The last sunset of February 2022, at least from the vantage of my deck. Looking forward to the time when I can sit there comfortably and eat, read, gaze at the sunset or whatever else takes my fancy.
A few days ago, the dog was able to go out an collect snow on her snout.
Now most of the snow on the ground has melted. There will be more, of course, but March snow doesn’t usually have to staying power of January or February snows. Less so with each passing day, too.
We walked the 0.7-mile circuit around Volkening Lake on Monday evening just as the light was fading. But there was still enough light to illuminate the dog.
On the other side of the lake — which is really a large pond — we spotted geese and goslings crossing the path. 
We wisely held back as they waddled across, since we didn’t want the geese to get any wrong ideas about what our dog was up to.
I thought about going to a new (to us) forest preserve on Sunday, which turned out to be warm and pleasant, unlike Saturday. But I decided that I didn’t want to drive too far, so we went to Poplar Creek FP instead.
That’s the dog, sitting under a tree. We were doing the same. A little context:
After a walk of about a mile and a half or so, we found a shady spot to rest. Just another of spring’s delights, when it actually gets warm.
Warmish today, tomorrow and the next day even better. A pandemic might be on, but at least it’s spring. Except for those few crummy May days — and by that I don’t mean rain. Rain is usually good. What’s better than falling asleep to light rain? I mean any day cold enough to wear a jacket.
Saw a truck driving down the street the other day with “Lares Landscaping” painted on it. Landscaping is still ongoing. I don’t mention that to make a comment on business conditions or restrictions, just to say that the first thing I thought of was, what about Lares & Penates Landscaping? You know, trim your lawn to be on the good side of your household deities.
I have Mrs. Quarles to thank for that train of thought. Henna-haired, eccentric, garrulous — my high school Latin teacher. Or maybe my Latin professor at Vanderbilt, the bald, eccentric, garrulous Dr. Nabers.
We have a fine crop this year.
I refuse to put poison on my lawn just to prevent the annual sprouting of ephemeral dandelions. That’s a tenet of my landscaping. That and no more leaf raking. All through winter, leaves lay on my lawn. By May, they’re gone. So the point of raking leaves is… what?
The dog doesn’t mind the dandelions either (or brown leaves in season).
In a few days, when the lawn is dry enough, I will cut the dandelions down. They’ll be back before long.
Happy to report that once gasoline was put in the tank, the machine woke from its long nap — though not as long as some years, since I remember mowing last just before Halloween.
I don’t drive around that much these days, but every time I do the signs of the times are out for me to see. Literal signs.
During a walk this week, a common area closed.
At least the walk around the small lake was open.
The latest movies in the stay-at-home-on-demand-movie-watching-extravaganza: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (Ann’s suggestion) and Goldfinger (mine).
I’d never seen the former all the way through. I remember first seeing part of it in the common room of some cheap accommodations in Pusan. Watching it now, I’m willing to argue that there’s a touch — just a touch — of magical realism to the thing. I may be the only one to think that.
As for Goldfinger, I told Ann that if she watched only one Bond movie, that should be it.
Our latest Star Trek episode was “Amok Time,” the one in which Spock goes all funny in the groin because hyperrational Vulcans have to mate like salmon every seven years or something. Ann was much amused by the Vulcan costumes. Yes, I said, the costume designers must have had a grand old time working for Star Trek.
This can be found in our back yard. A retired inflatable yoga ball, you might call it, but I think of it as our model Neptune.
Also, an image to play around with, applying the PhotoScape Bokeh function that I didn’t know I had until now.
The dog in a favorite position.
I believe she’s officially an old dog now, though I don’t know which office determines that. Anyway, no new tricks for her. She never was one for them even as a younger dog, though we didn’t try to train her all that hard.
Another Easter activity of ours: a long walk. Lots of people can say that. The pandemic has done more for getting people out on the sidewalks than anything I can think of, at least here in a suburb that has sidewalks.
Easter Sunday happened to be warmish this year, especially when compared to Easter Monday. By late in the evening on Monday, it was already down around freezing, headed for a morning low today of 28 F. Bah.
At about noon today, there was snow. At least it didn’t last long and it didn’t stick.
Back to Sunday. In the afternoon, we went to the Arthur L. Janura Forest Preserve, also known as the Poplar Creek Forest Preserve. All of us, including the dog.
That’s only one section of a much larger property, which is part of the Cook County Forest Preserve District. Fortunately the state hasn’t ordered such places closed, though various events in the district have been cancelled. Such an order would be nonsensical, considering how much social distancing you can do in such a large expanse, but some jurisdictions don’t seem to have much sense.
A modified version of the map.
We walked from the parking lot (circled in red) along the paved path (in white) until we got roughly to where I’ve put a red octagon. From there, we headed overland to the banks of Poplar Creek (the next octagon) and then followed the creek along its curve, reaching roughly the position of the third octagon. We returned more or less the same way. Looks long, but I don’t think the walk was more than a mile and a half round trip.
There on Poplar Creek, it’s hard to believe you’re in a metro area of 9 million or so — except for the traffic on Golf Road. Not visible, but audible, even if the sound is a little diminished in these pandemic days. The creek, fairly full from spring rain, gurgled along.
Poplar Creek is a tributary, ultimately, of the Fox River, which feeds the Illinois River. That in turn flows to the Mississippi. So the water we saw was destined, mostly, for that mighty river and the far-away Gulf.
The route was muddy and sometimes strewn with fallen branches and rocks. The grass and weeds and other foot-level plants are greening nicely, while the trees and bushes are getting their start, but haven’t caught up yet.
I think dog thoroughly enjoyed her walk, tramping through the mud, sniffing everything she could, and chewing on blades of grass when we paused. We didn’t have such a bad time either, momentarily away from shelter in place.
Not bad weather for December so far. Above freezing and sunny today and yesterday. This can’t last.
This week I noticed the first installation of solar rooftop panels on my street, though not in my part of town. A good thing to do, I suppose. But my on-the-fly, rough calculations go like this: Cost to install: x. Savings on energy each year: a small, maybe minuscule fraction of x. Tax-credit support for the project: you’ll find out after considerable paperwork and wandering through the fun house that is the tax code. So another fraction of x. Years to recoup investment: many.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe that’s changed or was never right. Could be that Greta will come to my front door someday and personally shame me about my non-solar house. I know the cost of solar panels is way down, but that’s only one cost component, and I also know that any home improvement project costs more than published estimates, or the contractor’s estimates, or more than you think it should, or just more period.
Schaumburg Town Square here in the northwest suburbs is decked out pretty nicely with lights this year. Here are trees along the square’s square pond.
The clocktower and its plaza are gold and silver.
The first time, I think, I’ve seen the clocktower itself arrayed in sparkling gold.
Closer to home — at home, in fact — I recently made a clip of the dog perched in one of her favorite places, the stairs. Lights feature in this clip as well. Strange, eerie lights… either an easily explainable reflection from the dog’s tapetum lucidum inside her eyes, or the animal is sending me telepathic beams to relay one simple message, Feed me more.
On a more somber note, two deaths have come to my attention recently. Both of people hardly old.
RIP, Craig Bloomfield, PR man and commercial real estate writer, and professional acquaintance of mine. Also, roughly my age. I don’t remember the last time I spoke to him, though it’s been a number of years. I have some pleasant memories of PR lunches with him back in the early 2000s, especially at the Russian Tea Time in the Loop.
RIP, Debbie Gregg, eldest sister of a very old friend of mine. I spent a lot of time with her brother Tom in the early ’70s, and Debbie was around sometimes. She was about the same age as my eldest brother. Tom and I haven’t been in touch much as adults, and I probably haven’t seen Debbie in 30+ years, since Tom got married, but it’s still a sad thing to hear.
On Saturday we left town remarkably early (for us) and drove across the Lower Peninsula of Michigan so that on Sunday morning, I could stick my feet in Lake Huron.
Saginaw Bay in particular. Of course that wasn’t the entirety of the trip. But it was the inspiration. Sometime years ago, I realized that I’d never really gotten a look at Lake Huron. I’ve crossed the Mackinac Bridge a number of times, which offers a view of the lake to the east, but somehow that doesn’t count. I wanted to see Lake Huron from outside a car, moving at zero miles an hour, and hear the waves and smell the water and feel the sand and pebbles.
So Labor Day weekend was the time. We all went, including the dog. First stop on Saturday morning was at one of the Sweetwater’s Donut Mills in Kalamazoo because I hadn’t forgotten them.
Near Battle Creek, we stopped at a novel local spot: Historic Bridge Park. I’ve seen open-air museums devoted to houses and other buildings, but this is the only place I know that functions as an open-air museum featuring bridges.
Heading northeast, we arrived in Lansing in time to visit the Michigan State Capitol. Or so I thought. There are usually Saturday hours, but not on Labor Day weekend. Still, we had a good walk around the grounds and Washington Square to the east, along with an al fresco lunch of Cuban sandwiches.
Michigan State University is in East Lansing. After some wandering around the sprawling campus, we found the W.J. Beal Botanical Garden, the first of three gardens we visited.
We made it to Midland, Michigan, before dark and spent the next two nights there. On Sunday morning, we visited Bay City State Park on the lakeshore, walking on the beach and a path around a large lagoon. By lunchtime, we were back in Midland, eating al fresco again — the thing to do with a dog in tow.
Midland has a lot of large parks accessible from its small downtown, but that’s not the distinctive feature. That would be the Tridge, a three-way bridge across the confluence of the Chippewa and Tittabawassee rivers. Naturally we had to cross that.
Next we visited Midland’s Dahlia Hill, which is planted with thousands of dahlias and open to wander around. After that, Yuriko and Ann visited the much larger Dow Gardens, while I took a drive with the dog to Bay City. No dogs allowed at Dow Gardens.
During my driving look-see in Bay City, I noticed a Huron Circle Tour sign. Like Superior, that would be a drive.
Want. To. Do. It. But not now. While everyone else rested in the room early in the evening, I visited the expansive and exhausting Dow Gardens, along with the adjacent Whiting Forest. Open till 8:30 in the evening until Labor Day, fortunately.
On Labor Day we drove home, but not the most direct way. We passed through parts of Saginaw — parts beaten down by the contraction of U.S. manufacturing, it looked like — and then on to Michigan’s faux Bavarian tourist town, Frankenmuth.
Had a good time and a chicken lunch there, but the overstimulation of it all made the dog as nervous as I’ve ever seen her, so we headed home. Riding in the back seat seems to be as calming for her as parking herself on the couch at home.
As far as I can tell, she enjoyed the trip and the many new smells.
That last one almost instantly became a favorite picture of her.
Saw a few fireflies the other day, a certain sign of that nebulous period, high summer. The days might be getting shorter, but you don’t notice that yet — like the long moment at the top of ballistic trajectory. Back to posting around July 7.
Usually I rely on rain to wash my car or, if absolutely necessary, a hosing down on a warm day. But after our recent summertime jaunt to central Illinois-Indiana, enough bugs had met their insectoid maker against the leading edge of my car that I ponied up for an automated car wash. Half price ($5), though, since I had a coupon.
I find the journey through the car wash, at less than two minutes, visually and sonically interesting. I get that for my money, besides the removal of bug splatter.
So I held my camera as steady as possible during the splashing and blooping and hissing and flapping, along with elements of a minor light show.
The dog spent some time this morning trading insults with a resident squirrel. At least that’s how I want to think of it. The dog spotted a squirrel in the major back yard tree around 9 and immediately started looking up and whining at it, as she often does. Soon the squirrel was making its own noise, something like a duck with laryngitis.
Age has slowed her (the dog) down a little, but not yet when it comes to guarding the back yard against other creatures. Earlier this year, she spent time trying to scratch through the deck to reach what I suspect was a brood of possums. They seem to be gone now, since that dog behavior has stopped for now.
Chanced on a site called Yarn the other day that purports to offer a search “by word or phrase for TV, movies, and music clips.” So I decided to test it.
Why that phrase? Just popped into my head like the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
On Easter Sunday, I drove Lilly back to UIUC, and this time the rest of the family came along for the ride: Yuriko, Ann and the dog. Been awhile since we’ve been on a trip of more than a few miles with the dog, but we figured she’d enjoy it and not be too much trouble. Except for the soda spill she caused toward the end of the trip, she wasn’t.
So we had a few pleasant hours in Champaign-Urbana, with temps in the 70s and greenery budding everywhere. Especially at the University of Illinois Arboretum.
“The University of Illinois Arboretum was developed in the late 1980s to early 1990s,” according to the university. “The original 1867 campus master plan placed the Arboretum north of Green Street where the College of Engineering currently exists. During the 1900s, the site moved to south campus, located near the Observatory, and Smith Music Hall.
“Now located at the intersection of South Lincoln and Florida Avenues, the Arboretum’s gardens, collections, and habitats are transforming 160 acres of the University’s south campus in Urbana-Champaign into an exceptional ‘living laboratory’ for students in plant sciences and fine and applied arts, as well as an oasis of natural beauty open to the public.”
I don’t know about natural beauty, since an arboretum, though working with living materials, is man-made. But if you called it artificial beauty, people think plastic or some other synthetic material. So let’s just say it’s a beautiful spot.
A trail leads from the small parking lot and toward the arboretum’s large pond.
Also on the grounds of the University of Illinois Arboretum is Japan House.
Japan House is a unit of the College of Fine and Applied Arts at the UIUC, beginning when a Japanese artist-in-residence, Shozo Sato, came to the school in 1964, with the building completed in 1998. Such rarefied arts are calligraphy, tea, ikebana and sumi-e are taught there.
Japan House itself wasn’t open on Sunday, but the grounds were.
Including a view of the zen garden.
The grounds would be a good place for moon viewing, or tsukimi. Wonder if that’s ever happened there.