A BLUE AND WHITE GARDEN FOR SPRING Many years ago, when my children were young, we drove up to Door County to spend Memorial Day weekend. The weather was quite cool–the tourist season had not yet started. The peninsula was, however, exquisite; a beautiful time of year to visit. The cherry trees, for which the [...]
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A Walk in the Woods
Come, gentle Spring! Ethereal Mildness! Come. James Thomson Spring seems to have finally arrived–at least for this week. March/April flowers just started to bloom the last weekend in April: Spring Beauty and Toothwort Spring Beauty (Claytonia virginica) is common in woodlands. Clusters of tiny, pink striped, white petaled flowers form a bountiful [...]
Let’s Keep our Rainwater Here–Part 3
Good Taxes “ ‘Good tax’ may sound like the ultimate oxymoron at first,” says Luigi Zingales, a professor of entrepreneurship and finance at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, and author of a new book, A Capitalism for the People. (No, he’s not a Socialist, he’s actually a Libertarian.) He was [...]
LET’S KEEP OUR RAINWATER HERE, PART 2
LET’S KEEP OUR RAINWATER HERE Part 2 WHAT FALLS IN ELGIN SHOULD STAY IN ELGIN When rain falls, two things can happen to it. It can infiltrate the soil and become an asset to local life, or it can run off and become a liability to life downstream. James M. Patchett & Gerould S. [...]
First Day of Spring
First Day oI Spring I wonder if the sap is stirring yet, If wintry birds are dreaming of a mate, If frozen snowdrops feel as yet the sun And crocus fires are kindling one by one: sing robin, sing; I am sore in doubt concerning Spring. Christina Rossetti I know–I already used this poem [...]
Winter is dragging on, isn’t it?
Winter is dragging on, isn’t it? Let’s see what’ was in bloom on Feb. 18. Feb 18. American Hazelnut (Corylus americana) catkins and Pussy Willow (Salix discolor) branches cut and brought into the house a week before. Feb 18 Wild Stonecrop (Sedum ternatum) is our area’s only sedum. In nature it [...]
SNOWFALL
The Snow-Storm Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, Arrives the snow, and, driving o’er the fields, Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven, And veils the farm-house at the garden’s end. The sled and traveller stopped, the courier’s feet Delayed, all friends shut out, [...]
A DOCTRINE OF SUSTAINABILITY continued
A DOCTRINE OF SUSTAINABILITY continued Gerould Wilhelm IV. All places on the earth, along with the people who inhabit them, are unique to all others, this singular quality embodied in the Genius Loci. Geronimo, the great Apache leader, looking back on his beloved western homeland from a prison at Pensacola, Florida noted: For [...]
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Wild Ones: Northern Kane County Chapter
Cold, Rainy Spring
April 18, 2013 • Categories: Pat's Comments, Rain, Spring is Coming • by PatHill
Cold, Rainy Spring For the first time ever–in 13 years–I was not able to burn my prairie gardens this spring. Too wet, too cold, or too windy. So I finally had to have it cut down, raked up, and tied up or stuffed into waste bags. I don’t have a place to compost [...]
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