An enormous pile of canine poop spilled over the yellow line of the loop path Thursday morning as I stepped off at Vollmer Highway Grove.
“Critically, they couldn’t choose it up and take it a 100 yards to the trash?” I stewed. “What the hell is fallacious with people?”
No, I didn’t examine it to coyote scat. That pile was left by a canine squatting and dropping a load in the course of the path whereas strolling with their human.
However on a crisp sunlit morning, I quickly returned to inside calmness on my delayed First Day Hike at Vollmer Highway Grove.
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Pat Flynn was state park superintendent at Blue Hills State Reservation in Massachusetts in 1992 when he had the thought for First Day Hikes, mainly getting outdoors on New Yr’s Day.
Flynn gave Sue Scheible the again story when she interviewed him in 2015 for The Patriot Ledger.
“I had an thought patterned after a February winter hike they’d in Ohio, the place I’m from and the place I labored for the state parks,” he informed her. “I had 12 workers members and I pitched it and requested if they’d even are available in on New Yr’s Day if we did it, and 11 of the 12 mentioned sure and I assumed, ‘
We could also be on to one thing right here.’ We threw the primary one and we had 360 of us and it has grown to as many as 1,200 to 1,500 folks.”
Since then First Day Hikes have unfold to all 50 states, together with Illinois, beneath a nationwide initiative led by America’s State Parks.
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I applaud the thought, but I’m prickly sufficient to assume, “What’s the large deal? It’s best to haul your arse outdoors day-after-day, no, make that a number of occasions a day.”
However when my spouse, Karyn Bowman, urged we do a First Day Hike, I merely agreed. After 30 years collectively, some ideas I hold in test.
Nevertheless, there was a catch: It needed to be someplace with a paved path. After we went on an anniversary journey in the summertime of 2023, the place we hiked/walked round Cincinnati and northern Kentucky, her Charcot foot (a uncommon ailment related to diabetes) flared and he or she developed a sore that might not heal.
Final month it was doing nicely sufficient that she had surgical procedure. Since then, it’s strictly non-weight bearing, so she will get round through wheelchair.
On Wednesday, we selected Perry Farm, a prairie restoration by the Bourbonnais Township Park District, blocks from Olivet Nazarene College the place the Bears held summer time camp for 18 years.
As she settled into her wheelchair, the westerly winds nailed us and we knew the total loop of a pair miles was out. We did 1 / 4 mile or so, earlier than doing the sensible factor and returning to the automotive. Know your limits. Although comparatively brief, she was outdoors for actual for the primary time because the surgical procedure.
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On Thursday, I went for my delayed First Day Hikes.
I began with Vollmer Highway Grove, a Forest Preserves of Prepare dinner County web site. The loop path, on the northeast nook of Cicero Avenue and Vollmer Highway, is simply west of Bartel Grassland, a extra vital web site biologically. However I favor Vollmer Highway as a result of it’s extra essential for human exercise and it’s near our church, Flossmoor Neighborhood.
The path is closely used and in a residential space, but holds a excessive variety of animals and birds.
I often stroll a mile or two on the jap facet. Thursday I did the entire 3.9 miles.
On a nippy sunlit morning, I noticed loads of issues. Canada geese flew across the close by subdivisions. Blue jays squawked within the woods. Quickly I noticed 5 does, the 4 extra one other 50 yards on. I noticed eight extra deer, together with a small buck. I additionally noticed home sparrows, chickadees and a bunch of birds I couldn’t establish.
Regardless of listening for birds and taking pictures, I completed in an hour and a half.
I felt marvelous.
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Then I added a mile hike at one other favourite spot, Goodenow Grove Nature Protect. We visited the Forest Preserves District of Will County web site close to Crete often when the the youngsters had been little to make use of the nice sledding hill.
Goodenow has a mixture of trails. I hiked in on the paved Plum Creek Greenway Path, then the gravel Scout Path, then the dust looped Oak Ridge Path, the place I proudly recognized a shagbark hickory among the many oaks. Late morning, there was much less chook exercise, however I picked up juncos, blue jays, nuthatches and small birds I couldn’t ID.
It was time.
