Geese feasting on post-harvest corn. Windsor Road, near Mattis Avenue
Then detoured to the trail along Phinney Branch.
One of the lovely trail crossings of Phinney BranchThe bike trail takes some interesting turns here, including very close to the yard of a lunging, barking dog (on the other side of a not especially tall fence)Pond along the trail with mallard ducks! Not just geese. But the geese are not far away
Deposited the goodies and rode homeward, still under clouds.
Clouds above the trail between Prospect and Neil Late goldenrod on the southeast side of the St. Mary’s Road viaductAt the summit of the St. Mary’s Road hill, looking toward Lincoln AvenueU of I COVID-testing tent. The pride of Illinois’ pandemic response!
Stopped at the little prairie on Florida and Orchard.
Late New England AstersLet wild blue sage and goldenrod
And home again, mission accomplished with a nice 13-mile ride.
It was 61 degrees F, mostly cloudy, wind SSW 10 mph at about 7:40 am.
A large hackberry tree, long growing right on the edge of Race Street, recently cut down, apparently with good reason
On the way to Meadowbrook stopped at the stand of spruces along Race Street and saw two species of large mushrooms.
Mostly they were Amanita muscaria,
though not in near the numbers they’d been in years past. They were reasonably healthy looking, though.
At Meadowbrook parked Shadow near the organic gardens and walked on the “soft” path to the middle of the Spomer Prairie.
Goldenrod were on the wane but still plenty lovely. Also the walnut leaves were starting to turn, so there was lot of yellow.
Was amazed to see cream gentians in their typical abundance this late in the season; had seen bottle gentians last week at the Marker statue.
Looked carefully for bottle gentians here; they are hit or miss in the middle of the prairie. Did find a plant with two clusters of flowers.
On the way back couldn’t find that one but did see another. Noticed some remaining Gaura.
And a good distance away, close to the wood bridge over dry McCullough Creek,
in a spot I’d completely missed on the way out and never had seen them in this area before, was a large and healthy cluster of bottle gentians, right next to the path!
What a glorious surprise!
Stopped at the Sensory Garden near where I parked the bike to see some late garden flowers.
It was 54 degrees F and sunny (though with haze), wind E 4 mph at 8:40 am. The phone GPS was not tracking well this morning, but it got the general idea.
Today’s ride was another fast break from a busy day. Went to Meadowbrook in search of bottle gentians and was not disappointed!
Also saw a spike of cardinal flowers persisting below and slightly upstream from the rabbit-statue bridge.
Remaining cardinal flower (some imagination required to locate, center, slightly left of photo)
Saw farther on a bit of remaining wild blue sage among the goldenrod (not pictured) near the smaller arch bridge over Douglas Creek.
Saw a variety of other late bloomers.
Frost asterGoldenrod and bonesetGoldenrod and BidensNew blooms of bottle gentian!Cluster of bottle gentian bloomsBottle gentian inflorescence showing the swirling fold of the petal tipsGoldenrod, sawtooth sunflower, and remaining GauraSunflowers are a force for good
There also were abundant goldenrod and occasional sawtooth sunflowers. And quite a few people. Something I need to be more generous about and to get used to.
Velo du Jour 