Judy MacDonald sent this along this week…
I just completed my C3 Leadership training yesterday. I’ll sure miss seeing all those motivated people every week. How to keep my inner fires burning is already a concern, so I guess that was the motivation when I suddenly found myself driving off course earlier today. I was driving my kids home from their gymnastics class.
I’d taken a different route and found myself sitting at a stoplight at Damen and Berteau. As I sat there idling, trying not to think of the emissions I was pumping out as I waited for no traffic to move, I looked up at the street sign and remembered what my C3 classmate Graham had talked about as his project: a river beautification that included reintroduction of native plants. Graham had said that the site was already beautiful, so without a word to my kids, I turned left and drove to the river.
They we’re a bit confused when I pulled them out of the car in unfamiliar territory saying, “Let’s go explore!” But that’s the kind of direction kids particularly like getting from their parents, so just a few questions and a lot of forward motion followed. That in itself is a beautiful thing, and it complimented the ever more beautiful scene we enjoyed as we drew closer to the river. Little songbirds flitted between the fading flowers. We saw splashes of color here and there among the green and brown of the fall flowers and grasses, beautiful textures of myriad seedheads, colorful beetles hanging out on milkweed pods before we even got to the river’s edge.
On the water we saw a dozen mallards quacking loudly at a group of people who were canoeing our way, hound dog in the prow howling her joy at being out in the “wild.” We worked our way up toward Montrose along tree lined, wood chipped paths with rustic little handmade fences. Along the way parts of the bank were too eroded to navigate, so we walked along the alley for a bit and nipped back into the greenery whenever we could.
At the Montrose end, among the exposed roots of a tree, we found a little hole some mysterious animal had dug for a home. The kids had a great time exploring up and down the paths and we saw several others walking along in pairs or with dogs — even a large multi-generation family out enjoying this beautiful bit of nature on a rainy October afternoon. The prairie section at the south end was by far my favorite but you can see how the neighbors further north are working away at making the whole strip of river a beautiful place to be.
Thanks to Graham for telling us about this place and to all who have worked so hard and continue to make this bit of the river the gem that is.
And thanks to Judy for sharing this. Reminds me of the Kids and Nature summit meeting I facilitated a couple of weeks ago, as well.
