October 16, 2024 • 35 mins
For years Jim has organized burns and helped steward our prairie. In this episode we hear about his life before Prairie Crossing and what our prairie looked like when he arrived.
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(00:00):
Hey neighbors, it is Sunday October 13th.
(00:17):
Just after sunset, it's still not quite twilight.
It's hard to tell because there's so many clouds and you can probably hear how windy
it is.
Watson and Fletcher and I are out on the trail.
Fletcher plays a pretty predominant role in this podcast because our guest, Jim O'Connor,
(00:40):
who we recorded yesterday, she just was drawn to him and was climbing all over him.
And upon his arrival though, decided to take an unauthorized walk around the neighborhood.
We're still training around the leash and we've got a barrier fence, but we've got
to train her up on that and she's got a lot to learn and she's feeling out being in a
(01:04):
new home still.
So you'll hear a lot about Fletcher today.
I've been walking in the dark a lot.
In the mornings, I walk them before I go to work and it's dark.
And by the time I get out at night or get out in the afternoon to walk them, it's dark
already.
(01:25):
That's led to a couple alarming encounters with people on the trail since they didn't
have that light or anything.
So now the dogs both have a little lighted collar so we don't scare anybody again.
One fell pretty freaked out.
Sorry that happened.
Try to get your attention.
(01:47):
Anyway, some of the best things this week have happened tonight.
I went to my first bonfire up on Prairie Orchid with, I guess what it's called, the Braunschweiger
Bunch or whatever.
It was a great time and it happened to be the night of the Northern Lights.
(02:08):
And all the walking at night and seeing the Northern Lights gave me renewed appreciation
for how dark it is.
The darkness around us is like clean water or healthy prairies.
(02:30):
We'll talk to Jim about today in this episode.
It's really hard to get it back once it's gone.
And I've just really appreciated walking back along the horse pasture.
Right now that is my vote for the darkest place in the development.
(02:52):
Just really appreciate looking at the stars this week, seeing the Borealis and then also
just being alone in the dark and our paths are bright white so it's easy to navigate.
It's been really great.
But anyway, here's Jim.
(03:12):
It's a really interesting podcast and actually the first one I've done was something that
I don't know very well.
I think it went really well.
I think Jim had a good time.
So I hope you enjoy it.
Thanks.
Well, joining us now is Jim O'Connor.
Jim, thanks for coming on the podcast.
(03:33):
Not at all.
I enjoyed being here.
Thanks.
Just full disclosure, my family's out looking for Fletcher who I've talked about several
times so far or at least once on this podcast, our new dog, she slipped out.
So if you hear Fletcher in the background, real life is happening in the background.
Jim, how long have you lived in Prairie Crossing?
(03:56):
We moved in around 2002.
I'm a retired Chicago public school history teacher and have been volunteering in the
Cook County Forest Preserve since the 1980s.
(04:18):
To be honest, what really drew me here was the prairie.
I mean, I drank the Kool-Aid.
It really inspired me.
I had an 85-year-old mother who needed some attention.
(04:41):
So we decided to—this was kind of a compromise.
I moved up here because we were able to get a house that was big enough for all of us
to live in and not be on each other's nerves.
So yeah, it was good.
(05:02):
Wow.
I didn't know that you were a history teacher.
Unlike the other people who have been on this podcast so far, we don't know each other
very well.
That's fascinating.
So what area of history did you focus on?
I know each grade is a little different.
Right.
It was high school and basically US history.
I got a master's degree in American diplomatic history.
(05:30):
I was roped into being a wrestling coach when I was there.
I was a much better coach than I was a wrestler.
That was good.
But kids really give coaches a lot of leeway, and if you're successful, they like that
(05:54):
all the more.
When did you retire?
I retired in 2002.
I said I would never be a substitute teacher.
After a summer off, sure enough, I went down and went and substituted.
(06:19):
It was just a little too boring.
When I came up here, I taught a year at Grayslake Central.
Someone was out on a maternity leave and they asked if I would do it.
I said I would.
So that was it.
(06:40):
Do you miss it?
Substituting is hard.
It's a hard job.
Substituting at the old school I worked at was fine.
It was okay.
They have a rep.
You have a rep.
(07:02):
If you guys hear Heavy Breathing Fletcher has returned, she's a good girl.
She came back home.
She's a beauty.
Yeah.
Thanks.
You were volunteering in parks down in Cook County?
Down in the Cook County Forest Preserves, yeah, in the Palos area, which is very nice.
(07:26):
When I came up here, I started to work for a company that—a friend of mine started
a business, and it was a restoration ecology business.
That led to burning and getting the—working for the federal government on a burn crew
(07:51):
and taking all the classes that are necessary to burn with the FUDs.
It was all good.
I had a next student on a crew in what they call it now Indiana Dunes National Park.
(08:12):
It was a lake shore at the time.
When we took all the classes to get certification for Illinois certified burn boss, I guess,
he said, Oh, you know, we're always short of people on burns.
(08:37):
Yeah, they made me feel very welcome, and we did that for about ten years.
What attracted you to that?
Not a hobby, I guess.
It's an interest.
Yeah, I just felt—always felt good going out in the woods and the prairies.
(09:01):
Just be careful out there.
Yeah.
It could be an obsession.
That just keeps climbing on Jim.
It's addicting.
Yeah.
Yeah, so, you know, I'm not from the Midwest.
I'm not from anywhere with a prairie, and so my education has, I think, started when
(09:25):
I took your burn class.
Sort of the month we moved in, Persephone Nurgie showed up at my door to get some things
I was giving away and pointed a giant ragweed that I didn't know that's what it was.
That's ragweed.
You don't want that.
You don't want that.
I'm still figuring it out, but it sounds like you cut your teeth down there and started
(09:49):
identifying, learning what to burn and whatnot and what's supposed to be there and what's
not.
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
I've gone to a lot of conferences and, yeah, I think the prairie is in my blood.
I mean, we're the prairie state, so I always fear that we'll become anyplace USA, and the
(10:19):
more and more research that's done on it, the more I'm looking at native plants and
the benefits of planting natives.
We've destroyed—we've changed so much of the country, I think, between corn fields
(10:42):
and bluegrass lawns, which are basically sterile.
They don't feed anything but grubs.
We've really changed the natural world to the point of—well, hopefully it's a point
(11:05):
that we can return to.
The insects that really run the planet, we'd only be here about maybe a couple of months.
If all the insects just disappeared, we'd be in big trouble.
(11:26):
Because of the plants that we like to plant over the years, from Asia, because they were
trouble-free or from Europe or whatever, the insects haven't been able to adjust to them.
(11:46):
Planting natives is a good thing, and they're beautiful.
Yeah, I've been trying to follow the saga of the—is it the Prairie Bowl?
Where they're trying to expand the airport in Rockford.
Yes, yeah.
And it's old-growth prairie there, and they want to plow it up.
(12:08):
And the rusty patched bumblebee has stopped them, or did stop them, for a season.
I don't know if it's going to happen.
We're unsure.
You know, we've got maybe one-thousandths of one percent left, native prairie like that.
(12:32):
And all they had to do was move the road.
Yeah.
And that—whatever.
Right.
I don't think it's going to be—I think they're going to go ahead and—
Yeah, it was—it seemed to be leaning that way.
And the bumblebee was the excuse for stopping for a little bit, but I don't know.
(12:54):
So here you are in 2002.
You're buying your home here.
Our prairie, it was only eight years old, I guess, at that point.
What did it look like here?
A lot of invasive plants, a lot of white sweet clover.
I could sit out behind my house, and people would walk by on the trail, and they wouldn't
(13:18):
even know I was there.
I heard a lot of interesting things that I wasn't supposed to hear, I'm sure.
But, yeah, obsession is a wonderful thing.
And over the years, I just kept putting in more seed and more plants, and burned it every
(13:42):
chance I got for the first couple years.
And now it's very diverse, and yeah, it's something new every year.
Right.
Yeah, I'm constantly amazed at that in my own little bit here.
(14:03):
Also, that also makes me afraid to try to change anything, because I'm afraid of what's
under it that I would be ruining.
We had cup plants grow in this year that I've never seen before.
There are Michigan tulips out in the back that I look forward to every year.
(14:24):
And things that former residents here had planted, like bearded irises that disappear,
and I don't remember where they are.
It's constant every year there's something new, and there's old favorites that show
up and things that probably shouldn't be here that I don't know yet.
It's an interesting dynamic.
Well, I did some work on this site for Patsy, and that tall grass with the big plume is
(14:55):
Phragmites, and that's a tough one to get rid of.
Yeah, I've done two different things with that.
Last year in July, I went and just tried to cut it as close to the ground as I could.
This year, I just cut the flower off.
Yeah, right when it looked like it was done growing.
(15:16):
Next year, I'm thinking about just mowing it all down, and then if I see it pop up,
hit it with some kind of industrial vinegar or something to just get it out of there,
or look into the chemical angle, because it's all through our back here, all through every
neighborhood.
Yeah, that swell.
(15:37):
There were a lot of desirable plants there, but yeah, it's a problem.
It's a problem out in our common area, too.
I don't get to everything.
I'd have to be cloned.
Watch how you spell that.
(15:58):
When you—in 2002, was there an environmental committee then that does what you do?
Not really.
I mean, they had a lot of meetings.
There were quite a few people who would come to the meetings and suggest things, but there
(16:26):
was never any work days.
Eventually, over time, we started doing work days.
That's basically what's going on now.
I mean, the amount of work that's been done by that committee is pretty amazing, considering
(16:54):
the numbers that we get for work days, but it's improved quite a bit.
I appreciate that every board meeting, even when I was on board member, you would tell
us how much we've saved by volunteering for ourselves.
(17:21):
It's amazing how much the volunteer burn crew saves.
That's even more so.
Most companies charge $100 per man per hour.
Just takes a couple beers at the end, and we're good.
(17:43):
I have to say the strongest community-building activity that I've participated in in Prairie
Crossing is when my little cul-de-sac here gets together and we go lawn-to-lawn and burn
in the back.
We all did something.
We had a purpose.
I got a timeline.
(18:04):
It's over when it's over.
We all help and we communicate and we talk about, watch out for that part, watch this,
or you do this, you do that.
It's a unique experience.
I've only done it twice now, but I look forward to it when we do do it.
That's encouraging because the more eyes and the more hands, when things go bad, they go
(18:27):
bad quickly.
That's a wonderful thing.
I encourage it, I encourage especially people who've just moved in and haven't burned before,
get together with your neighbors and make it a community.
Steve Packard, who is in the North Branch, a very famous restoration ecologist basically
(18:55):
in the Chicago region, he says that the annual burn should be like a celebration, like Halloween
or something, a rite of passage.
That's I think what's going on with this cul-de-sac.
We did that the same in my cul-de-sac when I first moved in.
(19:25):
Currently now we burn as a group, most of us burn as a group.
It's good.
Before we start talking about burns and some of the guidelines around burning, can you
give us a rank of how do you feel our common prairie is in a health wise right now?
Where are we?
(19:48):
We had a restoration ecologist out a couple of years ago who did a survey.
The results of the survey were basically that we had too much tall grass, we had too much
(20:08):
to can it a golden rod, and that we didn't have enough diversity.
That we were about the same as other areas that received the same amount of work.
We picked 15 spots for her to do a plant count in.
(20:36):
So it was okay now.
In hindsight it's always wonderful.
We thought in the 90s, the experts thought in the 90s, that if you just got fire and
planted the stuff to get fire through, which basically was tall grass, you could add stuff
(21:02):
later and everything would be fine.
No one is doing that now.
Everyone is planting a very rich mix of species, which is a little more expensive.
Their idea is put in now what you want to see in 100 years and they're very stingy
(21:31):
on the tall grass, if any at all, because it will come in anyhow.
So the Indian grass and big bluestem will basically dominate your prairie.
The goal is diversity.
Got it.
(21:55):
Every year, if you're a new resident or you haven't been paying attention, just about
every year or every two years you host a burn school over at the library, right?
And the point of that is so people can do what me and my neighbors have done, burn your
own property, and your property lines, right?
(22:16):
Right.
There's some guidelines and the burn school is geared toward burning home properties.
I mean it's geared toward the conditions at Prairie Crossing and we do have some guidelines.
Every adult must be at the burn.
(22:40):
They need to call either myself or Bill Pogson to ensure that the day of the burn that conditions
are okay for them.
At least one of those adults has to have been to burn school.
(23:01):
And then we have a whole series of things that they should line up.
The first thing is look at the site, get rid of anything you don't want burned, like furniture
or a cushion that blew in from a windy day or something.
(23:22):
But make sure that hose is long enough to reach off your property and make sure it's
charged before you start.
In other words, ready to go because we've had situations where people have not charged
it and they got the hose out and then it took maybe 30 seconds to charge it but it seemed
(23:51):
like five minutes when things are raging.
How are we able to do this in general?
If you live anywhere else in the country and you light your property on fire, are your
neighbors going to call the fire department?
Well we do have an Illinois EPA permit and it allows homeowners to burn on the permit
(24:20):
that we receive to burn our common areas.
There is a new head of that department, the other guy retired, and I don't think he was
really very happy with the idea of homeowners burning.
(24:40):
But I said that we've got a relationship with the fire department and we've got protocols
that need to be followed and hopefully that made him a little more comfortable with it.
Yeah.
And mostly incident free, right, since we've started, I guess.
(25:02):
I mean that track record of not burning down a house.
We have a good track record for that.
We have had a couple escape and so far so good.
The fire department did come out for a couple of these escapes and you know they're structural
(25:31):
firemen and they have a whole different approach to putting something out and that can be a
problem but yeah, God bless them.
They've allowed us to do it.
You basically can't have a prairie without burning it.
(25:53):
A prairie is a fire dependent ecosystem and grasslands everywhere in the world have pretty
much been burned.
Yeah, that was going to be my next question.
The relative benefits, in my mind there's a lot of biomass.
If you try to mow that down and then remove it, it's a lot of work.
(26:16):
About three years is the prairie produces more biomass on top than it can digest.
So burning is a necessity.
By burning you get a longer growing season.
(26:38):
You get more flowering.
You get more seeds and the soil warms up earlier.
All of that is good.
That's not me.
Yeah, that's not him barking.
Sorry this dog is barking.
(27:00):
That's okay.
You've got to be a role model.
I have to say that his behavior has improved since we got a puppy but she's making up for
(27:26):
the difference.
Hold that.
Are they rescues?
That one is.
This one is not.
We thought he was a pandemic puppy.
Might as well have been a rescue though.
Not a big fan of the breeder now that we've learned a little more.
She had an ag degree and other things.
(27:48):
He came from a working farm in Mississippi.
They need to work.
Yeah, and he does.
We frisbee, we walk, we do tons.
But does not like being pet by children at all.
Just would rather focus on his shepherds.
This one though, right at the shelter was super cuddly and so we thought they would
(28:12):
balance each other out.
She's still learning how to behave though.
For example, I will cut all that out.
What else should we talk about now that we've got a break?
(28:35):
I would like to talk about what we do want to see in our lawns and what kind of what
when we're weeding, when we're doing like and then maybe push volunteering on the committee
because that's a necessity too.
Does that sound like a plan?
(28:56):
Talk about those two things.
Well, we're in love with bluegrass lawns.
We judge people by their bluegrass lawns.
Doug Ptolemy's book Nature's Best Hope changes one's attitude toward them, I think.
(29:24):
They're basically a wasteland.
And the idea of a lawn comes from.
They're great for planes and plane and you know kids and sports.
They're not easy to take care of.
I've had a big bluegrass lawn and even that is as frustrating as having a perfect lawn.
I'm not a big fan of yard work.
(29:46):
But this at least I feel a little bit my conscience feels better even though it's frustrating.
But just mowing a huge swath.
We lived in Charlotte before this and just mowing that huge piece of property.
It wasn't huge.
It was a half an acre.
But just mowing all that grass for nobody to play on it because it's too hot and just
(30:06):
look at.
Yeah, you know, your latest Meadowmicks article, the one where you talked about what a lawn
should look like with some paths through it, water feature to make some sound to attract
birds.
And I guess that this that's what the people that own this house kind of built.
We have that.
(30:27):
So how do we.
I'm excited to have that.
Now I have to go through and clean it up and keep working because there was a gap between
I think when Patty owned it when I got it where it might have been left alone.
What should if in your words what should a prayer crossing property look like?
(30:50):
Or what are what are what are some tips?
Not sure the stir the pot, huh?
Instead of sure.
Well, I think that we should certainly get rid of invasive shrubs and trees.
(31:12):
It should be an embarrassment to have a buckthorn growing on your property.
I got rid of mine.
Bernie was in the back.
I did it.
Thank you.
Burning Bush is a no no.
Honeysuckle is a no no.
I mean the the hedgerow we must have taken a hundred honeysuckles out of there and no
(31:35):
one planted them.
The birds planted them.
I just took out a couple daylilies from my own property but they were hidden.
(31:55):
I've drank the Kool-Aid.
I mean I believe in planting natives.
They're gorgeous.
I mean they can be a formal planting too.
You don't have to make your lawn look like a prairie.
I know I talk about pathways and you know the limiting the amount of bluegrass but
(32:21):
if you have kids and they want to play and you have a dog that's fine.
But you're going to have some planting somewhere and those definitely should be natives.
Just because we live we really should have learned from the native peoples here.
(32:45):
We live like we're not part of this ecosystem and we really are.
And we're basically destroying it.
This is one of the advantages of being old.
(33:07):
I may not be around to see the final demise but yeah I like that little expression.
I sat under the shade of an oak and read a poem because someone planted it.
(33:27):
And you know that's looking at the future and I've planted some oaks recently and I'll
never sit under them in the shade but someone will and hopefully they'll bless me.
(33:51):
That's a great place to stop.
Jim thank you so much for being part of the podcast.
Thanks for coming on.
It's been really informative and good to get to know you a little bit more.
Well thank you.
I enjoyed it.
That's our episode for this time.
Thank you again to Jim O'Connor and thank you.
Thank you for listening.
(34:12):
I am just looking over Glenn Riccio's last email about Fright Fest.
Don't forget it's a Saturday October 19th from 4 to 10.
The weather looks beautiful.
It's at the Station Square condos.
It'll be pumpkin carbon contests for youth 12 and under and adults 13 and up.
You have to drop it off at the condo fountain by 430.
(34:36):
There's costume parades, scavenger hunt, haunted hallways, food starts at 5, the food truck,
there's a fire pit, pay rides, the non-scary start at 420 and our $2 ticket.
You can buy those tickets starting at 4.
And the scary one started at 6 with a requested donation of $5 per ticket.
(34:58):
And then thanks again to Gwen and to Douglas Nergi for putting it together and all the
volunteers who do the scare stations and help out at the front of house.
You guys make this special.
So thank you.
This has been Around the Lake podcast.
We will see you next time.
Hey neighbors, it is Sunday October 13th.
(00:17):
Just after sunset, it's still not quite twilight.
It's hard to tell because there's so many clouds and you can probably hear how windy
it is.
Watson and Fletcher and I are out on the trail.
Fletcher plays a pretty predominant role in this podcast because our guest, Jim O'Connor,
(00:40):
who we recorded yesterday, she just was drawn to him and was climbing all over him.
And upon his arrival though, decided to take an unauthorized walk around the neighborhood.
We're still training around the leash and we've got a barrier fence, but we've got
to train her up on that and she's got a lot to learn and she's feeling out being in a
(01:04):
new home still.
So you'll hear a lot about Fletcher today.
I've been walking in the dark a lot.
In the mornings, I walk them before I go to work and it's dark.
And by the time I get out at night or get out in the afternoon to walk them, it's dark
already.
(01:25):
That's led to a couple alarming encounters with people on the trail since they didn't
have that light or anything.
So now the dogs both have a little lighted collar so we don't scare anybody again.
One fell pretty freaked out.
Sorry that happened.
Try to get your attention.
(01:47):
Anyway, some of the best things this week have happened tonight.
I went to my first bonfire up on Prairie Orchid with, I guess what it's called, the Braunschweiger
Bunch or whatever.
It was a great time and it happened to be the night of the Northern Lights.
(02:08):
And all the walking at night and seeing the Northern Lights gave me renewed appreciation
for how dark it is.
The darkness around us is like clean water or healthy prairies.
(02:30):
We'll talk to Jim about today in this episode.
It's really hard to get it back once it's gone.
And I've just really appreciated walking back along the horse pasture.
Right now that is my vote for the darkest place in the development.
(02:52):
Just really appreciate looking at the stars this week, seeing the Borealis and then also
just being alone in the dark and our paths are bright white so it's easy to navigate.
It's been really great.
But anyway, here's Jim.
(03:12):
It's a really interesting podcast and actually the first one I've done was something that
I don't know very well.
I think it went really well.
I think Jim had a good time.
So I hope you enjoy it.
Thanks.
Well, joining us now is Jim O'Connor.
Jim, thanks for coming on the podcast.
(03:33):
Not at all.
I enjoyed being here.
Thanks.
Just full disclosure, my family's out looking for Fletcher who I've talked about several
times so far or at least once on this podcast, our new dog, she slipped out.
So if you hear Fletcher in the background, real life is happening in the background.
Jim, how long have you lived in Prairie Crossing?
(03:56):
We moved in around 2002.
I'm a retired Chicago public school history teacher and have been volunteering in the
Cook County Forest Preserve since the 1980s.
(04:18):
To be honest, what really drew me here was the prairie.
I mean, I drank the Kool-Aid.
It really inspired me.
I had an 85-year-old mother who needed some attention.
(04:41):
So we decided to—this was kind of a compromise.
I moved up here because we were able to get a house that was big enough for all of us
to live in and not be on each other's nerves.
So yeah, it was good.
(05:02):
Wow.
I didn't know that you were a history teacher.
Unlike the other people who have been on this podcast so far, we don't know each other
very well.
That's fascinating.
So what area of history did you focus on?
I know each grade is a little different.
Right.
It was high school and basically US history.
I got a master's degree in American diplomatic history.
(05:30):
I was roped into being a wrestling coach when I was there.
I was a much better coach than I was a wrestler.
That was good.
But kids really give coaches a lot of leeway, and if you're successful, they like that
(05:54):
all the more.
When did you retire?
I retired in 2002.
I said I would never be a substitute teacher.
After a summer off, sure enough, I went down and went and substituted.
(06:19):
It was just a little too boring.
When I came up here, I taught a year at Grayslake Central.
Someone was out on a maternity leave and they asked if I would do it.
I said I would.
So that was it.
(06:40):
Do you miss it?
Substituting is hard.
It's a hard job.
Substituting at the old school I worked at was fine.
It was okay.
They have a rep.
You have a rep.
(07:02):
If you guys hear Heavy Breathing Fletcher has returned, she's a good girl.
She came back home.
She's a beauty.
Yeah.
Thanks.
You were volunteering in parks down in Cook County?
Down in the Cook County Forest Preserves, yeah, in the Palos area, which is very nice.
(07:26):
When I came up here, I started to work for a company that—a friend of mine started
a business, and it was a restoration ecology business.
That led to burning and getting the—working for the federal government on a burn crew
(07:51):
and taking all the classes that are necessary to burn with the FUDs.
It was all good.
I had a next student on a crew in what they call it now Indiana Dunes National Park.
(08:12):
It was a lake shore at the time.
When we took all the classes to get certification for Illinois certified burn boss, I guess,
he said, Oh, you know, we're always short of people on burns.
(08:37):
Yeah, they made me feel very welcome, and we did that for about ten years.
What attracted you to that?
Not a hobby, I guess.
It's an interest.
Yeah, I just felt—always felt good going out in the woods and the prairies.
(09:01):
Just be careful out there.
Yeah.
It could be an obsession.
That just keeps climbing on Jim.
It's addicting.
Yeah.
Yeah, so, you know, I'm not from the Midwest.
I'm not from anywhere with a prairie, and so my education has, I think, started when
(09:25):
I took your burn class.
Sort of the month we moved in, Persephone Nurgie showed up at my door to get some things
I was giving away and pointed a giant ragweed that I didn't know that's what it was.
That's ragweed.
You don't want that.
You don't want that.
I'm still figuring it out, but it sounds like you cut your teeth down there and started
(09:49):
identifying, learning what to burn and whatnot and what's supposed to be there and what's
not.
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
I've gone to a lot of conferences and, yeah, I think the prairie is in my blood.
I mean, we're the prairie state, so I always fear that we'll become anyplace USA, and the
(10:19):
more and more research that's done on it, the more I'm looking at native plants and
the benefits of planting natives.
We've destroyed—we've changed so much of the country, I think, between corn fields
(10:42):
and bluegrass lawns, which are basically sterile.
They don't feed anything but grubs.
We've really changed the natural world to the point of—well, hopefully it's a point
(11:05):
that we can return to.
The insects that really run the planet, we'd only be here about maybe a couple of months.
If all the insects just disappeared, we'd be in big trouble.
(11:26):
Because of the plants that we like to plant over the years, from Asia, because they were
trouble-free or from Europe or whatever, the insects haven't been able to adjust to them.
(11:46):
Planting natives is a good thing, and they're beautiful.
Yeah, I've been trying to follow the saga of the—is it the Prairie Bowl?
Where they're trying to expand the airport in Rockford.
Yes, yeah.
And it's old-growth prairie there, and they want to plow it up.
(12:08):
And the rusty patched bumblebee has stopped them, or did stop them, for a season.
I don't know if it's going to happen.
We're unsure.
You know, we've got maybe one-thousandths of one percent left, native prairie like that.
(12:32):
And all they had to do was move the road.
Yeah.
And that—whatever.
Right.
I don't think it's going to be—I think they're going to go ahead and—
Yeah, it was—it seemed to be leaning that way.
And the bumblebee was the excuse for stopping for a little bit, but I don't know.
(12:54):
So here you are in 2002.
You're buying your home here.
Our prairie, it was only eight years old, I guess, at that point.
What did it look like here?
A lot of invasive plants, a lot of white sweet clover.
I could sit out behind my house, and people would walk by on the trail, and they wouldn't
(13:18):
even know I was there.
I heard a lot of interesting things that I wasn't supposed to hear, I'm sure.
But, yeah, obsession is a wonderful thing.
And over the years, I just kept putting in more seed and more plants, and burned it every
(13:42):
chance I got for the first couple years.
And now it's very diverse, and yeah, it's something new every year.
Right.
Yeah, I'm constantly amazed at that in my own little bit here.
(14:03):
Also, that also makes me afraid to try to change anything, because I'm afraid of what's
under it that I would be ruining.
We had cup plants grow in this year that I've never seen before.
There are Michigan tulips out in the back that I look forward to every year.
(14:24):
And things that former residents here had planted, like bearded irises that disappear,
and I don't remember where they are.
It's constant every year there's something new, and there's old favorites that show
up and things that probably shouldn't be here that I don't know yet.
It's an interesting dynamic.
Well, I did some work on this site for Patsy, and that tall grass with the big plume is
(14:55):
Phragmites, and that's a tough one to get rid of.
Yeah, I've done two different things with that.
Last year in July, I went and just tried to cut it as close to the ground as I could.
This year, I just cut the flower off.
Yeah, right when it looked like it was done growing.
(15:16):
Next year, I'm thinking about just mowing it all down, and then if I see it pop up,
hit it with some kind of industrial vinegar or something to just get it out of there,
or look into the chemical angle, because it's all through our back here, all through every
neighborhood.
Yeah, that swell.
(15:37):
There were a lot of desirable plants there, but yeah, it's a problem.
It's a problem out in our common area, too.
I don't get to everything.
I'd have to be cloned.
Watch how you spell that.
(15:58):
When you—in 2002, was there an environmental committee then that does what you do?
Not really.
I mean, they had a lot of meetings.
There were quite a few people who would come to the meetings and suggest things, but there
(16:26):
was never any work days.
Eventually, over time, we started doing work days.
That's basically what's going on now.
I mean, the amount of work that's been done by that committee is pretty amazing, considering
(16:54):
the numbers that we get for work days, but it's improved quite a bit.
I appreciate that every board meeting, even when I was on board member, you would tell
us how much we've saved by volunteering for ourselves.
(17:21):
It's amazing how much the volunteer burn crew saves.
That's even more so.
Most companies charge $100 per man per hour.
Just takes a couple beers at the end, and we're good.
(17:43):
I have to say the strongest community-building activity that I've participated in in Prairie
Crossing is when my little cul-de-sac here gets together and we go lawn-to-lawn and burn
in the back.
We all did something.
We had a purpose.
I got a timeline.
(18:04):
It's over when it's over.
We all help and we communicate and we talk about, watch out for that part, watch this,
or you do this, you do that.
It's a unique experience.
I've only done it twice now, but I look forward to it when we do do it.
That's encouraging because the more eyes and the more hands, when things go bad, they go
(18:27):
bad quickly.
That's a wonderful thing.
I encourage it, I encourage especially people who've just moved in and haven't burned before,
get together with your neighbors and make it a community.
Steve Packard, who is in the North Branch, a very famous restoration ecologist basically
(18:55):
in the Chicago region, he says that the annual burn should be like a celebration, like Halloween
or something, a rite of passage.
That's I think what's going on with this cul-de-sac.
We did that the same in my cul-de-sac when I first moved in.
(19:25):
Currently now we burn as a group, most of us burn as a group.
It's good.
Before we start talking about burns and some of the guidelines around burning, can you
give us a rank of how do you feel our common prairie is in a health wise right now?
Where are we?
(19:48):
We had a restoration ecologist out a couple of years ago who did a survey.
The results of the survey were basically that we had too much tall grass, we had too much
(20:08):
to can it a golden rod, and that we didn't have enough diversity.
That we were about the same as other areas that received the same amount of work.
We picked 15 spots for her to do a plant count in.
(20:36):
So it was okay now.
In hindsight it's always wonderful.
We thought in the 90s, the experts thought in the 90s, that if you just got fire and
planted the stuff to get fire through, which basically was tall grass, you could add stuff
(21:02):
later and everything would be fine.
No one is doing that now.
Everyone is planting a very rich mix of species, which is a little more expensive.
Their idea is put in now what you want to see in 100 years and they're very stingy
(21:31):
on the tall grass, if any at all, because it will come in anyhow.
So the Indian grass and big bluestem will basically dominate your prairie.
The goal is diversity.
Got it.
(21:55):
Every year, if you're a new resident or you haven't been paying attention, just about
every year or every two years you host a burn school over at the library, right?
And the point of that is so people can do what me and my neighbors have done, burn your
own property, and your property lines, right?
(22:16):
Right.
There's some guidelines and the burn school is geared toward burning home properties.
I mean it's geared toward the conditions at Prairie Crossing and we do have some guidelines.
Every adult must be at the burn.
(22:40):
They need to call either myself or Bill Pogson to ensure that the day of the burn that conditions
are okay for them.
At least one of those adults has to have been to burn school.
(23:01):
And then we have a whole series of things that they should line up.
The first thing is look at the site, get rid of anything you don't want burned, like furniture
or a cushion that blew in from a windy day or something.
(23:22):
But make sure that hose is long enough to reach off your property and make sure it's
charged before you start.
In other words, ready to go because we've had situations where people have not charged
it and they got the hose out and then it took maybe 30 seconds to charge it but it seemed
(23:51):
like five minutes when things are raging.
How are we able to do this in general?
If you live anywhere else in the country and you light your property on fire, are your
neighbors going to call the fire department?
Well we do have an Illinois EPA permit and it allows homeowners to burn on the permit
(24:20):
that we receive to burn our common areas.
There is a new head of that department, the other guy retired, and I don't think he was
really very happy with the idea of homeowners burning.
(24:40):
But I said that we've got a relationship with the fire department and we've got protocols
that need to be followed and hopefully that made him a little more comfortable with it.
Yeah.
And mostly incident free, right, since we've started, I guess.
(25:02):
I mean that track record of not burning down a house.
We have a good track record for that.
We have had a couple escape and so far so good.
The fire department did come out for a couple of these escapes and you know they're structural
(25:31):
firemen and they have a whole different approach to putting something out and that can be a
problem but yeah, God bless them.
They've allowed us to do it.
You basically can't have a prairie without burning it.
(25:53):
A prairie is a fire dependent ecosystem and grasslands everywhere in the world have pretty
much been burned.
Yeah, that was going to be my next question.
The relative benefits, in my mind there's a lot of biomass.
If you try to mow that down and then remove it, it's a lot of work.
(26:16):
About three years is the prairie produces more biomass on top than it can digest.
So burning is a necessity.
By burning you get a longer growing season.
(26:38):
You get more flowering.
You get more seeds and the soil warms up earlier.
All of that is good.
That's not me.
Yeah, that's not him barking.
Sorry this dog is barking.
(27:00):
That's okay.
You've got to be a role model.
I have to say that his behavior has improved since we got a puppy but she's making up for
(27:26):
the difference.
Hold that.
Are they rescues?
That one is.
This one is not.
We thought he was a pandemic puppy.
Might as well have been a rescue though.
Not a big fan of the breeder now that we've learned a little more.
She had an ag degree and other things.
(27:48):
He came from a working farm in Mississippi.
They need to work.
Yeah, and he does.
We frisbee, we walk, we do tons.
But does not like being pet by children at all.
Just would rather focus on his shepherds.
This one though, right at the shelter was super cuddly and so we thought they would
(28:12):
balance each other out.
She's still learning how to behave though.
For example, I will cut all that out.
What else should we talk about now that we've got a break?
(28:35):
I would like to talk about what we do want to see in our lawns and what kind of what
when we're weeding, when we're doing like and then maybe push volunteering on the committee
because that's a necessity too.
Does that sound like a plan?
(28:56):
Talk about those two things.
Well, we're in love with bluegrass lawns.
We judge people by their bluegrass lawns.
Doug Ptolemy's book Nature's Best Hope changes one's attitude toward them, I think.
(29:24):
They're basically a wasteland.
And the idea of a lawn comes from.
They're great for planes and plane and you know kids and sports.
They're not easy to take care of.
I've had a big bluegrass lawn and even that is as frustrating as having a perfect lawn.
I'm not a big fan of yard work.
(29:46):
But this at least I feel a little bit my conscience feels better even though it's frustrating.
But just mowing a huge swath.
We lived in Charlotte before this and just mowing that huge piece of property.
It wasn't huge.
It was a half an acre.
But just mowing all that grass for nobody to play on it because it's too hot and just
(30:06):
look at.
Yeah, you know, your latest Meadowmicks article, the one where you talked about what a lawn
should look like with some paths through it, water feature to make some sound to attract
birds.
And I guess that this that's what the people that own this house kind of built.
We have that.
(30:27):
So how do we.
I'm excited to have that.
Now I have to go through and clean it up and keep working because there was a gap between
I think when Patty owned it when I got it where it might have been left alone.
What should if in your words what should a prayer crossing property look like?
(30:50):
Or what are what are what are some tips?
Not sure the stir the pot, huh?
Instead of sure.
Well, I think that we should certainly get rid of invasive shrubs and trees.
(31:12):
It should be an embarrassment to have a buckthorn growing on your property.
I got rid of mine.
Bernie was in the back.
I did it.
Thank you.
Burning Bush is a no no.
Honeysuckle is a no no.
I mean the the hedgerow we must have taken a hundred honeysuckles out of there and no
(31:35):
one planted them.
The birds planted them.
I just took out a couple daylilies from my own property but they were hidden.
(31:55):
I've drank the Kool-Aid.
I mean I believe in planting natives.
They're gorgeous.
I mean they can be a formal planting too.
You don't have to make your lawn look like a prairie.
I know I talk about pathways and you know the limiting the amount of bluegrass but
(32:21):
if you have kids and they want to play and you have a dog that's fine.
But you're going to have some planting somewhere and those definitely should be natives.
Just because we live we really should have learned from the native peoples here.
(32:45):
We live like we're not part of this ecosystem and we really are.
And we're basically destroying it.
This is one of the advantages of being old.
(33:07):
I may not be around to see the final demise but yeah I like that little expression.
I sat under the shade of an oak and read a poem because someone planted it.
(33:27):
And you know that's looking at the future and I've planted some oaks recently and I'll
never sit under them in the shade but someone will and hopefully they'll bless me.
(33:51):
That's a great place to stop.
Jim thank you so much for being part of the podcast.
Thanks for coming on.
It's been really informative and good to get to know you a little bit more.
Well thank you.
I enjoyed it.
That's our episode for this time.
Thank you again to Jim O'Connor and thank you.
Thank you for listening.
(34:12):
I am just looking over Glenn Riccio's last email about Fright Fest.
Don't forget it's a Saturday October 19th from 4 to 10.
The weather looks beautiful.
It's at the Station Square condos.
It'll be pumpkin carbon contests for youth 12 and under and adults 13 and up.
You have to drop it off at the condo fountain by 430.
(34:36):
There's costume parades, scavenger hunt, haunted hallways, food starts at 5, the food truck,
there's a fire pit, pay rides, the non-scary start at 420 and our $2 ticket.
You can buy those tickets starting at 4.
And the scary one started at 6 with a requested donation of $5 per ticket.
(34:58):
And then thanks again to Gwen and to Douglas Nergi for putting it together and all the
volunteers who do the scare stations and help out at the front of house.
You guys make this special.
So thank you.
This has been Around the Lake podcast.
We will see you next time.
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