Summer
There is a specific type of sadness in the cricket's call. It sounds, to me, more like a lament than a mating call.
The nights are growing longer and cooler and Summer is ending.
syrup, sugar, and sunshine
On Saturday, Nate and I headed out to the Coral Woods Conservation Area for the Festival of the Sugar Maples. This is a yearly program run for two weeks by the McHenry County Conservation District.
It's a half-mile hike through the snow in Coral Woods with four stops detailing some of the history of maple sugar and maple syrup: from Native Americans sugar production in a hollowed-out log to modern sap collection. At the end, where they have an evaporator set up, you can sample the syrup they do make from the sap being collected. As the program only runs for two weeks there's only enough syrup to give out the tastes at the end, so none to take home.
This years warmer temps and sun made for a great time. Nate was very interested and participated at all the stops. He also received a number of complements from people in our group with how articulate and involved he was. By the time we were done with our tour, the number of people at the park had probably quadrupled. So we had clearly arrived at just the right time.
During the drive home, I failed to keep Nate awake (and who could blame him after our morning), which re-set his clock and left 
helloheather and I with a lot less time to work on house stuff. So...
Off Nate and I went again; this time to the Crystal Lake Nature Center. It's a small but fun building that is part of the Veteran's Acres park. We read books, looked at some of the animals they have, and then hiked in the slush and snow around the pond.
It was a good Saturday. The kind of hints-of-spring type day (we heard sandhill cranes flying north while at Coral Woods) that really can reinvigorate.
river of green
Last week, while riding home on the train, I was rather startled to see, well, nothing.
That's not entirely true.
What I saw previously I could no longer see. It was replaced by a wall of green leaves. Buildings, homes, streets, parks, all had "suddenly" become hidden behind trees fully engulfed in leaves.
And as the train passes by, the trees ripple like waves in a river.
Spring is always a surprise for me, I'm not sure why...it just seems like what were small buds just starting out, suddenly burst forth into fully formed leaves. I know this is not the case and I can even watch the trees foliate, but there's something in my brain that seems locked to the winter scene. And then a switch is flipped and I realize that we have shade again and the world has been turned green.
taking advantage of what we have
Nate and I went to Moraine Hills State Park on Saturday for a morning of outdoor exploration.
Every visit to the state park makes me want to go back for more. We are rather lucky in McHenry County to have a rather large number of conservation areas and three state parks. These are areas we need to take advantage of more often.
On Saturday, Nate ran ahead to the end of a wooden walkway (one that extends over the bog/wetlands area at Moraine Hills) and sat down. When I caught up with him a small snake was wiggling by and into the grass below. We also saw a Great Blue Heron take flight from its nest on the edge of the waterway. (Actually, I missed the take-off because I was busy shooting a macro photo of what looks like part of a jawbone from a critter.)
I discovered today, on the website FreeSound.org, user Tom Haigh (aka audible-edge) made a recent (March 14th) recording of the ambient sounds of Moraine Hills.
http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=69252
I think it captures the park quite well.
the bluebird of happiness
I believe I saw my first Eastern Bluebird in the wild only a couple of years ago. It was an Easter walk with family in Sterns Woods in Crystal Lake. There were a number of man-made nesting sites in the area, so I guess it was inevitable, but I was still surprised. Such a brilliant blue!
Today, while eating lunch, I noticed a bluebird hanging out on our red Maple tree. As quickly yet stealthily as possible, I grabbed my camera and telephoto lens. I knew the shots were not going to be very good, as I'm using a rather cheap telephoto and was shooting /through/ the glass of our sliding door to the patio, but still, he stayed on the branch for so long, I had to try for a few frames.
Also, male robins have been sparring over territory all around us. It feels so much like spring is just a step away.
fleeting
Today, on the way back from a fun "open gym" event in Cary with helloheather and Nate, (which followed the procurement of several new pairs of khaki's for work), a peregrine falcon swooped down, crossing from left to right, in front of our car and then up again into the trees.
I've never seen a falcon before in the wild and have rarely seen any wild raptors this close. The bird was only a few feet from my door as it gained altitude to land in the trees.
Beautiful.
Catch and Release
We've had a "population" of chipmunks around the house over the past couple of years and, the occasional hole aside, they've pretty much kept to themselves. Had they maintained the status quo and not tried to move a metric ton of gravel that surrounds the foundation of our house or dig deep into our window wells, I would still be ignoring them (except, perhaps, to watch them nibble on seeds from our trees).
But they did not keep to themselves and did, in fact, decide to dig in all the wrong spots.
So, off to the hardware store for a no-kill trap. While these types of traps do not kill, the name belies my intended usage, which can only be described as: "deferred hawk kill." For you see, I have been releasing these mini excavators to their fate in the hopes that one of the area red tail hawks will have a little extra for lunch.
At the recommendation of the manufacturer I baited the trap with slices of apple which thrilled our many local ant colonies to no end, but did nothing to entice the chipmunks. I moved the trap and baited it with Townhouse (tm) crackers. Bingo.
Wishing to keep the stress levels low, I quickly moved the trap and occupant to the trunk of my car and drove a mile to the east. I dropped the first chipmunk off and he (or she, I didn't look too closely) headed right into the tall grasses near the bike trail.
All told I have trapped four chipmunks with the winning combination of Townhouse cracker and better trap placement. The second two were caught within an hour of each other, and the fourth (a more wily opponent perhaps?) not until Sunday evening.
While a mile away may not be very far (certainly they could find their way back if they wanted to) there exists another challenge: In order to get back to our neighborhood the chipmunks will have to cross about 1/2 a mile of open grass (literally: a sod farm) thus my belief that the local hawks will have a chance to grab an extra meal.
(As an aside, it only /now/ occurs to me that I should have photographed at least one of these captures for nothing more than illustrative purposes for this very blog entry. Oh well, perhaps there are more in the area.)
Exploration
We went to a wedding this evening and there was a nearby educational wetlands area. Small but perfect for a two year-old.
I spent a lot of time outside with Nate, which was fine by me, fine by him, and gave helloheather a chance to relax inside and chat with people. Win-win!
Edit/update:
This is not to say that we didn't have fun at the wedding. It was a blast and very relaxed. It was just nice to have a place to visit with Nate and not have to keep him inside where he could have become bored and disrupted things.
Fathers Day is for Mothers
We had family over for Fathers Day and, as everyone was leaving, we discovered that the mother rabbit we'd seen hanging around the week or so before had 1) apparently given birth and 2) was busy nursing her five little ones almost right outside our front door.
The little ones were very cute, and the mother, while obviously aware and probably concerned that we were outside, did not run. Everyone just stood real still as the babies clambered over each other.
Memorial Day Weekend 2007
This past weekend was a lot of fun. It started off a little shaky with us needing to drive Nathan around at 4:00 AM on Saturday trying to get him to sleep (thus preventing us from leaving early Saturday morning). He had been up every 45 minutes to an hour since midnight and the lack of sleep pushed us back to a noon departure. But Saturday was very rainy, traffic was light, and Nathan slept much of the way to the lake house.
The weather only improved during the weekend but not really enough to go swimming. We went out on the boat a couple times though and Nathan seemed worried. He didn't really like the life vest and being in the sun so much, so the trips were short. But that's not to say he didn't have any fun out there. He liked the wind blowing in his face and liked looking at people as we went by. Serena and Charlotte came up for a visit on Sunday which was fun. Charlotte is getting so big, it's hard to believe.
On Monday we went to the Wisconsin Rapids Municipal Zoo. It's a small thing with only a few animals, but Nathan was very interested. We first stopped at the petting zoom where he actually became a bit scared at the noises the baby pigs were making. As a result he was a bit unsure of the lambs, the calf, and the goat and her kid. (He would actually clutch very close to me when we'd go near one of the pens.) But he was very interested in the hen and her chicks and all the ducklings. For the rest of the zoo Nathan was happy and very engaged. When we visited the pen with alpaca, donkey, turkeys, and two very large goats, he was most happy. He kept saying "Hey!" or "Eh!!" to the goats (which were laying down near the fence). When the tom turkey would make his call and stomp his feet, Nathan would stare in fascination. Surprisingly, he was also rather interested in the large tortoise sunning itself near the door in another pen.
As the sun was setting, I decided that, even though it was too cool for swimming in the lake, Nathan should at least experience the water a bit, so I rolled up my pants legs and sat down on the steps leading into the water. Nathan loved dangling his feat in the water, kicking and splashing, and wanted to jump in.
Tuesday, on the drive back, we stopped off in Milton to see Aaron and Charlotte where we had lunch at a local diner.
All in all it was a nice respite.
well fed
Backyard Growth - 2006
We had two stumps cut down and ground out when we had the trees trimmed earlier this year. Mushrooms love rotting wood, and this area is the mushroom equivalent of heaven.
the circle of life
My drive to the train station takes me through a hawks' territory. I see him (or her) sitting atop a large utility pole along the same stretch of road nearly every morning. This morning was no exception (one of these days I will bring a camera along and try and grab a few shots; it's a magnificent creature.)
This morning, however, I noticed that two utility poles down, there was another shape on top. As I passed by I was able to see what it was: a rabbit. The hawk had caught a rabbit (and a good sized one at that) and had left it on top of the utility pole for later consumption (perhaps to take bits back to its young?) It was a bizarre sight, to say the least, seeing a rabbit up a 50 foot utility pole
new guests
A mother fox and her three young have taken up residence under the shed in our neighbors back yard. helloheather spotted them for the first time yesterday. I was able to get a few shots of them this evening after getting home. They're very skittish and were very much aware of my camera's shutter sound.