the buzz n` bloom - Lake Katherine Nature Center and Botanic

T HE B UZZ N’ B LOOM
QUARTE RLY
V o l um e 3 , I s s ue 3
A ug us t 2 0 1 2
CALUMET SAGAWAU
A B R I E F H I S T O RY
INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
Volunteers to Know
2
Author Review
2
Discover Lake Katherine
3
Lightning Bugs
3
Programs Listing
4
Survival First Aid
5
Volunteer at LKNCBG
5
Turning Leaves
6
Mark Your Calendars
6
Our environment in Palos
Heights is very much determined by its geological past. The
low area where the Cal Sag is
located was once an area where
Lake Chicago, now called Lake
Michigan, outflowed westwards
through the hills that are here.
Those hills in turn were left by
Glaciers and are old moraines.
The bedrock that the canal was
excavated from was an underlie
of dolomite limestone, which is
the compressed remains of an
ancient tropical seabed. This
was at a time when when Chicago was located closer to the
equator and a shallow warm sea
covered the area we now live.
Let’s start with that. Approximately 440 to 395 million years
ago, a quiet sea with clear warm
waters, contained many organisms with shells made up of
calcium carbonate. As these
shells accumulated on the sea
floor they formed limestone,
magnesium was added to this
mixture and started to form
what is called dolomite. The sea
retreated leaving lowland. Tectonic activity lifted the land and
streams eroded away the softer
material. Glaciers came, the last
Nature in Short

Compass plants in bloom

Lightning bugs are out
and about

Perseids Meteor Shower.
Aug 12th 13th
one just 10,000 years ago and
scoured away all but the hardest
material, dolomite. Dolomite
can be seen in the Cal Sag valley and at other locations such
as the Thornton quarry.
Glaciers were once a mile thick
over many parts of Chicago
land. As these glaciers came
and went they left debris where
they melted. This debris, an
amalgamation of scoured bedrock and sediment is deposited
when the glaciers melt. These
piles are called moraines. These
moraines are the hills that you
see within the Palos Area. There
was a point though where all the
glacial melt water accumulated
in a lake called Lake Chicago.
This lake was blocked from the
St Lawrence seaway by the still
retreating glaciers, but at a
point the glacial met water got
high enough where it eroded
two valleys through the moraines, one where the Cal Sag
is and the other where the Des
Plaines river is. These two
valleys are known as the Chicago outlet, as it was the outlet for the water from Lake
Chicago. Those outlets eroded
valleys down to the bedrock
which as we know is made up
of Dolomite Limestone.
In 1911 and 1922 they started digging a canal tracing the
low points in these valleys.
That canal became the Calumet Sagawau Canal–the CalSag.
SUMMER DROUGHT
T H I S Q UA R T E R ’ S Q U O T E S
As of writing the Chicago region is entering a period of
extreme dryness. June typically
receives 3 inches of rainfall,
and this month we have not
even received 0.5 of an inch.
The ramifications of this especially after an inordinately dry
winter with little snow pack, are
hard to define.
What I can say, is that we have
been constantly watering trees
that we put in this spring, and
our lake level has dropped
John Muir a Scottish born American Naturalist, famous for his essays on natural areas especially
the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
He helped save Yosemite Valley
and Sequoia National Park ,. He
founded the Sierra Club which
now is one of the most important
conservation organizations in the
United States and is known around
the world for the work they do on
conserving land. His legacy lives on
in the mountains that he loved and
helped to protect.
considerably, our grass is
brown, and even our prairie is
about 2 feet shorter than it
normally is. Even if we do get
some rain before we publish
this, the likelihood is that many
of our trees and plants will be
stressed., despite our best
efforts. Whether you believe
that we are the cause of climate change or not, odds are
that we can expect more extremes in weather, be it
drought, or storms.
Page 2
V o l um e 3 , I s s ue 3
VOLUNTEERS YOU
Hello, I’m John Schiera, and a
new member of Lake Katherine’s Natural Resource Management Committee. I’m very
excited about the opportunity to
assist fellow committee members in their efforts to manage,
maintain and promote the nature center and its gardens. I
have been a resident of Palos
Park since 1983. I have raised
two children, A.J. and Natalie, in
the Palos community and both
took advantage of all the wonderful amenities the area had to
offer. I am a registered and
licensed Landscape Architect
and have been operating JGS
Landscape Architects, a site
planning, landscape architecture and construction firm in the
SHOULD KNOW
southwest suburbs, since 1983.
I have developed projects
throughout the states and Mexico focusing on creating functional and aesthetic spaces that
flow harmoniously with nature
and have minimal impact on our
Earth and its resources. My profession has always been more
of a passion than job, it’s very
rewarding creating a space on
paper and seeing it brought to
fruition. Lake Katherine is a
wonderful example of how people can interact with nature and
be partners with the natural
surroundings and environs. I
am honored to help my counterparts in achieving their goals at
Lake Katherine.
JOHN SCHIERA
My first memorable experience
with nature was flying into
Kankakee state park and swimming in the river. I find a wonderful sense of tranquility and
wholeness when immersed in a
natural setting, one seems so
small and insignificant in the
grand scheme of life and Earth.
Yet, we are special because we
have a brief existence in which
to soak up life and being. My
favorite retreat is the beach,
with the constant motion of the
water and sounds of the waves
being very soothing and mediating. There are many places that
just seem surrealistic, these are
my favorite places. The Grand
Canyon is one of these types of
places. One stands back and
AUTHOR REVIEW JOHN MCHPHEE
Having been charged to write a
book review of an author who
writes about Natural History, it
took me about five seconds to
come up with a name. John
McPhee. However, choosing
one of his roughly 20 or more
books proved too difficult, so I
decided to just write about him.
Winner of a Pulitzer Prize for his
“Annals of the Former
World” (1998), a finalist several
other times along with a National Book award finalist for “Curve
of Binding Energy” (1974), he
has also taught many writers
who have gone on to great careers and literary heights themselves (i.e., Eric Schlosser-“Fast
Food Nation”, and Richard Preston –“The Hot Zone”).
He’s written about a variety of
subjects including Pro Basketball player Bill Bradley and former Senator, Oranges, a Birch
bark canoe builder, Herpetology
trekking in Georgia, levees in
New Orleans predicting the
Katrina disaster 30 years before
it occurred. In this book, “The
control of Nature”, the reader
gets intimate details of the inner
workings and history of the Army
Corps of Engineers, and a behind the scenes tour of Hoover
Dam. He recently wrote the
history and story of American
Shad in “The Founding
Fish” (2002) taking a tour of the
Northeastern Coast searching
for fisherman who prefer shad
fishing over striper fishing, and
lets us in on a few of his own
culinary secrets on how to prepare shad roe.
McPhee, a professor of literature at Princeton University and
regular contributor to New Yorker magazine, has created a
unique form of non-fiction that
is such a descriptive form of
story-telling that when you’re
immersed in one of his works, it
reads like fiction. McPhee discusses the natural history of the
region or place he is writing
about but also goes into exquisite detail on its human culture.
He occasionally does this by
interviewing interesting characters that he surreptitiously
bumps into while researching
the story. His ability to make
the mundane riveting is one of
his gifts.
An underlying theme of many of
BY
views it’s enormity and its almost too difficult to comprehend
the size, beauty and the amount
of time and forces of nature
which took place to form this
space.
MICHAEL LITTMAN
his works seems to pit one political force against another. In
“Encounters with the Archdruid” (1971), McPhee invites two
polar opposites on a 130 mi
rafting trip down the Colorado
River and through the Grand
Canyon. One of his guests is
David Brower, famed conservationist and former head of the
Sierra Club, and Floyd E.
Dominy, Commissioner of the
Bureau of Reclamation. Both
men had battled each other in
The Pine Barrens of New Jersey
court numerous times over proposed dam projects. Dominy
authorizing the building of
dams, notably the Glen Canyon
Dam; and Brower, the prime
figure opposing them. Some of
the conversational bits between
Dominy and Brower are intense
and McPhee’s retelling of their
conversations on this adventure
caused me to sit uncomfortably
in my chair as if I was sitting
alongside them on a raft drinking a cold beer-something they
T he B u z z N ’ Bl o o m q u a r te r l y
DISCOVER LAKE KATHERINE
It’s a bit difficult to describe a
“single” favorite area at Lake
Katherine that I enjoy most.
That’s because I often run along
the walking trail which surrounds the perimeter of the
lake. I enjoy traveling through
and past many of the areas
along the entire route. So, I am
going to venture out and proclaim the walking trail as an
“area” and my favorite place.
I enjoy all the sites, spaces and
views the path provides as I
travel along it. I enjoy how it
meanders through the grassy
Page 3
BY
area along the south shore and
the prairie and the garden areas
in the northern corners. But, the
most pleasurable part of my
journey has to be the path area
through the woodlands along
the north ridge between the lake
and the canal.
As the path winds north and
south, up and down along the
north ridge it offers a wide variety of interesting views and
“rooms” as one meanders along
the trail. There are views across
the canal at the filtration falls
and the activity taking place on
JOHN MCHPHEE (CCONTINUED)
referred to on their trip as
‘sandwiches’. You feel their
tension as they debate and banter over the benefits of reservoirs or how rivers should flow
free. McPhee’s narrative allows
the reader to get a sense that
seemingly black and white, controversial issues are incredibly
complex and although he is in
the scene he describes, he expertly hovers in the background
remaining neutral during this
heavy weight bout allowing the
reader to decide for them self.
I was first introduced to McPhee
while living in Philadelphia. I
was working with many field
biologists at the time, many of
which were familiar with a wilderness area east of town in
New Jersey, known as the Pine
Barrens. Somebody had lent
me a book by McPhee on the
Pine Barrens and I read it within
a week despite my busy schedule. I was so engrossed by the
description of this ‘untouched’
wilderness that I took the hour
drive out there to check it out.
One evening included a night
walk looking for and listening to
chorus frogs Pseudacris triseriata.
On this trip, I heard a frog call
that sounded like somebody
running their fingers across the
teeth of a comb while a nerdy
colleague of mine, equipped
with ear phones and recording
equipment, excitedly recorded
its mating call for our museum’s
website. We also ran into carnivorous sun-dews, blackbanded sunfish and dwarf pines
of all kinds. I lent my copy to an
orthopedic surgeon who was
treating my knee, after I bent his
ear about the book and the
place I had recently traveled to.
He asked to borrow it over the
holiday and I never saw it again.
I really loved that book.
JOHN SCHIERA
the northern bank of the canal.
There are views of the users of
the canal waterway itself, recreational boaters enjoying the
waterway or barges traveling
from point A to point B. There’s
a wonderful view across Lake
Katherine to the southern shoreline where users can be seen
enjoying the wonders of the lake
and one can see the birds soaring above the lake. There’s an
area that is more densely wooded and shaded offering a sense
of tranquility, a quiet retreat
from the other users and a
sense of calm and peace. The
Climb the mountains and get their good
tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you
as sunshine flows into trees. The winds
will blow their own freshness into you, and
the storms their energy, while cares will
drop away from you like the leaves of
Autumn.”
Lightning Bugs.
light emitters with 100% of the
energy going to light and not
heat.
Not bugs at all, but beetles are
often found on warm muggy evenings of summer. They have been They are also under threat from
fascinating people for years with chemical usage and other dantheir glowing abdomens as they gers.
float through the
warm nights.
The combination of
two chemicals
luceferin and the
enzyme luciferase
are responsible for
the light. Regarded
as highly efficient
Black Banded Sunfish
path starts, and ends, by passing the butterfly and children’s
gardens which both offer a
sense of the wonderment and
freeness of youth and flight. As
the seasons change so do the
view’s characteristics, bringing a
different perspective with each
new season.
As I complete the mile long jaunt
around the lake I get a great
appreciation for Lake Katherine,
our natural surroundings and
how we can harmoniously interact with nature.
Page 4
V o l um e 3 , I s s ue 3
LEARNING AT THE LAKE — LKNCBG PROGRAMS
For program details and registration information, call the LKNCBG Nature Center at (708) 361-1873.
Lake Katherine
Camps
Summer Fun
K-2nd
And
3rd–5th
Lake Katherine Nature Corps
Age 11-15 years old
Explore the land, test the water,
canoeing, hiking and caring for
the resident animals. Don’t
forget survival skills such as
purifying your drinking water,
fishing without a pole, and
campfire building too.
Session 3 August 13-17
10am to 2pm
Insectigations
Look up close at giant grasshoppers and other 6 legged
creatures. Hike outdoors with
nets, and make a buzzing
cicada craft project to take
home
Day
Date
Time
Wed
Aug 15 1pm to 2pm
Children's Outdoor Bill of Rights
Every child should have the opportunity to:
Little Explorers
Programs—
Children
3 to 6 Years Old
and Parents
Going Buggy
After looking at crickets and
grasshoppers indoors we’ll journey out to the prairie and herb
garden to see who else has six
legs and three body parts. Sing
a buggy song and make a buggy
project.
Day
Thu
Fri
Date
Aug 16
Aug 17
Time
9:30am
9:30am
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Discover wilderness – prairies, dunes, forests,
savannas, and wetlands
Camp under the stars
Follow a trail
Catch and release fish, frogs, and insects
Climb a tree
Explore nature in neighborhoods and cities
Celebrate their natural heritage
Plant a flower
Play in the mud or a stream
Learn to swim
T he B u z z N ’ Bl o o m q u a r te r l y
Page 5
SURVIVAL : TRAILSIDE FIRST AID
While first aid can take many
forms, trailside first aid is not
what everyone thinks of first.
However, it is just as important
as any form of first aid. Advice
given by Laural Ringler, as published in Adventures Northwest
magazine, Spring 2008, “the
lightest and most important firstaid you carry is your brain. Use
your brain, and the information
you pack into it, to help prevent
a range of problems and injuries.
Keep cool in hot weather with
light clothing, a hat, and sunglasses. Use sunscreen and
keep well hydrated to skip sunburn, heat exhaustion, and heat
stroke. Avoid hypothermia in cool
or breezy weather with noncotton layers, hats, gloves, and a
rain jacket. Also be aware of your
party’s energy level, as injuries
tend to increase when fatigue is
part of the equation. Offer candy
or dried fruit, a rest stop, or start
looking for a campsite when
people are tired.” Good advice,
but most people will need something more -- like a first aid kit.
What if you didn’t bring a first aid
kit or you decide to take an impromptu hike. Well that depends
on what you run into, no pun
intended. What happens if you
brush up against stinging nettle?
You should look for jewelweed
and rub some of the raw juice
from crushed leaves and stems
onto the affected area, which
should soothe the sting. Witch
hazel will also work in place of
jewelweed. Jewelweed will also
relieve the itch from insect bites,
sunburn, or plant poisoning
rashes by applying a poultice
(soft moist mixture) of jewelweed or witch hazel. Jewelweed
juice will help when applied to
poison ivy, rashes, insect stings,
or sunburn. In addition, dandelion sap, crushed cloves of garlic,
and sweet gum have been used
with limited success. Jewelweed
is by far the best.
Should you get diarrhea and will
be away from people for some
time, a tea made from the roots
of blackberries and their relatives will stop diarrhea. White
oak bark and other barks containing tannin are also effective
when made into a strong tea.
However, because of possible
negative effects on the kidneys,
use them with caution and only
when nothing else is available.
Be careful though since these
remedies can quickly dehydrate
even a healthy individual.
What if you get a nasty cut and
are bleeding. Make medications
to stop bleeding from plantain
leaves, or, most effectively, from
the leaves of the common yarrow. These mostly give a physical barrier to the bleeding. Prickly pear (the raw, peeled part) or
witch hazel can be applied to
wounds. Both are good for their
astringent properties (they
shrink blood vessels). For bleeding gums or mouth sores, sweet
gum can be chewed or used as
a toothpick, as this provides
some chemical and antiseptic
properties as well.
BY
JIM REICHEL
You might also need an antiseptic to clean the cut in order to
stop infection. Honey is by far
the best of the antiseptics for
open wounds and burns, with
sugar being second. Honey
should be applied three times
daily. Sugar should be applied to
the wound until it becomes syrupy, then washed off and reapplied. Also, you can make antiseptics from the juice of wild
onion or garlic, the juice from
chickweed leaves, or the
crushed leaves of dock. You can
also make antiseptics from a
mixture of burdock root, mallow
leaves or roots, or white oak
bark (for the tannic acid). Prickly
pear, slippery elm, yarrow, and
sweet gum are all good antiseptics as well. Please note that
these medications are for external use only.
Ok, you didn’t cut yourself, but
twisted your ankle. Treat the
sprain with externally applied
poultices of dock, plantain,
chickweed, willow bark, garlic, or
sorrel. Sweet gum has some
analgesic (pain relief) properties. Chewing the willow bark or
making a tea from it is the best
for pain relief as it contains the
raw component of aspirin. You
can also use salves made by
mixing the expressed juices of
these plants in animal fat or
vegetable oils. These remedies
are also you for aches and
pains.
So you need to get up early, but
cannot fall asleep. Just brew a
tea made from mint leaves or
passionflower leaves and you
should be sleeping like a log in
no time. Mint leaves might be
easier to find, though.
You forgot your insect repellent
and the mosquitoes are so thick
that when you swat one you kill
three. You can eat garlic or onions and the raw plant juice
rubbed on the skin to repel some
insects. Works wonders on people, too. Sassafras leaves can be
rubbed on the skin also and will
provide some relief. Placing cedar chips may help repel insects
around your tent should you be
staying overnight.
There many other remedies for
other ailments or inflictions one
might get during a longer camping trip or hike and will be addressed in an upcoming issue of
Buzz n’ Bloom Quarterly, so stay
tuned.
WOULD YOU LIKE TO VOLUNTEER AT LAKE KATHERINE?
If you would like to volunteer
your time and skills, Lake Katherine is looking for dedicated
volunteers that can help in a
variety of roles and positions.
We ask that you commit to a
minimum of 2 hours. If you
have 2 hours per week or 2
hours per month, we’d be happy to have you!
VOLUNTEER ROLES:

Animal Care

Garden Maintenance

Ecological Restoration

Receptionist

Festival Assistance

Tour Guide

Canoe Attendant
Please phone the Nature
Center at 708.361.1873 for
more details about becoming a
Lake Katherine volunteer.
“Everybody needs beauty as
well as bread, places to play
in and pray in, where nature
may heal and give strength
to body and soul.”
Page 6
Volume 3, Issue 3
L a k e Ka t h er i n e N a t u r e
Cen t er a n d Bo t a n i c
7402 West Lake Katherine Drive
Palos Heights, IL 60463
by Jim Reichel
Phone: 708.361.1873
Fax: 708.361.2978
Ecological Restoration and Restoration Ecology, is there a difference?
www.lakekatherine.org
The Natural Resources
Management Committee’s
mission is to promote,
improve, and fundraise in regards to all matters pertaining
to Lake Katherine's natural
resources.
“The grand show is eternal.
It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never
dried all at once; a shower
is forever falling; vapor is
ever rising. Eternal sunrise,
eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents
and islands, each in its
turn, as the round earth
rolls. ”
It almost sounds like double
talk, but it’s not. One is a science and one is a practical application, but which is which?
The Society for Ecological Restoration’s Primer on Ecological
Restoration defines ecological
restoration as the process of
assisting the recovery of an
ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged, or destroyed.
It is an intentional activity that
initiates or accelerates the recovery of an ecosystem with
respect to its health, integrity,
and sustainability. The Primer
on Ecological Restoration states
that ecological restoration is the
practice of restoring ecosystems
as performed by practitioners at
specific project sites, whereas
restoration ecology is the science upon which the practice is
based. These basic concepts of
restoration have been address
in this column before, but not in
this way.
The primer also states that
“what makes ecological restoration especially inspiring is that
cultural practices and ecological
processes can be mutually reinforcing. Accordingly, it is not
surprising that interest in ecological restoration is growing
rapidly worldwide and that, in
most cases, cultural beliefs and
practices are drawn upon to
help determine and shape of
what is to be performed under
the rubric of restoration.” This
primer is well worth reading and
should be the basis of all ecological restoration.
One touch of nature makes
the whole world kin.
Going to the mountains is
going home.
Not blind opposition to
progress, but opposition to
blind progress...
2 0 1 2 E V E N T S — M A R K Y OU R CA L E N DA R S !
Recycling Day
August 11th
8am to Noon
Restoration Days
August 8th
August 29th
9am to Noon
Activity may vary depending
on need.
Monarch Butterfly
Festival
September 16
11am to 4:30pm
Fall Fishing Classic
October 13
7am to Noon
Lake Katherine is owned and supported by the City of Palos Heights and managed by the Lake Katherine Nature
Center and Botanic Gardens, a non-profit, tax-exempt 501 (c)(3) charitable organization.