Environment, Wildlife, Agriculture

Free Bunnies!

Every spring we are entertained to see a couple cottontail rabbits running around in the backyard. They live under a giant spreading yew bush that nestles against our deck. Over time, I have made peace with the bunnies.

Despite a continual attack on our flowers– impatiens, tulips, pansies, zinnias– I have come to accommodate their presence. They are fun to watch. A ritual or game they play involves a constant chase of tag on the lawn. After a couple rounds, one will back into a corner, and egg the other one on to attack. So bidden, the aggressor runs toward the other like a cross-checking hockey player. The defender jumps straight up like a jack in the box. Then they start the tag game again.

In the spring we get additional surprises. For the past two years I have cleared away the mulch around our rose bushes and have uncovered a little nest of tiny furry bunnies huddled together, absorbing the morning sun’s warmth. Cute as a button. Over the next weeks their numbers decrease from four down to one as Mother Nature starts pulling strings.

The bunnies were not always welcome. After they clear-cut a set of zinnias, they provoked me to build a fence around my garden. Next morning I came out to inspect, and found they had chewed a door through the fence. I put up another fence. Another door. Finally a steel fence, and security was restored. Despite their attacks, I give them space because of their entertainment, and because Jane, my wife likes them around.

So, I have taken the extra step of befriending these furry chums. Walking out onto the deck, at any time of day, I may find a bunny contentedly nibbling away at our lawn. They never run. I think they are confident I could never catch them, which is true. So, doubling down on their casualness, I strike up a conversation. One-sided but an attempt. My logic is that the more they hear me talking to them, the more relaxed they are in my presence. So far, I have been right. Not sure what the neighbors think.

This spring we were further surprised to find we had three fully grown rabbits playing tag. That begged the question: Siblings? Cousins? Mates? Philanderers? The possibilities of a triangle of relationships came to mind. But still, we were just entertained to see that three had emerged from the deck’s protection over last winter.

Yesterday, while mowing the lawn, I found this year’s litter. It was not under the roses, but dug into the side of a hill by the moraine locust tree in our backyard. A small grey patch appeared where I was pushing the lawn mower. Looking closer, I found a hole, carefully covered with a layer of downy rabbit fur. Aha! A new brood! Now I know what those full grown bunnies have been up to!

This morning, we were again stunned. Out came another bunny from the yew bush, about the size of a teacup. Nibbling on the grass, and rolling in the sand pile they have created for morning ablutions. Wow! A small bunny..but wait…another one follows, also cup-sized! Two teenagers!

Now where did they come from?

In the next few weeks I will be planting our flowers. We’ll see how long they last.

Environment, Science

This Is Breathing Easier

This summer we encountered a situation that was creepy and unnerving, and hardly expected. The house we were living in was on top of a radioactive site.

Well, that may be exaggerating a bit. Not a Chernobyl, for instance. But nevertheless, we were surprised to find that about one quarter of the homes in our neighborhood are subject to potentially deadly radon gas.

We bought our house over thirty years ago, and have loved its layout, design and location. It is a beautiful home. Coming from Ontario, we were a little surprised to find that our prized ranch did not have a full basement, but rather a large crawlspace adjacent to a subterranean room which serves as the ‘real’ basement. In fact, that smaller-sized basement has discouraged us from stowing thirty years of accumulated unnecessary stuff.

The crawlspace now sealed under 6mil plastic sheeting

But the crawlspace– it runs under two-thirds of our home. It is high enough to allow one to crab about on all fours, with easy head room. The expanse of it is covered with about 4-6 inches of pea gravel. Under that is a thin plastic sheet to keep out the moisture from below.

When we closed on the house, a necessary radon inspection was performed in the basement. This was a foreign concept to us, but, hey, we’re from out of town. The fellow used a sniffer geiger counter of some sort, and observed, “Oh, it’s a little high, but no big deal.” The real estate agent was quick to agree, and encouraged us to close the deal. We loved the house, and we closed. Commissions were earned.

Flash forward to 2022. Our county health department advertised the availability of do-it-yourself radon test kits. Since we had been conditioned to COVID self-testing, the radon kit was easily understood, and after all, what can it hurt?

So, we tested. The numbers came back in a few days by email, in RED block letters, citing unacceptable ratings. Like three times higher than barely acceptable. Wow! The stuff was collecting in the basement, but worse, settled nicely in our bedroom and family room where we spent more than a third of our lives.

It was time to check out radon, and understand what the big kerfuffle was about. Information is easily found online, and we read that radon is the second-leading cause of lung cancer. The numbers are confusing, but bottom line, radon causes about 21,000 lung cancer deaths per year according to the EPA and 2,900 of those are in non-smokers.

Who knew?

Radon is an inert, noble gas. Its cousins are helium, neon, argon, krypton, xenon and oganesson. They are called “noble” because they don’t react or bond with other elements easily. Stand-offish you might say. Nevertheless, they do have their value: helium is perfect for balloons and making squeaky voices. Neon gives us every flashy sign we ever saw, and is at the core of every country song. Krypton is used in fluorescent lights, and as the fabled home planet of Superman. Xenon also is used in lighting. Radon is actually used in cancer therapy. It is the result of radium, uranium and thorium decay, and is found in well water, rainwater and in the ground. It has a half life of about 4 days, so it does diminish in potency. It is also heavy, so tends to stay low, like in our basement. You can imagine how impressed we were to have that radon bubbling up in our living space.

Consulting the county health department’s website, it turns out that 24% of the homes tested in our county have unacceptable radon ratings. Virtually one in four. Really.

So.

We felt it was worth our while to eliminate the threat. We hired a radon mitigation team to seal up our basement. The solution was low-tech, but required some physical effort. Two contractors came in from Wisconsin, and laid perforated PVC piping across the floor of our crawlspace. The entire crawlspace was then sealed under a thick sheet of plastic film. Then the piping was connected to a vacuum pump that sucked the air out of the ground beneath the sheet, and vented it outside. A second pipe was also punched through the concrete floor of our basement, and connected to the vacuum. The installers turned on the pump, and within a week, the radon rating plummeted to a safe level.

Is the threat significant? Depends upon your state of mind. One thing’s for sure, if you intend to sell your home, it will probably include a radon inspection, at which time you might have a 24% chance of losing the sale as panicky buyers run out of the house.

For all the information on radon, here’s a website that may help you: https://www.epa.gov/radon. And for a closer look at your state and county, try this: https://state-radon.info.

Culture, Environment, Government, Legal, Wildlife

Butterfield: Where To, Now?

A group of 3 year-olds graze on the open space at 901 Butterfield Highway.

Driving down Butterfield last week we spied a herd of deer grazing in the snowy, white expanse of a field cleared in 2016. Among them were at least 4 bucks, with 3-point antlers. Around 2-1/2 years old. They would have been newly born in the spring before the Archdiocese of Chicago cut down 33 acres of sheltering trees on this scenic, colorful piece of woodlot on the west side of Libertyville.

The once colorful woodlot was viewed by more than 20,000 motorists every day.

The deer are a conundrum caught in a quandary. They have multiplied to 28 in number, primarily due to the removal of wooded habitat that housed their arch enemy, the coyote. Left unchecked, they face an uncertain future, either from lack of food, or an unlucky collision with an auto speeding along Butterfield Road. They must wonder, ‘What’s happening here? Where will we live next?’

We might ask the same question ourselves.

Cluster Housing: 148 homes planned for construction on 15.2 acres of land.

Back in August 2016, the Village announced an open meeting of the Plan Commission to present a housing development proposal to occupy a 40-acre lot owned by the Archdiocese of Chicago. The developer, it is now learned, had bid $15 million to buy the land for the purpose of installing 148 ‘cluster homes’ on the lot, plus two detention ponds and roads. 7 acres of woods would offer a treed park for walks.

The open meeting attracted over 100 residents who voiced their concerns and asked pointed questions that set the commission, and the developer, back on their heels. The meeting adjourned with a promise of refinements, and for a follow up, which was scheduled in January, 2017.

An astounding disregard for optics, and the local parish.

The machines made fast work of the Church’s order.

Then, in November, just before Thanksgiving, with an astounding disregard for optics, and an unconscionable dismissal of its local parish, the Church decided to spring into action. After receiving approval from the Village, it cut down 33 acres of mature trees which grew on the development site. The sheer sight of the woods coming down, so swiftly, leaving a naked field behind, shocked many in Lake County. More than 20,000 drivers passed the scenic woods every day.

By January, the development had surfaced all sorts of debate and before long, it became clear that the residents were pushing back. Their concerns ranged from traffic to congestion, from design to pollution. Ripping out the woods was the final straw. A summary of 19 specific concerns were circulated, and became talking points for review.

Looking north on Butterfield Highway, homeowners will enter and exit just left of the power line pole.

The Village Board became closely aware of the situation, and received a final proposal from the Plan Commission to halt the development. In a special March 2017 meeting, held at the high school auditorium, the Board of Trustees voted unanimously against the development as proposed. The pivotal issue was traffic congestion and safety.

Looking south on Butterfield, the commuters’ treks just begin.

It could have ended there, but a dose of reality was dispensed. Libertyville had just killed the Church’s $15 million dollar deal, and the Archdiocese, reputedly in search of cash, was miffed.

In June of 2017, the Catholic Bishop of Chicago filed a suit against the Village for its “capricious, arbitrary decision” which denied the Church its constitutional rights to sell the land. And so, it ended up in court.

The trial commenced in November 2018, and concluded December 7. The judge was buried under boxes of memoranda, reports and legal papers along with 10 days of procedural testimony. The sole subject: traffic safety. Nevertheless, he offered a decision perhaps as early of January 31, 2019.

A portion of the 28 white tail deer that grazed on January 20, 2019. Not a coyote in sight.

We wait. But back to the deer. Where do they go? Ironically, their numbers swelled because the coyotes lost their homes in the woods. But what now?

As an FYI, the Lake County Forest Preserve is closed at night until March because they are thinning out the deer population. In their books, 15-30 deer can safely occupy a square mile (640 acres) of open land. Yet here we have 28 deer grazing on the corner of the 33-acre open patch. Maybe they hale from St.Mary’s and Pine Meadow golf course. Interestingly, on the Forest Preserve website I picked up their regrets about development and how it affects Lake County’s natural resources:

“Natural processes are disrupted. No harm was meant, but 150 years of settlement has greatly changed local habitat. The surface may look okay, but many habitats are not healthy. The gradual impact of people settling in this area has been astounding:

Prairies were plowed
Wetlands were tiled and drained for agriculture
Wildfires were suppressed
Predators and pollinators were wiped out
Invasive species were introduced and their populations exploded
Habitats have become islands in a sea of development
Streams are muddied
Prairies, woodlands and wetlands shrink smaller and smaller”

Three bucks in a quandary: where to now?

It’s all sobering to think about. We wait for the judge to announce his decision.

Culture, Environment, Government, Legal, Politics

Butterfield: A Look Back

Dear Reader: The following is primarily of interest to Libertyville residents. The 19 points below are a review of the concerns about a housing development on Butterfield Road in Libertyville, proposed in August 2016. A final court decision is due shortly.

For my many readers who may not live here, if you are interested in the potential impacts of housing development in your neck of the woods, read on! These were originally posted March 24, 2017.

“The proposed Planned Development at 901 Butterfield is not in keeping with Libertyville tradition, standards, or our treasured quality of life. Here’s why:

Density
1. While R6 zoning may allow as much as 232 dwellings on 40 acres, the developer’s proposal of 148 is not a salve. Indeed, those 148 homes are built on 15.2 acres, or approximately 9.7 dwellings per acre. This is an urban solution in the midst of spacious, open R3, R4, and R5 subdivisions.

Financials
2. The developer’s proposed sell prices for the homes are virtually unobtainable. The attached neighborhoods’ single family dwellings, have median sell prices of $550,000, vs. the $750,000 proposed for the tightly packaged single-family dwellings. The total property assessment of $109,000,000 is most likely unachievable. The more likely assessment will be $76,000,000, affecting tax revenues significantly.
3. Surrounding neighborhood values will decrease as a direct result of the removal of open space. The additional traffic and registration pressure on Butterfield School will also be a negative to existing property values.

Schools
4. An additional 104 students at Butterfield will require 3-5 additional classroom equivalents. Using the developer’s Fiscal Impact Study model, District 70 will be underwater financially when property assessments are realized at only $76,000,000, requiring incremental tax dollars.
5. School bus transit will be required for all students in the development, further stalling any LCDOT decision to add a signal at the development’s entrance.

Traffic
6. There will be an additional 300 cars in the immediate vicinity. Traffic on Lake Street will increase from 3,800 car trips per day to 5,000.
7. Commuters exiting the development during rush hour may incur accidents turning left, northbound, onto Butterfield in order to reach the Metra Station.
8. Commuters exiting the development during rush hour turning right, southbound, will use Ridgewood Lane as a cut through passage to the Metra Station, disturbing residents on Hillcrest, Sedgwick, Blackthorn and Paradise.
9. Left turn lineups on southbound Butterfield at Park Ave (176) will increase, causing illegal stacking of cars.
10. Pedestrian traffic across Butterfield is in severe jeopardy regardless of time of day, every day, especially drawn to the Butterfield School campus. 23,000 cars per day, average car speed: 47mph. There are estimated 150 school-aged children in the proposed development.

Butler Lake Pollution
11. Private contractor snow removal in a high-density subdivision leads to expedient salting practices. Chlorides are permanent, non-removable threat.
12. Butler Lake pollution is a real risk from indiscriminant use of chlorides which will be washed away by 20,000,000 gallons of storm water run off from the development, into the Bull Creek watershed annually. Libertyville spent $3,450,000 in taxpayer dollars to clean Butler Lake.

Design
13. The 6-foot-high, white vinyl fenced yards are minuscule, with limited opportunity for school-aged children to play near home. They will be lured to parks out of sight, or across Butterfield highway to the school campus.
14. Street designs are straight, encouraging dangerous car speeds.
15. Alley loaded homes are fraught with challenges: traffic, unsightly storage, litter, pet disturbances and fouling, parking, ambient pedestrian traffic , loitering, noise and unwanted gatherings.
16. The 1,000-foot long, 8-foot-high reflecting sound wall on Butterfield is a visual obstruction, and a road noise nuisance to Ridgewood residents and to Butterfield School. The wall will encourage driver speeding as well.
17. The design hides the development’s open space from Libertyville residents, tucking the park out of sight from commuters and local residents alike.

Zoning Compliance
We do not believe that the proposed development is in the best interests of the citizens of Libertyville. It is not a fair offer to be made to potential first home buyers or “moving down” buyers either. We ask all responsible to acknowledge accountability in respecting these considerations as stated in the

Village Zoning Code:
18. Planned Development approvals are subject to Libertyville Zoning Code Article 16-9.5 . This development does not adequately comply with our guidance for adverse impacts, interference with surrounding development, adequate public facilities, traffic congestion, destruction of significant natural, scenic features in the vicinity.
19. According to Article 16-9.5-c Special Use Permits are dependent upon meeting the standards of public benefit, assessing alternative locations, and mitigating adverse impacts. “

The Village and Archdiocese of Chicago are awaiting the final decision of 9th Circuit Lake County Judge on whether the development will go forward. The crux of the argument is traffic congestion and traffic safety. Decision is due on or around January 31, 2019.

Agriculture, Culture, Environment, Science, Wildlife

Marmoration Nation

The Brown Marmorated Stinkbug

I had to laugh when a recent plea came across our Village Facebook page, “Will they be spraying for mosquitos this year?”

The summer’s nearly over. Fall’s coming. Frost on the pumpkin. Mosquitoes??

Skitters may be annoying, a nuisance, bothersome and carriers of West Nile disease, but other than that, well, they aren’t stink bugs.

Last fall we found scads of these penny-sized twirps on the side of our brick ranch, an unsightly rash of brown measles, sunning themselves every afternoon through September and into October. Mindful of the laws of karma, I did not kill them. I flicked them off the sliding door screen and wished them a good life, but somewhere else.

Brown Marmorated Stinkbugs are so named because they have a marbled camouflage suit. Hard to see as they bask on the lilac leaves in the afternoon sun.

Halyomorpha halys: a member of the family Pentatomidae

They also smell.Before understanding what I was dealing with, I smacked one, and as it exploded under my hand, it shot off a dying waft of odor that resembled rotting, moldy underwear, which I say kindly. Understandably, they are not tasty, so lack many natural predators. Crows turn up their noses. It turns out that wasps will go for them. Terrific!

Stinkbugs are unpleasant creatures, only recently making it to our corner of the Midwest in northern Illinois. Apparently they originated in the far east, and hopped a ship to a harbor on the east coast, and with time, they have moved west. Apparently they like soybeans which grow abundantly on a 33-acre field across the highway from us.

Time moved on, and as the snows fell in December, the stinkbug drifted out of our memory. We passed the evenings in front of the fire, catching up on Survivor and other important social studies.

Then, one day in January, a black dot appeared on the family room wall, over the door.

“What the…?” I stared. “That’s a, a, a stinkbug! What’s it doing in here?”

No longer spooked by the ironies of karmic payback, I grabbed the odiferous brown button in a wad of tissue, and walked it off to the toilet for a quick dispatch to the next world.

“Don’t know where that came from, but it’s history.” I flumphed down on the TV couch beside my wife to witness 8 publicity-hungry people attempting to dive into the Pacific ocean to retrieve a key, which would unlock a box of beanbags back on the beach to throw into a basket which would tip over and raise a victorious tribe buff.

Then, looking up over the fireplace, another brown button.

You can guess the conversation that followed, and that eventually, unbelievably, tortuously repeated itself for the next three months as every day, two more bugs appeared in the family room.

Under duress, their natural odor is intolerable.

Somewhere on the outer lining of our house, a gang of stinkbugs was holed up, waiting for spring. We came to imagine that the ringleader would crawl among its cohorts asking for volunteers to go out and check the weather.

Everyday, without fail, two creatures would emerge, quietly, stealthily, and present themselves somewhere in the family room or hallway. They never flew. They just appeared, immobile, prostrate, stuck to a wall. They stood out like 8-balls in a bathtub, and so quickly ended up mummified in tissue and expelled to a plumbing system which hopefully took them to a station miles way from us.

And then spring came, and the bugs one day missed their cue, not showing up. We relaxed, and enjoyed the following months that scrolled through May and June’s fragrant flowers, thick lawns cut weekly, releasing the unforgettable aromas of fresh cut grass. Deep into summer the garden fluttered under the visiting companies of butterflies, mindful robins, cock-eyed, frenetic squirrels and later the incessant, raucous buzzing of the cicadas.

As September arrived, the sun warmed our home on its west side. Stepping out to the deck to light the barbecue, I lifted the lid, and looking up, spotted, there, on the wall, a brown, marmorated, stinkbug!

Stinkbugs: seekers of nook and cranny.

“Cripes! A stinkbug!” I groaned. Looking beyond this unwelcome visitor I found another. And another. “Holy crap! They’re back!” Sure enough, as I walked along the side of our house I spied more than a dozen.

The next day, I obtained a particularly bug-lethal concoction from the hardware store. Mixing approximately 3 tablespoons to a quart of water, I filled up a handheld spray bottle. The solution was 5 times as powerful as recommended.

A crusade of epic proportions

For the balance of September I sprayed every afternoon and every morning, targeting bugs in twos and threes, clustered under the soffit, ensconced in the cracks between the bricks, hiding under the lilac leaves, perched on the window screens, and skittering along the edges of the gutters.

It was a crusade of epic proportions. I had gone through a whole quart of the concentrate, and went back for a second, relishing the daily harvest I was taking on these annoying little bugs. The walls dripped in poison spray as the bugs plummeted to the ground, dead.

You may recall the adventure story, “Leiningen And The Ants” . A plantation owner and his crew are defending the crops from a vast plague of soldier ants that devour every living thing in their path as they march, six-legged, towards the house. Leiningen first attempts to fend them off with a moat. The crafty, unstoppable ants still cross. Next he douses his fields in gasoline to burn the ants, but they forge on. Finally, he floods the entire plantation by diverting the river, only just escaping his own vivisection as the ants pulled him down.

Somehow, I felt like Leiningen, defending house and home, and winning.

Early this October, the weather turned cold and wet, and the stinkbugs were gone. They had vacated the trees, the walls, the gutters, the screens, and the soffit. It was over.

October in Illinois is a flighty month, climate-wise. After raking all the fallen leaves, we were presented with three days of 80’F weather. This past week, I surveyed the yard, and looking up to our gutters spotted more of the bug. Returning to the house, I loaded up another quart of the juice, and like trigger-hyper Terminator in a video game proceeded to decimate the bugs, which by this time numbered a small mob.

“I just finished off 84 stinkbugs!” reporting to my wife, who rolled her eyes. “The sun brought them out, and they got the juice.” I was triumphant. The sides of our ranch looked like a target range for paintball, with little wet splats everywhere.

After lunch, I ventured out to the deck as the sun came around. “Geez!! There’s more of ’em!” I went back to search and destroy mode, and sprayed 135 more bugs. “That’s gotta be it. Just gotta be.” Indeed, it did seem like their rush was finally kaput.

Our yard hosts a forest of mature trees. Closest to the house is a Moraine Locust. This tall giant provides the most generous and pleasing canopy during the summer months. Swinging in our hammock one can gaze up at the millions of tiny leaves that sway effortlessly in the wind like green petals against a brilliant blue sky. It’s an irreplaceable retreat, passing the time, thoughtless and serene.

The summer idyl is over in October however, and that is when the leaves turn yellow, and all one billion of them fall to the ground, and to our roof, settling in golden billows packing the gutters. It is a regular ritual to blast them out of the gutters, and with that purpose, I climbed to the roof, leaf blower in hand, and started the excavation.

A little tank at the bottom of the summit.

Hardly into the first side, and I scan the roof for errant leaves to push over the edge, when before me creeps a stinkbug. Crabbing across the asphalt shingles, it joins another stinkbug. I take a moment to blow it away with the leaves. And then I look towards the peak of the roof, and there is a long train of bugs marching along the summit like Sir Edmund Hillary’s Everest trek, complete with sherpa porters, numbering in the hundreds.

I am aghast.

Stepping up towards them I inspect the shingles at my feet, and watch as stinkbugs enter and exit every little groove in the overlapping sheets. They are everywhere. This is home. Seekers of nooks and crannies, they have found refuge. I walk up to the roof ventilators. These are black, screened aluminum umbrellas which shelter vapor draft for the attic. I tap on one, and 20 stinkbugs explode out from under in every direction like gangsters rousted from a crap game.

The neighborhood is a giant roof garden of marmorated chia pets.

I finish the leaf job, and descending to the deck pause to reflect. Leiningen conquered the ants, but only after torching and flooding his land. Not an option here. It dawns on me, as I survey the gables and rooflines next door, that every house in town is hosting a giant blanket of stink bugs on their roofs like an enormous marmorated chia pet. There is no defense.

We’re done for, until the frost comes, and it can’t come too soon.

Thanks for reading and sharing! The Department of Agriculture sees these as an economic pest. But a solution is hopefully underway.

Environment, Government

How High’s The Water?

“May the rains fall gently upon your fields” ~ Irish Blessing

We get rain; the DesPlaines gets big.

On a day like today, we are all content to stare out the window as indeed the rain does fall gently on our gardens. It has for two days now. The weather folks are enthusiastically dissecting their multi-colored maps showing this vast swath of water that circles the midwest, soaking us through the longest day of the year, and then some.

Waukegan will get close to 3 inches.

Closer to home, we can watch the steady building of Mellody Farms, at the intersection of Milwaukee and Townline Road in Vernon Hills. Traffic snarls along the roads, under the swinging makeshift signals. Meanwhile, trucks and trade vehicles pull in and out of the construction zone.

You can watch the construction cam: I have its URL down below.

Over 100 tankers for every inch of rain.

What is not first apparent, but might be some day, is the amount of water entering the site. Imagine over 100, 18-wheel tanker trucks coming into the site, and exiting too. You can only imagine it, because there are no tanker trucks. But that is how much water is being dumped on this site for every inch of rain that drops today.

Around 980,000 gallons of rainwater fall onto the 36 buildable acres in Mellody Farms for every inch of rain. You can do the math.

Once the rain falls onto the impervious surface of this new shopping center, it has to leave, and it does, coaxed into storm drains that take the volume down, or rather, just over to, the DesPlaines River.

From there, the rainwater disperses, much to the belated concern of folks along the river in Mettawa, Lincolnshire, and ultimately Wheeling. There may be some buildings, like Hollister, just north of Mellody Farms too who will be checking their basements.

And now be mindful, “May the river rise up to meet you.”

Thanks for reading! I hope you will share this with anyone who ever wonders about the impact of development on our watersheds!

Click here for The Mellody Farms Construction Cam

childhood, Culture, Environment, Wildlife

The Treetops Club

The white pine is the tallest in the woods.

Driving through the country the other day I spied a tall white pine on the edge of a woods, and it reminded me of the pine woods at home, in Delhi, Ontario. We spent many weekends.. in the woods, under the woods, and on top of the woods, building forts, huts, tunnels and abodes.

The pine woods framed the southeast corner of our wanderings around town. Just south of the CNR tracks, and a few blocks east of Delhi Industries, and Delhi Metal Products, the 10-acre plot was our outdoor workbench as kids.

Soft green needles when on the branch, they fall rusty brown to the forest floor.

As the name implies, the woodlot was predominantly white pine, intermingled with some beech, birch, and the odd maple. The floor was a soft pad of rust-colored pine needles. If you dug down 2 or 3 inches you were into soft, black, sandy loam, the product of years and years of quiet decomposition.

White pines are majestic. They are permanently wind-blown like carefree flirts in a park, constantly getting the attention of every eye. They were frequent subjects of Canada’s Group of Seven painters.

On any given weekend, the odds were good that we were in the woods, digging or climbing. Our quest was the construction of a hut, or a fort, and occasionally a tree fort.

An adult attempt at reclaiming youth, somewhere on Kauai.

The huts were lean-tos. We scavenged dead branches for ridgepoles and then layered quantities of pine bows over the structure until it blocked out the sun. We never knew if it would stop rain, but if it did, it was on a day we preferred to rampage in someone’s basement instead.

Those huts were our headquarters on fair weather days, and absent the real thing, we consumed pine needle and newspaper smokes like little chimneys on fire.

The huts were also big enough to dig pits for small campfires, and if a lost hiker strolled by the lean-to, they were as likely as not to smell the pungent fumes of our home-rolled cigarettes as the smoke curled through the needles of the roof.

Rupert’s folly on Survivor 7. Caves don’t work.

On one series of weekends we ventured to build a cave. This entailed equipment: shovels, smuggled out of the garage avoiding the scrutiny of our parents. We learned years later that they were oblivious to the whole escapade. Digging into the soft cool dirt, we dug down a good three feet, piling the proceeds around the sides of the pit. When the resulting cavity was about 4 feet in height, we laid down the required logs and poles to hold up the roof, which again was a frilly knit of pine bows and other bracken. Before long, the cave was satisfactorily complete, and smoke ventilated through the canopy to be blown into the woods.

The pine is majestic: a frequent subject for The Group of Seven painters.

This cave was pretty impressive, having shelving inside for a small inventory of consumables like Cokes and smokes, and also a side for a small fire. We even had it stress-tested when a local teen drove his motorcycle over the roof to prove its strength. Bikes were lighter then. Today’s Harley would be stuffed into one of the shelves in an instant.

The first 10 feet were the challenge.

What we did find, and this is precursor of what the hapless Saboga Tribe found in CBS TV series Survivor, Season 7 on Pearl Islands– when it rains, water collects in the pit. We could have jumped into the future, 2003, and told Rupert, the witless architect that it was a bad plan. But sometimes, history needs to repeat itself.

Our best, and highest accomplishment remains however, when we built the tree fort. The tree was an elegant and aging white pine, probably among the tallest in the woods. Easily 60 feet high, and climbable to the very top.

The challenge was the first ten feet, over which there were no branches to leg up on. As a solution, we pilfered various 2x4s and 1x4s and fists full of 4 inch nails to build a ladder up to the branch-climbing level. When the handholds and steps were in place, we were on our way.

A pine woods, ready for building.

Pine trees are distinguished by their regular frequency of branches. Every year sprouts a new level, so that we could climb up the tree with relative ease. As we only weighed about 60-70 pounds, we had the freedom to climb and swing our way to the top, high enough that only another 10 feet of tree was above us. Standing on broomstick-like branches, hanging onto the trunk, staring into the breeze on a sunny afternoon, the world was ours.

Google Maps finds our woods, untouched 60 years later!

Over to the west we could see the Barrel Restaurant, Wills Motors, Smith Lumber and the factories on the highway. To the northwest, there was Beselaere’s Fuels, and the German Hall. Just north of us was the CNR track, and if we timed it right, we could see the locomotives lumbering down the track towards Simcoe. Beyond was the tobacco exchange and then the high school. To the northeast was the dump, and way off to the east was the fertilizer factory. Twisting around the tree and facing south was a vista of treetops and woods, edging up to a tobacco field, already green with young plants dotting the endless rows.

I think now about the tree as our finest moment. It invited us to climb, and regardless of our real position, we felt entirely safe and secure, high above the ground, surrounded by a nest of soft green needles on a web of black branches. There we hoisted up more boards and nails, and made a platform big enough for 2 or 3 kids, happy to be out of sight, but able to see for miles.

Google provides a beautiful view of the pine woods today. Miraculously, it is still there, somehow protected from development. I wonder if kids still climb trees, and I wonder, is ours still there?

Thanks for reading! Please share this with your tree-climbing friends!

Culture, direct mail, Environment, Government, Marketing

Don’t Leave The Lights On

Got a light?

Just a few days ago we received a handy tool from ComEd, our power supplier. We have a light bulb guide.

ComEd’s 3 steps to lighting your home.

What seems like 10 years back, somebody governmental decided unilaterally that we should do away with those high-energy-consuming incandescent bulbs which we have been using since Edison. No longer would we squint in the warm glow of a 60-watt bulb while reading the newspaper.

This was because someone, probably in Shanghai Xiangshan, thought we were better off screwing mini-helical fluorescent bulbs into our light sockets. Touted as energy-saving devices, the ‘cool light’ replacements would use less electricity, and last 5 times longer. Incandescents all but left the market, unless you looked in an old variety store off a back road.

So we were prodded into changing out all the old bulbs.

The bright idea: mercury infused fluorescence!

Once all the houses in America were transitioned over to the helix models, then the mercury sleuths woke up, and said we could not dispose of the bulbs. Because after all, they do burn out eventually, and to my disappointment, faster than claimed. But who’s going to China to file a complaint?

Terrific!

So now the incandescents have returned, like swallows to Capistrano.

From watts to lumens. At the speed of light.

But at the same time, another Edison protege has risen, to suggest disposing again of all incandescents in favor of LED bulbs. The light-emitting-diode bulbs are very efficient indeed. Not only do they use less power, but they are also blindingly brilliant.

ComEd has taken the initiative in nudging the switch along by mailing us a helpful little card. On one side, it converts incandescent strengths to LED, which is like shrinking a bagel to a Cheerio.

It goes from watts… remember him? ..to lumens, which is like from energy consumed to instead, brightness delivered.

A Canadian bookmark for the 1970s, still in use today.

But before I go any further, I just want you to consider a similar transition from ancient Canadian history. Back in 1973 the federal government, of course, decided to change from Imperial measure…remember the Queen?… to metric. This was purportedly to rationalize and expand Canadian exports to the non-U.S. metric world of commerce.

I think the real reason was to hoodwink the car-owning public. We shifted gas prices from 45 cents a gallon to 15 cents a liter overnight– without a shred of understanding. To further bamboozle the public, the government then commanded that car fuel efficiency should shift from mpg, miles per gallon to… kilometers per liter?….no wait for it, liters per 100 kilometers!

What the heck is that?

Lenticular: lighting your home, as Kelvin would like it.

Not un-coincidentally, while this huge shell game was in process, the Feds decided to start a government-owned company called Petrocan to sell us gas for our cars! They bought up all the Sunoco stations, changed the signs, and raised the prices like great Caesar’s ghost. We didn’t have a clue.

So back to ComEd, which so far is not a government entity.

Lord Kelvin

The other side of the ComEd lightbulb card is a lenticular lens which shows you what your home will look like using LED lighting. It’s pretty clever, and a great device for direct mailers to use. When you wiggle the card, it changes the brightness of the living room pictured on the card.

You have three exposures: DAYLIGHT, SOFT LIGHT and BRIGHT WHITE. Below each setting a number tells you what the bulb’s color temperature is, in…Kelvin?…remember him?

Of course you do. Water freezes at 32′ Fahrenheit, or 0′ Celsius, or 273Kelvin.

Anyway, we now have a card to buy the right bulbs, defined by lumens and Kelvins.

The only remaining question, how many civil servants does it take to change a light bulb?

Thanks for reading! Please illuminate your friends by sharing!

Culture, Environment, Government, Politics

Trouble In The Back Forty: How We Got To Here

January’s public hearing on the 40-acre development up on Butterfield attracted a sometimes reasoned but also fiery rejection to the idea. The authorities went away ruffled and straightening their ties. The public filed out, quietly fuming, and baffled.

Bafflement prevailed because the question was asked how we ever came to this point: a 148-unit, high density housing development on the site of a recent clear-cut of over 2,000 60-year-old trees. The flames came from a few who castigated the developers and planners alike for taking advantage of the Village rules and a complacent, uninformed and trusting public.

So what happened?

The ground started to move in 2009 when the Archdiocese of Chicago signaled to the Village that they wanted to develop 97 acres of open land at the east end of St.Mary’s Lake. The Village looked at its Comprehensive Plan map and noted the parcel was drawn and zoned as Institutional Building, (IB).

Every smart village government has a Plan. This blueprint provides guidance to control against undesirable development. Our Plan had reserved the 97 acres for church buildings.

The Church however saw housing: affordable housing for Libertyville’s younger families. In a deftly cadenced move that any professional card shark would have applauded, the Church suggested to only develop the northern section, about 33 acres nearest Butterfield Road. South of that, another 7 acres of woods would be “untouched” and the bottom 57 acres would be left institutional. They asked that the 33 acres be redrawn as Residential.

Following two meetings and a lot of questions about Planned Development housing, traffic volumes, safety, isolation, tree preservation, housing affordability, open space and the wisdom of an unscheduled, redrawing of the Plan to suit the Church, they voted. The Plan Commission went 5/2 in favor, April 2010. The Village Trustees gave it a green light too. 33 acres were redrawn on the Plan map as Residential, and 7 acres left as Institutional.

However, the entire 97 acres are still today zoned Institutional Building. While the Plan gives guidance, it’s the zoning which is law.

Only years later did the Church find a developer who would be happy to buy the land if they could build nearly 200 homes on the 33 acres, and take the 7 acres of woods south of the development site as well.

The developer quickly began to design the site, and eventually reduced the residential count to 148 single family dwellings, 3 & 4 bedrooms, 2,000-2,900 square foot, two-story units on tiny, fenced lots. The designs didn’t comply with residential zone codes, but because they are a Planned Development, they got a pass.

Meanwhile the soft sell on the development commenced as multiple sets of beautiful drawings were dropped off at the Plan Commission office, with the Village Trustees, the engineering and public works departments, as well as the police, fire and the many other committees who need to vet the process.

Unfortunately, the public didn’t get wind of the proposal until a registered letter was sent to a few souls who lived within 250 feet of the site, net of any roads. A public hearing in September hosted a small crowd of residents who, scratching their heads, asked what the heck was going on.

Even then, the public didn’t fully understand what was about to happen.

The Church, now very much on a roll, authorized the developer to get Village permission to remove 2,500 trees on the property. After considerable expense and due diligence, the Village Trustees approved the logging on October 10. By Thanksgiving, the trees were gone, authorized with a site development permit.

Yet no approval had come from the Village to re-zone, let alone develop the site.

The next Plan Commission meeting was postponed until January 9. With time to study the proposal, it became clear to many that the development was off color.

Many emotional, esthetic issues entangle this debate, but high above them is the reality of traffic congestion, child safety, school crowding and Butler Lake pollution.

In addition to these challenges, the developer is attempting to sell very expensive homes to buyers who will have tenuous and dangerous access to and from their neighborhood. The stark reality is that there is no convenient way to turn into the site, and nightmarish opportunities to exit. A deal killer for the rational homeowner.

The Church has been suspected perhaps of disconnecting the site from Libertyville if we kibosh the deal. Rumors run rampant that the land will host high rises, fast food stores and muffler shops if we were to lose the land to the neighboring village.

The probability of that happening is remote because none of the developer’s challenges go away. In fact they are compounded by very expensive infrastructure needs and delays statuted in Illinois law.

So we now find the issue coming to a head with a February 27 vote:

To re-draw the Plan map to include the 7 wooded acres as Residential;
To re-zone all 40 acres from Institutional to Residential;
To get a plat of the subdivision;
To grant a special use permit to build a Planned Development;
To develop a concept for the Planned Development.

The Village Trustees painted themselves into a corner back in 2010, but have had to wait 7 years for the floor to dry. Whether they can find a solution to the conundrum is a toss-up.

Rest assured that the public is now paying attention.

Culture, Environment, Government, Politics

Warning, Sign Ahead

The sign, like fine print, hints at bad news.

In Libertyville we are looking up every few moments to see what else has happened.

Last summer, without much ado, a sign was posted on an old playing field on the north side. A little time later, a huge scraping of topsoil appeared, mounded like a two-story pyramid of dark chocolate. It was soon iced with a frosty mantle of green weeds. Five condo buildings are soon to follow.

The new view from the treetops, sort of.

On the west side, a sign went up announcing a hearing about a corn field bordered by a tangled, but mature stand of 60-year-old trees. By October, the trees had come down. The plan calls for 148 homes.

Further south, another sign announced a hearing for a modest development of 19 houses over a small parcel of land and wetland.

Meanwhile there is a sign in front of the train station. It’s the site for a multi-residential complex that will make rail commuting an adventure in the future. Some 150 units will be in place to hear that lonesome whistle blow, as some 46 trains roll by every day.

Winchester: one up, and four to go.

All of these signs are caused by the popularity of a Village which has every reason to be proud. Founded in 1882, it was a remote outpost for Chicago travelers heading to Milwaukee.

Today it is a thriving, pretty town of 20,000 souls in the country, home to the #1 school district in Illinois, and #2 nationwide. It has a bustling main street that sees 23,000 cars daily, but still offers free two-hour parking on both sides, to visit the big-windowed, filigreed stores selling everything from $30,000 motor cycles to $10 hair cuts.

Lunch in the park, in front of the Cook home.

In the Village Center, residents lounge in a treed park hosting a vibrant, manicured rose garden, summer band concerts, lunches on the lawn, Thursday market and the view of a picturesque antiquity, the city father’s mansion now restored as a public museum. Hungry for knowledge? The library is right there. Just plain hungry? The Village lists over 70 restaurants and bars.

We are at the center of a giant societal magnet: everyone wants to live here. And that is the challenge. How do you keep that small town feel that brought you here 5, 25, or 75 years ago?

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Another housing plan, neatly drafted.

Fortunately, we have considerable oversight. The Village has a Plan which is the blueprint for planned growth. It has a commission that executes the Plan, and that includes sub commissions that monitor appearance and zone codes. Hardly a tree goes down or a roof goes up that doesn’t get a committee say-so first.

Still, none of these measures and controls work if we, the residents, don’t read those pesky little signs. Like fine print, they often signal bad news.

School Street an urban success: asking for over $1,000,000.

The trouble is, the signs keep popping up, like Village-sponsored graffiti, and our only choice is to pay attention. Which can be a full time job.

The Village Hall posts a schedule of committee meetings. There is at least one meeting every night, virtually all year. If one is diligent, the meetings could be met, except that the school boards have their monthly meetings too, so it’s difficult.

Downtown: the Metra station gets a makeover.

Meanwhile, the developers move in, longstanding property holders look to reap their reward, and the borders of our Village are eroded and pushed, like impacted molars, causing pain with every new sign.

We can’t stop progress. But we need to trust our Planners and Trustees to watch out for us. In return, we do need to show up when those signs pop up.

As the saying goes, “if you don’t go to the meeting, the meeting doesn’t go your way.”

The next Public Hearing for the Butterfield proposal is February 27th, at the high school, 7pm.

Thanks for reading! If you want to keep informed by the Village of new meeting agendas, click here.

Please share!

Phil Brown

"Like triple cream– rich, pungent, a little barnyardy, and spreads easily. A good cheese."

Category Archives: Environment

Free Bunnies!

This Is Breathing Easier

Butterfield: Where To, Now?

Butterfield: A Look Back

Marmoration Nation

How High’s The Water?

The Treetops Club

Don’t Leave The Lights On

Trouble In The Back Forty: How We Got To Here

Warning, Sign Ahead

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