Build a Park, Not a Tower
The Oak Park Comprehensive Plan recommends finding more open space. The Park District of Oak Park Master Plan states that opportunities should be sought to increase park space. The Oak Park-River Forest Sustainability Plan includes the goal of increasing green space and green infrastructure in the villages.
Mobilizing to Increase Monarch Habitat
“North American monarch butterflies are in trouble. Threats, including climate change, pesticide use and habitat loss are having a devastating impact on their populations. Unless we act now to help the Monarch, this amazing animal could disappear in our lifetime.” -- US Fish & Wildlife Service
Bring Life to Your Garden
Book Club to Discuss Johns Muir's Adventures
Looking for a way to keep warm this winter that doesn't involve you sitting in front of the TV in your pajamas? Join a new book club exploring John Muir, father of the National Parks and founder of the Sierra Club. The book club, sponsored by the Oak Park Park District, will meet once a month for three months on Tuesdays, Jan. 24, Feb. 21, and March 21, at Austin Gardens Environmental Education Center, 167 Forest Ave., in Oak Park. There is no charge, but please register here.
Let's Spread the Monarch Magic
Who has not experienced delight and awe when they catch sight of a monarch butterfly? But the population of this beloved species has declined by 90 percent over the past 20 years. Communities locally and nationally are mobilizing to increase monarch habitat. That’s where you come in. It turns out that urban and suburban areas are the monarch’s best hope for recovery. Join us to launch this initiative on January 31st!
Connecting with Nature Through Stories (for children and adults)
I love good children’s books. Some of my most cherished moments from my children’s growing-up years were reading stories to them that inspired and nurtured me as much as them! So when I came across this list “16 Great Children’s Books on Nature and the Environment” I knew that I had to share it.
Nourish Your Life Through Nature Journaling
By Laurie Casey
Many people nourish their lives by making writing a daily practice, like eating and exercise. Oak Park-based artist Sallie Wolf gave a presentation on nature journaling to West Cook Wild Ones last month. She showed off some of the more than 100 journals she has created over more than 50 years. These beautiful documents trace her most intimate thoughts, travels, goals, garden wildlife, and even the moon in the sky.
"My journals are a combination of an anthropologist’s field notes, a writer’s notebook, and an artist’s sketchbook," says Wolf.
Sallie Wolf suggested creative methods for journaling at a West Cook Wild Ones meeting. Photo by Cassandra West.
At the workshop, she walked participants through her method of creating simple journals and then explored the different ways she works in them: writing, drawing and collage. Wolf is not a perfectionist, and she uses her journals to practice, play, observe and explore. She encourages beginning journal keepers to read The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron.
Her remarkable body of work is deeply personal, containing ink sketches and watercolors created en plein air during her travels or from behind her window looking out into her garden. For inspiration, you can see Wolf's moon project, which she derived from 20 years of journal entries at her website: http://www.salliewolf.com/moon.html
While she does go over lines that don't look right in the moment, she never crosses out her mistakes and enjoys looking back to see her skills progress. Many of these doodlings later became finished works of art. Others appeared in her books, such as The Robin Makes A Laughing Sound: A Birder’s Journal, a collection of observations told in poetry, lists, questions, notes and sketches.
Originally trained as an anthropologist, Wolf writes in dense lines in stark black ink. Her daily journaling practice traces her goals for the year, as well as things on her to-do lists. Regular, daily features in her journal also include notes on the birds in her backyard, the blooms in her garden, the day's weather and diagrams of the positioning of the moon that have become an art installation.
In her frequent and far-flung travels, Wolf always brings her journal, fountain pen, ink and water colors to record nature's beauty. She says her sketches help her capture the scene's emotion and proportions better than a camera, which distorts the view and creates artificial distance between her eye and the scene.
Wolf uses many store-bought journals, but she also enjoys making her own. At the workshop, Wolf demonstrated a basic method of book binding. She folds 8 or more 8.5" by 11" pages in half. For the cover, Wolf enjoys recycling materials whenever possible, such as cardboard from pads of sketch paper, wallpaper samples and even birdseed bags. Then she uses an awl to punch 3 holes through the spine of the cover and paper. Finally, she weaves a piece of jute or yarn between the holes to tie the cover and paper together.
Visit Sallie at her studio, 331B Harrison St., in the Oak Park Arts District by appointment, or see her website at www.salliewolf.com
Boost the Ecological Power of Your Yard with Native Trees & Shrubs
Last 2 Days to Order native trees a shrubs! Browse the Wild Ones Shopify site to find trees, shrubs and flowers that create beauty for you and much needed habitat for wildlife.
Fall is an ideal time to plant because our long Midwest winter gives plants lots of time to build roots before bursting into bloom in the spring. Plus, it’s more pleasant to dig in cool weather, right?
Monarch Migration Events
In the fall, Monarch butterflies migrate much like birds, flying 1,000 to 3,000 miles from states such as Illinois to the Oyamel Fir Forests of Central Mexico. Their spring and fall migration is considered a phenomenon of nature because they travel farther than all tropical butterflies.
Three upcoming local events will teach more about these regal insects and offer us ways to help them.