It’s that time of year again – spring ephemerals at Sand Ridge. They never get old.
upland woodland friends, sprouting from under the oak leaves.
here’s the hummocks that enable the fen orchid
this little wetland is on sandy soil in a swale among the aspens.
a younger grove is undergoing restoration and in a decade or so, may harbor high quality orchids and sedges like this one.
I’m pretty sure most of 2021 just didn’t happen. As you can see, the last post here was in early 2021. Where did all this time go? Through a black hole to the upside down and certainly not recorded on this blog.
But you are in luck. I will be backfilling with the irregular CRAC excursions that happened over the past year. The non-linearity of time will be evident as more and more of 2021 is actually filled in here, as though it didn’t happen unless it was recorded and put out into the world. Stay tuned.
Walk south from the southern end of Wolf Lake, past the roads that peek into residential pockets, past what was overgrown vacant lots — it’s all being rewilded, connecting Wolf Lake to Powderhorn Lake (fig 1). It expands the local wetland complex, but in a different direction than the historical baseline. Why? Because Powderhorn Lake is human-constructed, so there was never a connection between these bodies of water before.
We started in the greenspace north of Powderhorn Lake (though quite brown this time of year).
We came out from the buckthorn and Phragmites to a railroad track on the north side of Powderhorn Lake.
The dune and swale that you see on the map, looking like a ridged swamp, to the west of Powderhorn Lake- that dune and swale is still there! This is a long finger of oak savanna heading to the southeast.
Calumet Region Adventure Club 