I received a letter from the Chicago Botanic Garden about my  membership. It started like this:

Dear Scrubb,

We’ve noticed that your Garden membership has expired.

Thirty years ago, who would have thought swampy land and foggy lagoons would become the Chicago Botanic Garden we see today? Our members did.

This shows how ignorant the CBG management is. They think wetlands ought to be improved. It’s the kind of mentality people had 100 years ago, the kind of mentality that has led to the disappearance of wetlands today. What a bunch of ecological philistines.

Everybody has to start somewhere

We headed back to Chicago today, but we made three stops first: Fayette State Park, the Mead Paper Company’s Auto Tour, and the Nahma Marsh Trail. Nothing at Fayette, Nahma was a decrepit dump, and so the Mead corporation’s ill-kept trail provided the only thrill: a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. Not worthy of a post, really, except I wanted to show this sign, which we saw on our way south to Menomonee. That’s worth a bird or two, so I hereby declare today a success.