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Paddock Woods March 22, Swallow Cliff March 23, 2025

3/26/2025

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Paddock Woods Saturday March 22
We had a large group of volunteers, including three brush-cutters and three chainsaws, working in the low area northwest of the parking lot. Tree thinning, lots of honeysuckle, and a few others were targeted, and we had at least three fires by my count.

Congratulations to chain sawyer Nicole D. for finishing her mentoring sessions, she's now a certified Feller 1 in the Forest Preserves of Cook County.  Much thanks also to Kevin G. for acting as mentor - it's a detailed process developed by FPCC that emphasizes the safe use of this powerful tool.

Swallow Cliff South Sunday March 23
Sunday morning dawned with a threat of rain that kept getting pushed later into the day; we had a great group, including first-time Palos volunteers Tristan, as we pushed farther in from the Yellow Trail in the South woods. Jim with the brush-cutter, Joe with the chainsaw, the rest of us hand-cutting and hauling and burning as we creep our way deeper into the woodland.

One pleasant surprise: when we got past a line of brush along a drainage we entered an area of open woodland, relatively free of brush. This has to be staff or contract work as volunteers are new to this area. We will return on Sunday, March 30, which will likely be our last Swallow Cliff cut-and-burn day of the season.
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Black Partridge Woods March 16, 2025

3/19/2025

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Our crazy windy Saturday led to cancellation of our restoration day at Cap Sauers, as well as most sites in the county.

Black Partridge Woods Sunday March 23
We had no guarantee this one would come off either, with snow forecast throughout the day. It began around 8:00 am as I was driving to the site, but not so much that we couldn't get a fire started (go Andy!).

We didn't have a big crowd, but our numbers were doubled by five volunteers from Friends of Pilcher Park Nature Preserve in Joliet. The snowfall doused their plan to do a prescribed burn so they joined us instead. Huge thanks to Teal, Allison, Michael, Matas, and Justin, all from that group and making their first appearance at a Palos restoration site. Thanks also to Maddie Peacher, Volunteer Program Coordinator with FPCC, making her rounds of all the county preserves under volunteer management.

We cut brush on the dairy farm (south) side of Bluff Road, with most of the damage done by lopper and bowsaw. The snow added a nice ambience, lasting long enough to coat the stalks, leaves, and seed heads of last year's plants. 

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Spears Woods March 8, Hidden Pond March 9, 2025

3/10/2025

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Spears Woods Saturday March 8
Missed this one and cobbled some information from Jim D. and Doug's FB post. It was a small group, working a little bit south of the parking lot along the Yellow Trail. Brush cutting until the brush cutter crashed (Sorry, Doug!) and some chainsaw tree thinning throughout the morning.

Wherever you went this weekend, sandhill cranes could be heard overhead. I saw a picture this morning of an estimated 50,000 along the Platte River in Nebraska and saw some Tuesday flying low enough to get a couple pictures where their shapes are at least discernible when expanded..

Hidden Pond West Sunday March 9
We'll call this one Masters of the Bowsaw and lopper, as we went without any power tools, somewhat unusual these days in Palos though not too many years ago ALL the invasive removal was done with hands tools. We did really well, too, a credit to the energy of our volunteer team. This included first-time Palos volunteers Mike and Arthur, Sarah who made her Palos debut just two weeks ago, and parent-student couples Rebecca/Charlie and Melanie/Kelsey.
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Spears Woods March 1, McClaughrey Springs March 2, 2025

3/5/2025

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Spears Woods Saturday March 1
Many volunteers attended the Wild Things nature conference in Rosemont Saturday - more on that below - but we still had a good group out at Spears to continue the assault on honeysuckle, multi-flora rose, and other delights. Carolyn led this one in Joe's absence, and this account and a couple pictures below came from Doug Bosco's FB post.

McClaughrey Springs Sunday March 2
Sunday was a clean-up day from last month's tree-thinning, with several piles of cut timber awaiting us. We also had four members of the Thorn Creek Resource Management crew helpinng, running brushcutters to eliminate the plethora of small walnut saplings that shade and stymie all the native grasses and forbs in this meadow.

With falling humidity levels projected for the afternoon we stopped loading early to give the fires a chance to burn down. This was a wise call on the part of the RM crew - maybe some readers heard about the 10 acre wildfire in McHenry County, caused by a brushpile stirred by strong winds.

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    Author

    I'm Jan Pietrzak with the Palos Restoration Project. This blog and website were created for your information and enjoyment.

    I hope you'll be encouraged and inspired to volunteer at any of the numerous forest preserves in our area.

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