mate. On Sunday, I heard the faint strains of “Turkey in the Straw” from my office, and went to the front door to take a look. Sure enough, it was an ice cream truck.
Speaking of spring: A note to Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Hillary Clinton, and Marco Rubio (so far): I don’t want to hear about your efforts to become president. It’s the spring of 2015. I don’t even want to hear about it in the spring of 2016. It can wait till the fall of that year. Except maybe the candidacy of Vermin Supreme.
Last week was distinctly cool, in the winter direction of the seasonal seesaw of March. By Saturday, things were tolerable warm, but then Sunday was cold — and today, we received a few inches of snow. It won’t last, but for a while it looks like January again.
Before all that, on Saturday, we took a walk on some of the trails at Mallard Lake, a 942-acre unit of the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County. This wasn’t our first visit. Except when it’s covered by short-lived snow, the landscape is still browns and grays against sky blue, unless it’s cloudy.
Along with deadwood, no doubt providing nutrients for future trees, or at least the grass.
Only a handful of fishermen were around.
Hard to believe it’ll be lush green in a couple of months.
We saw a few bugs, including a sluggish bee, a small beetle, and maybe a gnat. Insect pioneers of the spring of ’15, coming out for their what — 400 millionth season as creatures that crawl the Earth? They’re not worried about climate change, assuming worry is an insect concept. They’ve seen it all before.
The Illinois Department of Natural Resources tells us that “first-time visitors to James ‘Pate’ Philip State Park (formerly Tri-County) may initially wonder what the area’s specific feature is. After all, the land is predominantly farmland that had been tilled and grazed for years. The north branch of Brewster Creek flows through the property, but most of the streambed had been channeled to move water away from former agricultural fields. Along the north boundary of James ‘Pate’ Phillip State Park, starting in the east, a row of houses rises up like a wall against a sea of grasses. Further west along the boundary is an active gravel pit and by the Bartlett Park District sport field. To the west of the park, across Route 25, is a landfill in the process of being closed.”
I wondered something along those lines on Saturday, when we went to take a walk at James “Pate” Philip State Park (Philip is a retired state politico; I’ve never read an explanation for the nickname, but he’s always referred to by it).
I’ve seen the park on maps as a green blotch for some time now. It was created about 10 years ago. I assume it had been farmland until then, though housing development probably came close in the 1990s. Now the idea is to return it to prairie, and dechannelize the creek.
Seems like a good idea to me. The Prairie State doesn’t have quite enough prairie. Since we had cloud cover and only warm temps, it was a good walk. The park is mostly flat and lush in early July, with grasses almost as tall as a grown man and a lot of wildflowers – including clusters of tiny gorgeous orange blossoms that I don’t think I’d ever seen before. My natural history knowledge is meager, so I might not ever know what they’re called.
I was also intrigued by the fact that the park is within three counties: mostly Du Page, but also Cook and Kane. The tri-county border is, in fact, within the park. I don’t know if there’s any kind of marker, and we didn’t feel like walking far enough to see it, but maybe I’ll go look someday.
We also visited Pratt’s Wayne Woods on Saturday, just south of Pate Philip’s State Park, and took a walk around one of its bodies of water. It was to have been part of a state park, but that didn’t happen, and it’s now a part of the Forest Preserve District of Du Page County – at 3,400-plus acres, the largest chunk under its authority, in fact. The district says, “Pratt’s Wayne Woods Forest Preserve in Wayne is located on the outwash plain of the West Chicago Moraine. Made up largely of wetlands, this landscape combines calcium-rich water with wet sandy soil to support plant life more commonly seen near Lake Michigan.
“Today, the forest preserve is home to over 1,000 species of native plants and animals. Below the savanna’s widely spaced oaks grow dogbane, pale-leaved sunflower and smooth yellow violet wildflowers. In the marshy areas, explorers can view great Angelica, marsh marigold, shooting star, nodding ladies’ tresses and spotted joe-pye weed as well as egrets, great blue herons and wood ducks.”
We saw a lot of plants and a few animals, probably including some of those listed above. But the district forgot to mention what a swell habitat the park is for mosquitoes and especially gnats. It’s been a good year for gnats.
Besides being Good Friday, April 18 this year had a good Friday afternoon, as warm as a spring day sometimes is. It was a good day to visit Eagle Creek Park, in northwest Marion County, Indiana, which counts as an Indianapolis city park, though it’s much more like a forest preserve. It’s slightly hilly, forested, and features a number of small lakes.
The smallest of these, I think, is Lilly Lake. We have to like a name like that, though in fact it must be named after one or another of the Lilly pharmaceutical family, whose land this used to be. We parked nearby and took a stroll around Lilly Lake. It was the picture of an early spring day: puffy clouds, green grass, the smallest of buds on the trees.
Besides being a pleasant setting on a warm day, I wanted to come because we’d been there before. Back in early 1999, we did a similar short trip to Indianapolis, and just before we left town, we stopped at Eagle Creek Park, and took a stroll around Lilly Lake. It had been a wet spring, or at least wet recently, and near the edge of the lake was a muddy patch of ground.
Lilly, who was two years old then, stepped into the mud without warning and immediately found her feet stuck. She pulled and pulled and, getting nowhere, burst out crying. Time for Dad to step in – figuratively, since I didn’t need to physically step in the mud. I reached over and picked her up. Her little boots stayed in the mud, to be retrieved separately. The whole incident lasted maybe 30 seconds, but somehow I haven’t forgotten. One of those things.
This time around, with two somewhat older daughters, we had no mud incidents.
A goose did hiss at Lilly, however.