Millie will be “Sofa-less” in 4 weeks!

What an incredibly strange and amazing week this has been!  I started the week in complete stress mode trying to get my presentation finished for my first library speaking engagement, and was also worrying about all the work still left to do to get the house ready to list by my self-imposed deadline of Aug. 1st.  It turned a bit chilly here this week, and with that, the realization that snow will be flying here in Chicago again in just a few short months started to sink in.

What to do? What to do???

Is This Still Illinois?

I’ve been visiting some great nature preserves around the Chicago area recently in preparation for my first Master Naturalist presentation next week at an area library.  I’ve been to most of them before, but one last weekend, was a first-time visit for me, and I must say…I was blown away!

When one thinks of Illinois natural landscapes, you likely think of something like this entrance to the Green River Wildlife area (surrounded by corn and soybean farm fields):

Flat as a pancake…. boring…. get me out of this visually-depressing state!!!

Maybe if you’re lucky, you’ll find a patch of tallgrass prairie…

or a grove of bur oaks, a little creek, or even a sandy dune along Lake Michigan’s shores.  

One thing you would NOT expect to find this far south of Canada is a boreal bog surrounded by tamarack trees.  Yet, we’ve got one right here in northern Illinois-- Volo Bog!

Yes, this is in Illinois!

New Homes and New Beginnings

It’s been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon…err Chicago, my hometown.  Our family continues to focus on our various housing moves, but activity is also progressing on the “post-career” front as well.

My stepsister, Holley, and her husband Mike, invited the family to Easter dinner to celebrate moving into their new home (my mom’s old townhouse).  They spent the entire winter doing a major remodel and the house looks absolutely fabulous!   Of course, dinner was delicious as well!

 

Now, they are focusing efforts on their old condo to get it ready to be sold this summer.  The work seems to never end, but considering what things looked like a year ago, these two have been absolute dynamos!

Not to be outdone on the dynamo front, my other stepsister, Carol, will finally be graduating from Seminary later this month after over 10 years of continuous late-night and weekend study while holding down a full-time job.  Part of her final degree requirements included having some a few sermons videotaped and uploaded to the University, so I was able to pitch in and help her out with some of those technical hurdles.

With that now done, the family is looking forward to a “road trip” at the end of the month to attend her graduation.  If my two stepsisters are true to form, it should be quite a fun and whacky weekend!

Last week, I had a bit of a “graduation” myself.  While some of us had completed our Illinois Master Naturalist internship hours late last year, we didn’t officially graduate until our group reconvened last week.  A half dozen of us received our diplomas and our engraved University of Illinois Extension name badges to join the ranks of fellow Certified Master Naturalists!

 
Now work begins to keep that certification maintained!  Each year, we commit to volunteer service as well as attending continuing education related to the natural sciences.  I’ll be attending a couple of education events next week at the Morton Arboretum to fulfill this year’s CEUs, and am also starting the research and prep work on my first naturalist presentation to a local library audience this July.  Really looking forward to these events!

Meanwhile, on my home front, I’m happy to report that my ongoing “As the Squirrel Turns” soap opera, has now come to (what will now hopefully be) a final end!  After the trap was reset properly last week, Squirrel # 2 was caught and I thought for sure that my unwanted houseguest was finally captured.  But while that squirrel was still in its cage, I sat in the living room and soon began hearing some further periodic “rustling” in the attic.   Drats! We caught the wrong squirrel! 

So, Squirrel # 2 got a one-way bus ticket to a new home of trees at the nearby nature area, and the empty trap was re-baited with peanuts and returned to my roof.   Finally, last Friday morning, my houseguest (Squirrel # 3) decided to come out for some breakfast and a stroll along the roof where he quickly found his peanuts and his one-way bus ticket to a new home!  To be sure that the attic was now finally clear, my wildlife trapper put another trap on the roof just in case any further critters should come out.  

Fortunately, all has been quiet in the attic since Friday (and the trapper confirmed that my houseguest had indeed been a male, and not a female up there having babies!).  Unfortunately, the trap caught one more “innocent bystander” squirrel (Squirrel # 4) a few hours later, who was soon transferred to their new digs at the nature area to join all the other squirrelly pals!   Since Saturday, though, there have been no further squirrels captured, and no further sounds in the attic, so we’re now thinking the war has been won and we can move on to the permanent closure of my “squirrel hotel” once and for all!

I’m now able to focus uninterrupted on clearing out the inside of the house of all its contents.  It continues to be both a physical and emotional daily struggle to keep things relatively organized and sorted as the Craigslist, eBay, and local sales begin to take shape.  To boost my motivation, I opened the mail the other day to find this year’s property tax bill has now jumped 15% to over $7000/yr!   Oh, how I will miss these joys of homeownership!!! 

 

 

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N = Nervous Newbie Naturalist

Shortly after returning to Chicago earlier this month, I received two emails from the area coordinator of the Illinois Master Naturalist program.  The first was an invitation for our Master Naturalist class from last year to reconvene later this month to celebrate our hours of service and catch up on what each of us are doing—this should be a really fun evening!

 

The second email was asking if I would like to do my first public speaking engagement as an Illinois Master Naturalist at one of the local public libraries – now, that should be a slightly terrifying evening!  :-0

The date and presentation topic have been tentatively approved, so things are now moving on to the library publicizing the event to the general public, and me getting the actual presentation pulled together and rehearsed!

Back in my corporate working days, I was quite used to doing client presentations a dozen or so times per year, so public speaking is not entirely a foreign concept to me.

But it’s a totally new realm of knowledge wearing my brand spanking new naturalist cap!  Visions race through my mind of some retired botanist in the back row peppering me with questions about obscure plants!  And, the “umm, great question!” kind of lame, stupid responses I’ll likely be giving to every single question the audience asks me!

Yes, the palms are sweaty and this newbie is nervous!  Any suggestions or tips from the pros out there? 

My talk will be about “Exploring the Great Chicago Wilderness” – sort of a “staycationer’s” guide to finding great nature spots in the Chicagoland area. 

It should be fun to research and photograph some of the nature preserves I’ve not yet been to, as well as revisit the old favorites too as Spring begins to bloom here in the coming weeks.  If I end up making a total mess out of this presentation, at least I’ll enjoy the “boots on the ground” work of preparing it!   

 

 

Nature Weekend

To complete my Illinois Master Naturalist internship, I need to log 60 hours of volunteer service at a local park/preserve.  Doing some online searches revealed a wide range of options around the Chicagoland area.  The most-interesting ones were either already filled for the season, or required a year-long commitment.  No way am I staying in Chicago this winter!!!

So that left the most-common option for “drop-in” service – volunteer “workdays.”  I found 2 nearby parks offering workdays twice a month, so if I stick with these, I should hopefully have my 60 hours completed by this Fall.

I logged my first workday on Saturday at Poplar Creek Prairie in Hoffman Estates, IL  What a great experience!  I had not visited this forest preserve since I was a kid (during a huge Scout Jamboree weekend where thousands of scouts pitched tents and trompted all over).  Didn’t ever think there was much to see at this park, but this volunteer group began restoring the prairie in 1989 and has now transformed it back to quite a vibrant, natural place!

There were two other “newbies” volunteering with me, so one of the stewards, Steve, took us under his wing and gave us a great oral history of the park and the group’s work there.  For the first half of the morning, we went to the more established prairie in the Carl Hansen Woods section to collect porcupine grass seeds into large ziploc bags.

Porcupine grass is the thin yellow/brown stemmed grass with the long white/dark gray “whiskers.” 

I’ve not had a baggie full of grass since the ‘70’s!!!  But seriously, the seed stems really do look and feel like porcupine quills when there bunched together.  The moist paper towel keeps the seeds from drying out and curling up.

Halfway through our morning, the stewards gathered us together for a break complete with cookies and cold water (I’m gonna really like this group!).  We then split into two teams—the first stayed to replant their collected seeds in other areas of the main prairie, while our team drove down to a newer section of the park, the Schaumburg Road Grasslands, to plant our seeds down there.

 

It was interesting to observe the differences in plant diversity and insect wildlife between the main prairie (with 20+ years of restoration), and the grasslands site (where restoration efforts have only been underway since 2009).  Very rewarding to see what your restoration work might actually look like one day!

On Sunday morning, I headed out to do some photography at my old favorite (Bluff Spring Fen, in Elgin, IL).  Remember back in early March when I was out here to photograph one of the last snows of winter?  Well, a lot has changed at the Fen since then!  Here are a few comparison shots!

The main entrance stone

the banks of Bluff Spring are now nearly covered!

The hilltop of Burr Oak trees looks a bit different as well!

On this first weekend of Summer, the Fen was alive with waist-high plants, vibrant wildflower displays, singing birds, and interesting insects.

Foxglove Beard Tongue and Daisies were in full bloom--

and the purple coneflowers were simply magnificent!

Got a couple bird photos too--

A really pretty Baltimore Oriole

and the ever-squawking Red-Winged Blackbird!

While plenty of area forest preserves have birds, few have the diversity of butterflies, dragonflies, and insects that Bluff Spring Fen has.

This little lady was enjoying her milkweed plant (monarch butterflies were around, but too fast for me to photograph!):

 

While the butterflies were a bit too elusive for me to photograph, 3 different kinds of dragonflies sat and posed quite nicely for me!

 

a Black Saddlebags dragonfly

The cool-looking Calico Pennant

and this female Widow Skimmer who seemed to be saying “you lookin’ at me?”!!!

I’ll start volunteering at the Fen workdays in July.  Can’t wait to learn more about this little 100 acres of jam-packed biodiversity!

Graduation Day

“Study nature,

love nature,

stay close to nature.

It will never fail you.”

-- Frank Lloyd Wright

For the last 2 months, I’ve been attending classes at the University of Illinois Extension Office as part of the Illinois Master Naturalist program with 22 other like-minded nature lovers.

Each week, guest lecturers from area nature preserves introduced us to their particular specialty-- plants, forests, prairies, wetlands, soils, birds, mammals, meteorology, reptiles, and insects.  Perhaps the most memorable class was the one last week on herpetology when the lecturer brought a Blanding’s turtle, and a variety of friendly snakes to the class.

Of course, you know what happens when snakes come to class….one, inevitably, springs loose from its pillowcase and decides to try and hide amongst the audio/video cables beneath the presentation table.  But, never fear!  The class jumped into action to help safely find “Freddy the Fox Snake” before he could hurt himself.

 

We also got hands-on instruction in the field on a few Saturdays to further learn about forests and prairies at area nature preserves--

The class also did a workday to help Kendall County Forest Preserve stewards pull invasive Dame’s Rocket plants from a local park.

 

Our final session last night ended with the group picnic roasting hot dogs, banana boats, and s’mores around a campfire--

and being presented with our graduation certificates!

We now have graduated from Illinois Master Naturalist Trainees to now being considered “Interns.”  The program’s next phase will be for each of us to volunteer 60 hours of service at local nature centers and parks to complete our internships and become fully certified.

It’s been a fun and enriching experience, thus far, and a great way to meet others who care deeply about the natural world around them and wish to spread that environmental enthusiasm to the general public.  A number of other states have similar Master Naturalist programs, so if this sounds of interest to you, do a web search to find your program!

If no program is offered right now in your area, fear not!  There are plenty of other ways you can get involved to increase your knowledge, lend a helping hand to local land stewards, and meet others.

Many parks, nature centers, and local environmental organizations seek volunteers to help with a wide variety of needs from doing workdays (to restore habitat, pull weeds, collect seeds, and help with controlled burns). to collecting data as a “citizen scientist” (for annual bird counts, butterfly and  frog monitoring, etc).  As you become more knowledgeable and skilled in a particular focus area, you might be asked to serve as a volunteer docent, steward, or interpretive guide.

Study of our natural sciences and natural history can easily become a life-long pursuit.  No matter how much you feel you’ve mastered a particular subject,  there are always new discoveries and further research, outreach, and conservation work to be done!