Beyond our vision, the fields of the Midwest are waking up. Farmers are getting ready for the growing season. Time to put those long-laid plans into play. The equipment that has long lain idle will see some use . . . on lands that have been cultivated for many, many years. It’s a pleasure to…
Mr. Sea Lion
Yesterday being fine, Mr C dragged me out for a walk through the Lincoln Park Zoo. It’s amazing to have a free zoo nearby. Sometimes I walk through in the morning and am the only one to hear the lions roaring. Yesterday the sea-lion was particularly thrilling to see. What pity I felt was overwhelmed…
Tipping into spring
There is always a day that proclaims winter to be over, when the universe nudges the earth irrevocably toward spring. In Chicago, today was that day. The trees are unmistakably budding, and the North Pond is suddenly crowded with birds. The grass near the Nature Museum is turning an unfamiliar shade. Daffodils are suddenly blooming…
The winter farmers’ market
In the off-season, the Green City market held during the summer months on Saturdays in Lincoln Park moves indoors to the Nature Museum. My friend K. has been singing its praises, so, on the strength of her enthusiasm, I decided to go. My sister-in-law, who’s visiting this weekend, agreed to go with me, so we…
Three weeks ago, on the last ‘really cold day’
Three weeks ago, on the first day of spring, Celia took a picture of what she was wearing: a heavy suede coat, with a hood, heavy gloves, and everything. The weather was so bad, it was almost amusing. . . . Three weeks on, little has changed. Still wearing a winter coat, with temperatures in…
Where fortunes were stored
Along a west-side artery, an anachronistic sight: an ancient grain elevator, where grains from the hinterland are stored and still processed today. The worn towers conjure up an earlier period in Chicago’s history, when the invention of the commodities market enabled farmers and speculators to turn grain into gold, among other things.
A night at the Auditorium Theatre
Last night my husband and I attended a benefit concert at the Auditorium Theatre at the invitation of friends, one of whom is on the board of the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University. It was a performance of the school’s orchestra, who appear just once annually in the great venue that the…
Sci-fi fish
Photographing an animal is damn exciting, whether it’s a snake, a bird, or a human being. So Celia was thrilled to photograph these fish in the Galien River yesterday. These photographs, with the contrast adjusted, look like some really bad paint-by-number paintings. Yet Celia could hardly be more pleased with them. Click images to enlarge.
The log museum
I’m back in the city, but I may have to keep posting about nature for a while, because now the outdoors is changing almost before our eyes. Every incarnation is fleeting and very exciting. Even a long-dead log lying in a stream. The log’s hollow is a museum of everything dead and dried out from…
Between seasons
This is the season that we love to go out to Michigan. In the woods over the next six weeks, the tiniest forest plants put on their thrilling pageant, blooming alone or in great patches until the trees overshadow them with canopies of leaves. Yesterday the temperature was forecast to hit seventy. My party decided…
Easter wrap
Went with friends to the Union League Club for Easter dinner. Located right downtown in a 20-story building, the club known for its beautiful art collection and outstanding food. For one day only, a lounge off the main lobby is converted into a petting zoo. In the main dining room, the staff serve hundreds of…
Child’s play it’s not
The opening of the new Children’s Hospital was a big deal. The old Children’s Memorial Hospital in Lincoln Park was closed, and the patients were all transported three-and-a-half miles to the new hospital, which is part of the Northwestern University medical complex in Streeterville. Several major streets in the city were closed over a weekend…
