Tag Archives: pleasant weather

This Has Never Happened in January

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According to Accuweather at least, the highs in my part of the suburbs on January 26 and 27, 2018, were 51 F and 50 F respectively. Maybe so, but on Saturday the 27th from about 11 am to 2 pm, the air felt warmer. On my deck it felt warmer, maybe because of its southern exposure.

It felt so warm I decided to cook some sausages on the grill, which usually spends its winters standing idly in the back yard. That’s probably not good for the long-term condition of the grill, but it’s a nuisance to find a spot for it into the garage. Anyway, just after noon on Saturday the grill was smokin’.

It only looks like a dry grass hazard. Because of recent snow meltage — earlier in the week — the ground was damp, even soggy in spots.

Even better, we sat on the deck and ate the sausages for lunch. An al fresco lunch in northern Illinois in January. I don’t even need one hand to count the number of times I’ve done that. I’m not sure I even need more than one finger.

Of course it didn’t last. By Sunday temps were back below freezing, with a dusting of snow. But brevity made the warmth all the more pleasant.

Songbird Slough

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Sometimes a name on a map is intriguing enough to inspire a visit to the place. So it was with Songbird Slough, a part of the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County. Charming name. When we went on Friday afternoon, it was toward the end of a pleasantly warm day, the kind you get sometimes in March (but not too often).

The Forest Preserve District says that “the 393-acre preserve is a part of a large glacial kettle formation that is the low point for a 1,000-acre watershed that drains the surrounding urban area. Songbird Slough is a combination of natural and constructed wetlands, fishing ponds, restored prairies, and meadows.”

Still a little ahead of the greens of spring, but not a bad place for a stroll, especially in 70-degree temps.
Songbird Slough, DuPage County“This urban retreat serves as a nesting spot for numerous grassland and song birds, and is a great spot for wildlife viewing, especially during waterfowl migration season,” the forest preserve continues. Not that many highly visible birds around on Friday, but there were a few.
Songbird Slough DuPage CountyWe left at about 6 pm for a 20-minute or so drive home. By the time we got home, it was 10 or even 15 degrees cooler. The sudden drop was the beginning of a cold, wet, generally unpleasant winter-spring mix of a weekend.

Thursday Bits

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Two days in a row now I’ve been able to eat a mid-day meal on our deck. It wasn’t been quite balmy, except compared to the usual November temps, but even so it’s been nice out there. I expect that to come to a quick halt soon, and never come back till April. Or May.

bowelsThough it was only a few weeks ago when I did so, I don’t remember why I scanned this box front. Maybe to remind me how glad I am that the procedure is over. Nothing amiss down there, fortunately. Man, the taste was awful.

Product recommendation: Trident Seafoods Panko Breaded Tilapia, available in the handy (if a little large) three-pound box at your neighborhood warehouse store. It’s remarkably good for frozen fish. Best frozen fish I think I’ve ever had.

Of course, you can worry-worry-worry about tilapia if you want. I understand that people do, such as Dr. Axe, who breathlessly tells us that Eating Tilapia is Worse Than Eating Bacon. Gotta tell you, Dr. Axe, bacon is better than talapia. Bacon is better than a lot of things. But I plan to keeping eating both bacon and tilapia. Living dangerously, I am.

It’s one thing to see Christmas decorations and hear music in stores now — not something you want or need, but something you expect — but what’s the excuse for Christmas lights decorating a house in mid-November? I can see stringing the things now, since it’s relatively warm, but lighting them? I saw house lights this evening not far from home. Bah, humbug.

Greener and Greener

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The greening of northern Illinois happens every spring, but I never get tired of it. Here are a few views on Saturday of the Poplar Creek Forest Preserve, a place we’ve been going for some years.

There are expanses of grass at the forest preserve.
Poplar Creek Forest PreserveAlong with thickets.
Poplar Creek Forest PreserveThe blooming dogwood.
Poplar Creek Forest PreserveAnd the eagerly exploring dog, mostly exploring with her nose.
Poplar Creek Forest PreserveProvided, of course, you take the dog out for a special-treat walk among the May greenery.

Prickly Dark Clouds

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The skies over the northwestern suburbs were particularly dramatic on the evening of April 25, 2016. Around 6 p.m. I prepared the dog for her walk, naturally one of her very favorite things to do, but as soon as we got out the door, rain fell. Dark clouds had moved in suddenly and were making noise, too. We went back inside, the dog very reluctantly.

The rain was over and it was partly cloudy again in 15 minutes or so. I took her out for the delayed walk, but after about 20 minutes dark clouds returned and made more noise, though much of the sky was still blue. We got home without incident a few minutes later. The sky toward the northwest looked like this.

Clouds! Don't strike me, Zues!Toward the north-northeast, like this.

More clouds!Pictures don’t do them justice. They were mighty fine cloud forms. As it turned out, not really storm clouds, just a mite prickly. Those came later in the evening.

The Nicholas Conservatory & Gardens

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As a destination from the northwestern suburbs of Chicago, Rockford has a number of advantages. For one thing, it isn’t that far. It’s easy to drive there, visit one place at least, maybe eat a meal, and then come home. But it’s far enough not to be in the northwestern suburbs. There are still wide-open farm fields between here and there, and some smaller towns. Someday metro Chicago and metro Rockford might well conurb, to make up a verb, but that hasn’t happened yet.

None of that would matter if there weren’t a few interesting places to see in Rockford, but there are. Such as the Klehm Arboretum, a fine warm-weather destination, or the Anderson Gardens. The Rock River is also worth a look, with its various pedestrian-oriented amenities.

I wrote in 2003 about our visit to the riverside, “We drove a short ways north of downtown, looking for a more expansive park at which to finish off the afternoon. We found it on the other (west) bank of the Rock River, at the Sinnissippi Gardens and Park, which had a greenhouse that was already closed…”

These days, the greenhouse is permanently closed. It was replaced by the Nicholas Conservatory, which opened in 2011. I’d read about its development and opening, but didn’t get around to taking a look at it until Saturday, when we drove to Rockford exactly for that reason. Saturday, April 16, 2016 here in northern Illinois was as warm and pleasant as a spring day can be, the complete opposite of only a week earlier, the miserable cold April 9. That was an impetus to go.

We weren’t disappointed by views of the Rock River (more lyrically, the Sinnissippi River) from near the new conservatory. Rock River in Rockford, April 16, 2016 People were out along the riverside trail, but not a throng of them.

Rock River in Rockford, April 16, 2016 Waterfowl were out too.
Rock River in Rockford, April 16, 2016A stone’s throw from the river — if you’re inclined toward that kind of mischief — is the conservatory.
Nicholas Conservatory, Rockford, Illinois 2016The facility’s web site is a little thin on facts, but it does say that it’s “the third largest conservatory in Illinois, offering an 11,000-square-foot plant exhibition area complete with water features, seating areas, and sculptures, all in a tropical plant setting.”

I’d guess that the Lincoln Park Conservatory and the Garfield Park Conservatory, both in Chicago, are both larger — I’m fairly certain of that — but whatever its relative size, the Nicholas Conservatory is an elegant construction, and LEED Gold besides. More about its creation here.

When It’s Springtime Around the 42th Parallel

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So many signs of spring. So many, in fact, that they aren’t signs any more. They’re simply things that happen in early spring.

It’s warm enough to eat lunch on my deck, for instance. Which I did today for the first time since some day in the fall when I sat there and wondered when the next time would be — not till April, I probably thought. (Not counting a couple of al fresco meals in Austin last month.)

The birds are noisy and the robins in particular are doing their bob-bob-bobing, as famed in song. I spotted a large rabbit near the house this afternoon. Pregnant, probably; breeding like, well, a rabbit. The grass is green and post-crocus flowers are emerging, including dandelions. A few men on the block can’t wait to mow the still-short grass, and I’ve heard them mowing it. I can wait. Today kids were playing baseball in the park behind my house.

Then there’s the cherry-picker on my street.

Cherry picker, Schaumburg, IL April 2016A crew contracted by the village came by recently to trim the trees along the street. A new thing. Unless I’ve happened to miss them every spring for more than a decade, which is unlikely, considering my self-employment, which started 11 years ago today. Blimey.

The Birds

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Saturday was as un-February-like as a day can be without actually being springlike. Temps were up and the high winds that blew through the area the day before had calmed down. The last vestiges of snow had disappeared from the ground, though a few patches of dirty ice endured here and there, but none on sidewalks.

Walking the dog was a pleasure again that day, except when she spotted a lone squirrel off in someone’s yard. Fortunately, I’m usually able to spot squirrels before she does, using that keen eyesight that seems to be a primate’s only sensory advantage over a canine. So I can anticipate the sudden pull when she does see the squirrel or the rabbit or the other dog.

I even heard a woodpecker as I walked along. An early, early sign of spring. But it isn’t springtime. Cold February was back on Sunday and today, and probably for the rest of the calendar month.

This afternoon a swarm of birds were feasting on something in my front yard. What, I’m not sure. It’s a little early for visible insects. Grubs, maybe.

The BirdsI’m not even sure what kind of birds these are. Natural history isn’t a forte of mine. They aren’t robins. Or cardinals. Or dodos. All birds I’d recognize. Or even crows, who don’t seem any more popular now than ever, despite the We Want to Be Your Only Bird™ campaign that started in the early 2000s.

An El Niño Winter?

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Some years, December comes in with the kind of snow we had before Thanksgiving. This year, rain as November ended and December began. El Niño?

I can’t pretend to understand exactly how that works, but I do defer to NOAA on the matter of the impact of El Niño on North America: “Seasonal outlooks generally favor below-average temperatures and above-median precipitation across the southern tier of the United States, and above-average temperatures and below-median precipitation over the northern tier of the United States.”

As a northern-tier location, so far we haven’t had below-median precipitation, but it has been warmer than usual. Suits me.

Other marks of the season, recently spotted in the neighborhood, include creeping Christmas lights. They started appearing just before Thanksgiving and have accelerated since. I expect a rush to put them up next weekend. The neighbors across the street have them up already. A few blocks away, someone did the full Griswold on their house, as a few people do: hundreds of lights everywhere, inflatables, glowing Santas, reindeer, elves, “Nutcracker Suite” characters, and a Nativity setup that might be visible from space.

It’s enough so far that I brought the lights in from the garage, for testing. That makes me ask all over again, how can simple strings become so tangled? Also, three of the four strings lit again after 11 months or so. One did not wake up, like the woman astronaut in the original Planet of the Apes.

Post-Thanksgiving Days of a Previous Decade

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Sunday, Nov 22, 2015

Most years the first snow’s a light dusting, but this year full-blown winter precipitation started falling late on Friday and well into Saturday, leaving us with about a foot of wet, heavy snow. Wet probably because it was barely cold enough to freeze, but it did stick to every tree and bush. Turns out the official amount on Saturday — 11.2 inches at O’Hare, where the NWS takes its Chicago-area measurement — was the most for a November snowfall since 1895.

Nov 21, 2015Friday, Nov 24, 2006

Another major holiday come and gone. Now it’s Buy Nothing Day. So far, I’ve bought nothing today, unless you count electricity, natural gas, phone service, etc. I don’t think even the most dyed-in-the-wool believer in the “America as World Pig” model of global economics would shut off his utilities for the day after Thanksgiving.

I’m no purist when it comes to Buy Nothing Day, since I have a strong suspicion I’m going to invest in fried poultry in a few hours, to feed the whelps and my nephew Sam, who’s visiting from Cincinnati. No whelp he, since he’s 23.

Yesterday’s feast was reasonably conventional: big bird, smashed spuds, various breads, even that all-North American berry, cranberries. The only peculiarities involved Sam, who is peculiar in his eating habits and ate a species of Polish sausage instead of bird meat; and our choice of dessert: a pie of no sort, but instead cream puffs.

Lilly, who just turned 9, ate as heartily as the rest of us, but at about 9 pm last night threw everything up in the vicinity of the downstairs toilet. No one else here was afflicted in the same way, not yet. Such are the stuff of special holiday memories. She felt better this morning, fortunately. [But the virus wasn’t through with us.]

Wednesday, Nov 29, 2006

Early this morning, after I’d woken up once to hear the rain on the roof, I returned to the imaginal realm and dreamed of flying – not too common a variety of dream for me, but it happens occasionally. Flying as if I were a kite, tethered to a moving train far, far below through a broad prairie landscape. That was only a part of an elaborate, vivid dream, the likes of which I only have a few times a year. I have plenty of other dreams, of course, pleasant or anxious, but more pedestrian. (The Japanese verb associated with dreaming translates as “see.” I like that. I saw a dream last night.)

Friday, Dec 1, 2006

A foot of snow today, and you’d think that would quiet things down outside. It did, for a while, since the blanket of snow muffled the streets and closed the airports beginning a little after midnight. I was up briefly at 3 am or so and wished I could leave the windows open, since the traffic noise was gone. But as soon as the sun came up this morning, rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr went the snowblowers. And traffic started again.