Not every recent day has been wet and chilly here in the northwest suburbs. A few have been dry and chilly. But not so cold that we can’t take walks in places like the Kay Wojcik Conservation Area.

In full, it’s the Kay Wojcik Conservation Area at Oak Hollow, which sounds like a compromise renaming to avoid getting rid of the old name (it was just Oak Hollow CA before 2009). Whatever the name, it’s a pleasant place for a stroll, and one of those parks tucked deep in the suburban fabric, so that few outside the immediate area probably know about it.

Part of the conservation area is a pond.

The park is a 17½-acre remnant of the pre-settlement oak grove, marked by a small network of trails. How it didn’t become farm land and then suburban housing, the park district doesn’t say, but perhaps it was a bit marshy for either of those uses.

After getting home from our walk, I looked up Kathleen “Kay” Wojcik. Now retired, she was a Schaumburg Township clerk and later a member of the Illinois House of Representatives, from 1983 to 2003, and in the Illinois Senate from 2003 to 2005. Hope she’s able to stroll in her namesake park from time to time.