July 2008: Run, float, sing

e-Notes From the Dells

July 2008

Spread the word about Severson Dells to your people! Forward this newsletter.

1. Last Chance to Save on Hall Creek Scamper
2. Canoeing with Carter & Connelley
3. Reprise: Carter and Connelly’s Everybody Needs a River
4. A Few Bricks Shy of a Load
5. Whaddya Mean There’s Nothing to do Around Here?
6. Remembering Neva Burdick, 1922-2008
7. Arson at the Witness Tree
 
1. Last Chance to Save on this Saturday’s Hall Creek Scamper
 
Running green will cost you more green on Wednesday, July 23. That’s when preregistration closes for the Hall Creek Scamper. Then it will cost you $25 to enter the race this Saturday, July 26.

There is an event for everyone –  a 5k open race, a 5k youth race and a 1
mile run-walk-scavenger hunt. In addition to individual awards, we’ll
score the 5k races like a cross country meet, so get a few running pals
together and compete as a team.

Register online now!

Learn More About The Hall Creek Scamper.

We need a race director for 2009. Know anybody? dellsgreenrun@gmail.com 
 
 2. Canoeing and Creating with Carter & Connelley
 
There’s a lot of alliteration in this headline and it may be one tool you’ll use during this float trip Saturday, July 26, with fellows from The Land For Learning Institute. Curt Carter and Tom Connelly, known as Illinois’ folk warriors, are singers and writers who like to canoe. Come float with them down the Kishwaukee River where they’ll share songs, secrets and inspirations from their river of life. $15 per person, SDNC Members Only
 
Information, (815) 335-2915 or click here and scroll down to the end of July.

3. Reprise: Carter and Connelly’s Everybody Needs a River

 
These guys leave the stern for the stage on Saturday evening, July 26, from 7-8:30 a.m. at the Nature Center. Click here to learn more about their music.
 
4. A Few Bricks Shy of a Load

 There are only a few weeks left for you to buy a engraved brick to support Severson Dells’ efforts to connect people to nature. Here’s how it works.

a. Click here
b. Choose a brick size

c. Decide what your brick should say
d. Check out online using our secure shopping cart
5. Whaddya Mean There’s Nothing to do Around Here?

July 2008
26: Hall Creek Scamper
26: In Flow With Nature’s Inspirations, 8:30 am
26: A Night of Music: Everybody Needs a River, 7:00 pm
27: Bats at the Beach (at Pec River FP), 7:00 pm

 
August 2008
05: Eliza and the Dragonfly, 9:30 am
06-08: Camp Peek Into Creek #2
09: A Day with Clare Walker Leslie:
Creating Your Own Nature Journal, 10:00 am
The Journey of a Journal Keeper, 6:30 potluck, program at 8:00 pm
09: The Night of the Perseids 9:00 pm

Click here for program descriptions and details.

6. Remembering Neva Burdick, 1922-2008
Neva Burdick never stopped thinking about how she could help Severson Dells Nature Center. She and her late husband Dave were friends, benefactors, volunteers and incredible evangelists for the work we do connecting people to nature through education.

We lost Neva on July 6 and it is a big loss. Neva was a long-time board member at Severson Dells and played an active role in shaping the future of the non-profit organization. She published a picture book, "Treasures Among the Trees," in 1998 to honor Dave, who died in 1993. The book featured nature photos taken by Dave, wrapped around story written by Sheryl Pitts Wolff about a grandfather’s and grandson’s walk through the forest preserve in search of nature’s gems. In the end, they find that the best treasure of all was sharing the natural world with someone else.

Copies of the book are available in the Severson Dells Nature Center Gift Shop.

Click here for more about Neva

7. Arson at the Witness Tree

So what did the witness tree witness this month?

Arson.

Someone set fire to the roots of the fallen 190-year-old bur oak near the shelter house at the Severson Dells Forest Preserve.

Investigators believe the fires were set on the afternoon of Saturday, July 5. The tree roots burned for more than 15 hours before they were extinguished. Fires were also set on a bench and on the paved walking path at the forest preserve.

When the bur oak fell last summer, it created a deep cavity in the ground, exposing the tree roots. That’s where the fire was started. It consumed about two-thirds of the  exposed root mass.

The tree’s trunk is okay. Firefighters used a chain saw on the root section of the tree, which was separated from the trunk by a gap created when volunteers cut out several discs from the tree. Educators at the non-profit Severson Dells Nature Center use a narrow path between the tree sections as a natural history time machine, giving school children lessons about tree growth as they pass through two centuries worth of tree rings.

Discs salvaged by volunteers will serve a similar purpose in the Nature Center’s classroom. Markers on rings the rings will show local, national and world events that occurred while the tree was alive.

That the tree was burned in sadly ironic. Bur oaks are fire tolerant trees. When wildfires swept across the grasslands, incinerating everything it their path, the thick bark of the bur oak prevented the fire from killing it. Some bur oaks lived for 400 years. Early surveyors used these massive trees as markers as they mapped out the region.

Now, the fire marshall may now use a map to mark the tree as an arson target.

Related stories:

A Giant Falls: Signature Bur Oak Goes Down

Severson Dells Notes: What did the witness tree witness?