Winter jaunts

Ahh, winter break.  I've managed to take some time off from lounging on the couch (in an attempt to ignore this mysterious headache that's been torturing me for days by watching old movies on cable) and get my caboose out the door.  The fresh air has helped a little.  Then I go back inside and hunker miserably under a down throw and whimper a little.  Most of the time, I feel I would be a scrappy, survivalist fighter when the inevitable zombie apocalypse or devastating plague arrives.  In this current funk, I'm pretty sure I'd get my sissy, myopic ass beaten to a pulp and the brains sucked out of my skull.

 The first trip was the day after school got out--my field trip to the North Branch solstice bonfire.  Sixteen of my best and brightest came out on a Saturday morning on winter break, without receiving any reward of extra credit or service-learning hours, to hang out with their teacher in the woods on a cold day.  Kids these days--they're not all lazy bums.  We hiked around Somme Prairie Grove for a couple of hours, then headed over to Somme Woods for the bonfire.  It's delightfully pagan, what with the bagpiper and drummer and flutes and all.

 

I also shot some videos, with the club's little flip-cam purchased with Climate Cycle funds.  I am not an accomplished cinematographer, as evidenced by the vomit-inducing video I captured of the bagpipe procession from the parking lot to the woodpile.  Not a good idea to videotape while walking a rugged woodland path, it turns out.  Instead, I will treat you with a short clip of the bonfire in full flame:

Next trip:  Christmas Bird Count at Gensburg-Markham Prairie (not on actual Christmas, but 12/29).  I have always wanted to do a CBC, but never quite got around to it, due to sheer laziness and lack of confidence in my birding skills.  This year, despite the snow showers, I decided to sack up and go, figuring I could just keep notes for the experienced birders and absorb some expertise from them, like a leech.  The bird show was, well, underwhelming.  I was easily able to ID the few species we saw, and actually was the first one in the group to pin down the ID of a flock of sparrows...American tree sparrows.  Other than that, there were a couple of flocks of Canada geese flying overhead, a pair of red-tails, a few crows, and a ring-billed gull.  Yawn.  The joint was eerily silent in the snow, except for the distant roar of traffic from I-294.  Beautiful lighting for photos, however.  It was a damned shame my fingers were so cold and I brought my small camera whose settings I still haven't bothered to figure out.  Despite this, I got some good shots of cream false indigo in its subtle winter colors, and a neat shot of the burned vs. unburned side of the firebreak:

Last outing:  workday at Bunker Hill yesterday, 12/30.  This was my and Rebecca's first stint as apprentice stewards.  It went acceptably well.  There was some grumbling, bumbling, and passive-aggressive jabs from the volunteers at the outstart, since we did not plan to burn brush piles and it was rather nippy at 9am.  The reason for this is that Bunker Hill is in the confrontational zone, where the anti-restorationists have their last meager foothold.  The special rule for this zone is that any brush piles have to be out cold--not just flame-free, glowing embers as at the other sites, but cold enough to sit on--before you leave.  This means either sticking around until sunset to let the coals burn out, or putting the fire out with snow or river water (which is undesirable in that it leaves permanent piles of charcoal that will stick around for decades, as opposed to piles of fluffy ash that dissipate in the wind).  I didn't want to leave a legacy of charcoal at my new site, so we opted instead to drag all the brush to the bike path and leave it for the district to put in the chipper.  This warmed everyone up pretty quickly, so things were friendlier after the first half hour.  We only had visits from 3 of the antis, who stood out on the bike path and accosted walkers and joggers with their misinformation campaign, but kept rather quiet relative to the noisy, offensive protests of their heyday.  Since I was busy keeping the show running, I just got a couple of post-mayhem shots...the little oak grove we cleared the buckthorn and ash saplings out of, and one of the impressive piles of brush waiting to be chipped:

May the new year bring more and better opportunities for nature-gazing...including my upcoming Lincoln's bday trip to Florida, spring break to see the sandhills in Nebraska and backpack in national parks farther west, and--dare I jinx myself?--possibly Thailand and/or Central America this summer?  I wipe my hands of you, 2012, and good riddance!