Unlike the most recent weekend, the weekend before that was unseasonably warm and pleasant. Naturally that meant we wanted to visit a forest preserve, so I took to Google Maps and picked one I thought we’d never been to before: Crabtree Nature Center.

That sounds like a building you’d visit for the edification of small fry, and there is such a facility on the property (closed for now). But mostly it’s green space — woodlands and prairie and wetlands — on about 112 acres that are part of the Cook County Forest Preserve system.

Not far from the parking lot, which is half blocked off now to prevent crowding, a trail loops around two small lakes. I suspect crowding isn’t usually an issue, but never mind.

A pleasant walk on a warm day. Most of the leaves had already transitioned to the ground, making for a lush underfoot crunch as you walked on. Or the swish of knocking leaves out of the way with your feet. Distinct fall sounds.

Toward the end of the loop, you pass by some large iron-mesh enclosures, about two stories tall, home to a number of large birds that I suspect had been rescued for one reason or another, and who couldn’t survive in the wild.

Then it occurred to me: we had been here before. I remembered these enclosures. How long ago? I couldn’t recall exactly, but I did have a fleeting memory of pushing someone in a stroller. Probably Ann, since she would have been the right age for that right after we moved to the northwest suburbs, and I doubt we would have been up this way before that.