Work day at Labagh Woods and play day at Bluff Spring Fen

Last weekend's work day was at Labagh Woods, in a wetland area. See those big spiky clumps? That's yellow flag iris. Blue flag iris is native to Chicagoland, but yellow flag is an old-world invasive that rapidly chokes out all other plants. 

This is a before-and-after in one area - ignore the lighting difference.

The area was apparently ALL yellow-flag iris as recently as a year or two ago, but volunteers have been restoring the area. The stewards saw the effectiveness of their earlier efforts, which prompted this continued work. I and other volunteers collected the stalks of seed pods in trash bags for composting and lopped off the juicy, celery-like leaves. Then the steward leaders sprayed the tops of the lopped-off stalks with pesticide so the plants wouldn't grow back.

Here's another before-and-after view.

See that clearing in the photos? That is a sign of deer having bedded there the previous night. I know deer are far too numerous, they strip natural areas of native foliage, and they spread ticks, but I was totally charmed by the fact that we had come upon the sanctuary of this peaceful (and cute, ok? They're cute) species.

This was a wetland area, right off the edge of a slough, and I don't know wetland plants. I took a couple snaps and, when I couldn't identify them from iNaturalist, asked the amazing Illinois Botany group on Facebook for some IDs. They are Carex albolutescens, Greenwhite sedge (left) and Sium suave, water parsnip.

The next day I was out in the once-country-now-'burbs so I stopped by Bluff Spring Fen. Land stewards and conservationists get super excited about this area because of its unique ecological characteristics and hospitable conditions for birds and other wildlife, but the only entrance is through a cemetery, and I arrived close to when the cemetery closes, and my car had its Check Engine light on and my phone battery was close to empty, and I'll admit I felt like I was maybe walking into a scary after-school special.

But here are some photos of the fen.

There was a prairie section, too.

Prairie coreopsis (Coreopsis palmata) and lead plant

Lead plant (Amorpha canescens), one of my faves

Black-eyed susan (Rudbeckia hirta)

Tall thimbleweed (Anemone virginiana)?

Spiderwort (Tradescantia), all closed up for the evening

Pretty. I'll have to return with a little more time. And some juice in my phone. And after the car gets checked out. And with a friend who can distract me from my irrational fear of the dead. Okay, let's get out of here.

From buckthorn jungle to oak savannah

Another day cutting buckthorn, this time at Forest Glen, a site new to me, and new to restoration. The buckthorn are so big here they are trees, big, thick trees. The goal is to turn the place back into prairie, rolling into oak savannah. I'm so excited! As you might recall , prairies are my jam.

I also enjoyed looking for tiny little sproutlings.

I was very proud of myself for recognizing these as trout lilies.


There were also spring avens, which are common but native, and loads of these low-to-the-ground spring plants with yellow flowers and which name I can't remember, dangit, but which are invasive and everywhere (anyone?). There were also the soft, fuzzy-leafed beginnings of what looked like mullein, which was brought over by Europeans for medicinal purposes. I wish I'd taken pictures of these things.


Chief Forest Preserve Friend, Josh Coles, showed me some other things growing there: cow parsnip, golden alexander. He said they'd put a seed mix a few weeks ago and some of the other tiny bladelike sprouts we were seeing were likely from that.

Little baby cow parsnip

Little baby golden alexander

We couldn't figure out what this is. Does anyone know?



The anticipation of spring is so fun, plant-wise. I'm looking forward to visiting and working at this site again, watching the plants we identified grow and change, and seeing what else comes up from the ground.

Stewardship day at Labagh

Saturday was another stewardship day Saturday cutting buckthorn, this time at LaBagh Woods. The group was large and included a crew of diligent kids from Curie High. 

Most of the buckthorn was fairly small—we used loppers and hacksaws. No chainsaw crew on this site. More time consuming than the actual cutting is disentangling the brushy, thorny, spreading branches from other trees. The stuff is like velcro, catching on anything when it falls.

Maybe one day I'll actually be able to recognize buckthorn with a degree of certitude, but for now I followed the steward's spray-painted orange marks to know which tree to cut and which to leave. There are hawthorns and oaks in these woods, native flora that belongs in this ecosystem.

There is also invasive honeysuckle, which was let stand, with some reluctance, to appease the birding groups, who just want cover for their birds and so operate under different priorities from the restoration folks.


It has rained throughout January and February, but snow has barely fallen, and what has fallen hasn't stuck. On this day it was appropriately seasonally cold and the brushfire provided welcome warmth, but the  dusting of snow that came midway through the morning still disappeared almost immediately. I'm glad I snapped the picture when I did. I miss snow.



For break, the stewards grilled hotdogs on the buckthorn brushfire, and a couple called the Martons brought out delicious home-made beans and cole slaw, apparently a regular perk of volunteering at LaBagh. The students also brought marshmallows for roasting, after the work was done. 





Note: I made a correction to the name of the food-making couple. Previously I had written "Hortons." Sorry about that, Martons!

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Back at it with the loppers

Saturday I finally got back outside to do some restoration/stewardship work with North Branch Restoration Project and Forest Preserve District of Cook County. It felt SO good to be outside, and to be helping a hawthorne grove near Linne Prairie grow stronger. I wish we'd taken before-and-after photos — we cleared a ton of buckthorn! But I only took photos on the walk there through Linne Woods.

 

It was a beautiful, muddy morning—very springlike, wholly unFebruary-like. I don't think we've had snow since December.

Once on the prairie, I recognized a few plants in their winter guise, but only the most obvious, such as this compass plant and prairie dropseed. 







Linne Prairie is interesting because, while it's come a long way, according to the site stewards Marian and John, it is still recovering from its degraded state as former farmland and fill pit. I look forward to walking here, and working here, in the spring and summer.

Loss, and growth

Since mid-November, I have been writing every day for hours — it's the most disciplined I've ever been with writing — with anything,  actually — in my entire life. I have been writing and sending out a newsletter about daily actions anyone can do to strengthen democracy, a free press, a healthy environment, and people's civil rights and liberties.

It has not seemed relevant to this blog so I haven't been posting in this blog. I don't think I want it in this blog. But it leaves this blog neglected.

This blog has morphed over time as well; it started out being largely about my search for a more responsive education system that supports and respects teachers and students. When I observed the wedges being driven between various education stakeholders in Chicago and across the country by the privatization movement, I created an education idea-exchange, H.e.a.r. Chicago Talk, and this blog became a companion for that. As my freelance and my personal work changed, my interest in nature-based formal education changed to a love and fascination with local greenspace more generally.

I have considered letting the blog morph again into an instrument of civic participation and activism. I don't think that's the right fit for this blog. You can receive my daily five-minute actions by going to tinyletter.com/fiveminutes (click on the red link to see an archive, and yikes please excuse the massive typo in the first sentence of today's letter). You can also find me occasionally guest blogging about activism on elainesir.com, a lively space for unique interviews with fascinating people and examinations of work, life, family, and society.

This blog may morph again; actually, it might be bound to. I think I need to embrace my tendency to wholeheartedly explore many things — all kinds of things, interlocking things and very different things, things that do not meld into one cohesive Big Picture — as a feature rather than a bug.

I have been thinking about this tendency, and this blog, and my work, and my interests, and my way of going through the world, and I do perceive a thread. What I want to do in all these things is facilitate equitable access to things that make life free and worth living — access to nature for all people, access to a good and respectful education, access to the resources needed to do one's job right, access to civil rights and liberties.

In my consulting work, I do an array of things — line editing, curriculum development, content architecture, nonprofit program development. I have been advised to narrow my focus or it'll never all work. But I have accepted, I think, that I can't; or rather, that narrowing my focus means doing a wide array of consulting with one thread in common: helping people and organizations with a mission to better help their clients access their content.

Meanwhile, while Resistence is Necessary and Not Futile, I sorely miss my forays into the urban wilds. I hope to continue to explore nature in and around Chicago and elsewhere, and I hope to explore this thread of access more; and I hope my newfound writing discipline will actually benefit, not continue to silence, this blog!

Thanks for your support while I sort out these new priorities for this new era.

June to July on the prairie

If the prairie were a person, it late June to July would be a growth spurt into adulthood. In July on  Schulenberg Prairie, there is a lot of new stuff, but there is also a lot of just getting bigger.

Compass plant leaves go from distinctive to enormous, with towering stalks ready to bloom.

Prairie dock leaves become elephantine, and, like their cousins the compass plants, put up giant stalks, soon to become yellow flowers.

The culver's root, which was just starting to bloom in June, is in full bloom (and being enhjoyed by pollinators) in July.

Culver's root bloom in June

Culver's root bloom in July

And the white false indigo blooms have followed a similar timeline.

Exuberant in July

Just beginning in June

Other plentiful blooms include rattlesnake master and purple (and white) prairie clover. Lead plant grew in steely clumps, though I didn't get any closeup pics. I'm sorry I missed seeing them close up—their shimmering purple-to-orange heads are mesmerizing.



























The coneflower was on its way out, though there were still legions of false sunflower.

On the guided walk I took at Morton Arboretum in June, our guide, Cindy Crosby, pointed out this lovely bough. It was a carrion flower, a creepy name (inspired by the blooms' smell, evidently) for an elegant-looking plant. 

Carrion flower bough, June

Delicate round carrion flower blooms

When I went to the same spot in July, there was no trace of the plant. Poof! Gone. 'Til next year.

July -- carrion flower bough and blooms are gone

What a beautiful festival of textures and colors.

A beautiful July prairie scene. 

And, as always, there are a thousand million blooms and plants I can't identify! Here are, well...three. Prairie hive mind what be these stems? Update: Many thanks to Mark, who identified these in the comments! The purple spike looks like hairy hedge nettle. The pods indicate a tick-trefoil, probably showy tick trefoil. The shrub is smooth sumac. I feel like I should have known at least the last. In the fall the sumac is so fire-red that it should be impossible to forget. 

hairy hedge nettle

tick tefoil

smooth sumac

smooth sumac