Oaks & Gypsy Moths

Gypsy moths (Lymantria dispar) love oaks, and their caterpillars can strip a tree of its leaves in short order.

Some local governments spray to control the moths, typically using BT (Bacillus thuringiensis) applied while the caterpillars are still small - BT is not effective on caterpillars that are mature. There is a good summary of the pros and cons of BT available on the Ohio State University website.

Mature gypsy moths have a yellow-ish head, and distinct red and blue spots down their backs. In the photo, you can see one on a man's hand for scale.

They are similar in appearance to other caterpillars that you are likely to see in woods, such as the Eastern tent caterpillar and the Forest tent caterpillar.

The Eastern tent caterpillar makes silk tents, and favors cherry trees, apples and crabapples. These are native to the US, and while the tents may look bad, the insects rarely harm trees.

The Forest tent caterpillar has a blue head, blue sides to its body, and prominent yellow or white spots down the center of its back. This is a native species that favors aspens, sugar maple, oaks, birch & black gum trees.

Both of the native woodland caterpillars lay their eggs in a dark mass wrapped around twigs. The gypsy moths lay their eggs in a 1-3 inch long mass on the bark of the tree. The egg mass is tan, and covered with fine hairs.

If you see gypsy moth caterpillars, destroy them. If you notice egg masses on the bark of a tree, scrape them off into a container and either bury or burn them. Each egg mass contains from 100-1,000 eggs!

Here is a link to additional information on a Michigan State University website:
gypsy moth control & management.

IF YOU SEE A GYPSY MOTH IN ANYSTAGE OF LIFE CALL the Illinois Department of Agriculture TOLL FREE: 1-866-296-MOTH(6684)

Now Coming to a Town Near You

I heard/saw the most wonderful presentation earlier today by author Gina Olszowski who spoke about her first book: Now Coming to a Town Near You: Voices of Urban Sprawl.

Gina is a Geneva native, alumna of Drake University with a background in advertising, and a passion for photography.

Growing up, Gina watched as the Geneva area turned from "the country" to the suburbs, and she wondered why - even though all of the adults she knew were sad every time a farm was developed - farms continued to be developed, one after another.

She started taking pictures and talking to people - farmers, residents, elected officials, urban planners, etc. She started to connect the dots. This wasn't really the landscape that people wanted, but they felt helpless to do anything, and that made them sad - sad for the things lost, sad for the memories of their time on the land that others would never share - and sometimes, sad that they just stood by and let it happen.

What is this "it"? Many call it sprawl, but after looking at just a few pages of the book, and reading a few of the personal stories, I think I want to start calling it "urban creep." Lots of folks seemed to be saying that the growth and change just kind of crept up on them, and before they knew it, everything they once knew was gone.

(I like "urban creep" too because of the word creep - it is so definitely a negative word, isn't it? A person can sprawl out on a bed or a couch, and that isn't bad, but when traffic creeps along, or insects are creepy, or a person is a creep, it isn't good.)

We have a copy of the book in the office, and I gave one to Arlene at Read Between the Lynes bookstore on the Woodstock Square, and hope that she will even have a "meet the author" type event and start carrying Gina's books.

You can also order them through Gina's website: http://www.atownnearyou.com/ - $19.95 plus tax & shipping. And being a community-minded person, she is donating two-thirds of the profit to The Conservation Foundation - a land conservation group in Naperville (kind of like TLC but larger, and covering several counties).

Oh, and did I mention that Gina is 24 years old, and she just did this because she thought that there was a story to tell - a story that people needed to hear - a story told by their friends and neighbors - a story being repeated over and over and over again.

"Now Coming to a Town Near You" !! If everyone chose to speak up about the change they are seeing, and to make different choices in their lives, we could stop the creep from coming to the towns near us!

I planted an oak day!

Fifteen bur oak seedlings were planted by six families at Queensbury Farm on May 24th as part of TLC's first annual "I planted an oak day". The day was an opportunity for local residents to have a hand in restoring oaks to the county's landscape.

One tree at a time, one acre at a time, one property at a time. 'Til one day, the County will be known as the place where oaks thrive!

The day was part of TLC's Project Quercus program to save, restore and replant the county's oak woodland resources.

Last year, the owner of Queensbury Farm placed a conservation easement on her entire 58 acres of land on Queen Anne Road. The Farm is like a blank slate that will be restored to wetland, prairie and savanna in the coming years.

The event raised about $150 for TLC's Third Generation Oak Fund.

Quiet No More

I want to share some facts about implementation of the County’s new Conservation Design Subdivision regulations.

Implementation is a joke.

The County staff are rapidly turning it into an ordinance to give developers the ability to dramatically increase density on sites, while virtually ignoring the natural resources, and mass grading the entire site (in at least some instances).

Oh, the problem isn’t the issue of “density bonuses” that some worried about, no, none of the projects that have been reviewed to date actually meet the standards for any bonuses, yet they are seeing density increases of 30-70%.

That’s right. How about a development that was previously platted with 60 1-acre homesites that is now winding its way through the approval process to resubdivide so to have 103 one-third acre homesites! Yep, that’s right, a 70% increase in the number of homes that will be built – a 70% increase in traffic, a 70% increase in spray-irrigated sewage, etc etc.

And to boot, they are mass grading the entire site – you can drive by it right now on Church Road in Coral Township.

And now there are folks who would like to submit the County’s ordinance for awards, and to highlight the “success” at the regional level. I am outraged.

There was a point in the conversation about the new ordinance where I encouraged people to support this step by the county board, thinking (naively) that perhaps with such a clear policy direction as is written into the ordinance, that surely, the staff couldn’t get away with screwing this one up too.

Well, I was wrong, and I am not afraid to admit it, and had I known then what I am seeing now, I would have fought adoption of the ordinance.

To the County Board’s credit, I do not believe that the majority of them are even aware of what the staff are doing to completely disregard the intent of the ordinance. They are not likely to realize what is taking place until the staff have moved enough “lots and lots of small lots” style projects through the pipeline, that an effective precedent has been set, and the County Boards’ hands will be tied.

I lay this travesty at the feet of the County staff – who work for the County Board – and I will be expressing that to the County Board at their meeting tonight. Something has to change, and soon.

It is time for those of us who care to speak up. There is so much at stake, and we need to remind the county board that there are a lot of people who care about the county and that we are looking to them for strong leadership.

The list of public abuses and failures is long when it comes to the Planning & Development Department – in just the last few years, I've seen them waste $400,000 on the failed 2020 plan, publicly attack volunteer planning commission members and the public during the 2030 planning process, fail to enforce the 4-year-old stormwater ordinance (have you driven by the intersection of Route 176 and Ballard Road?), and tell landowners that the motocross track operating in your back yard (ruining property values and threatening sanity) is permitted in the agricultural district! The list is long…

This is our county too, and I am sick & tired of watching a small group of people trying to destroy it.

Ephemeral Ponds

On April 19th, Mike Redmer from the US Fish & Wildlife Service gave a tour of ephemeral ponds in the High Point area of Alden Township to a group of about 15 local residents.

Mike slogged through several seasonal ponds in his wading boots, pulling frogs, salamanders, aquatic insects and other tiny critters out for the group to see. He has a magical ability to find these often "invisible" residents of the spring ponds.

Ephemeral ponds are those that do not hold water throughout the year, but are typically only flooded in the spring due to the winter snow melt and the spring rains that cause the ground to be saturated. The ponds exist long enough for frogs and other small animals to emerge, but then disappear as the ground dries up.

These small, fleeting spots play a critical role in the lifecycle of these aquatic animals, but they are not very well understood by most people. The Alden High Point area is one of the richest regions in all Chicagoland for these ephemeral ponds, and so provides a critical habitat area for frogs, turtles and salamanders.

The last photo shows three salamanders that Mike fished out of a window well near one of the areas that the group explored. He commented that salamanders often fall into uncovered window wells, and die because they cannot climb back out.

The Ephemeral Ponds program was held as part of a series of three landowner educational programs that TLC is offering this year in the Alden Township area. There will be a second program on May 12th covering headwater streams, springs and seeps and led by Cindy Skrukrud from the Sierra Club. The final program in the series will take residents on a tour of oak woodlands in the Alden area in June.

Do you love oaks?

McHenry County has lost 87% of the oak woodlands that we once had, and if nothing changes in the next few years, we might lose the rest (well, most of them anyway)!

The vast majority of these ancient beauties are found on private land -- and if oaks are going to continue to be an integral part of our local landscape for future generations, private oak conservation will be essential.

Whether you have oaks on your property, or just love oaks, you can be part of making sure oaks are part of the local scenery in another 100 years.

Saturday, May 31st will be the inaugural training for Oak Keepers!

This is a project under TLC's Project Quercus banner that will train volunteers how to monitor oak woodlands. The Oak Keepers project will help us start to understand the challenges facing these resources so that we can help landowners preserve their oaks.

So, if you love oaks, you can be an Oak Keeper too! Just contact the office (by phone at 815-337-9502 or by email at Quercus@conservemc.org) and ask that we add you to the Oak Keepers mailing list!

I look forward to seeing you May 31st!

Getting Ready for Spring!

There is so much going on this year at TLC -- or there are so many cool projects in the works, especially for Spring! Here is a run down on the next few months:

- March 29th, prescribed/ecological burn training at TLC offices with burn at Westwood Park

- April 5th, ecological burn training at Prime Industrial Park, McHenry, coordinated by TLC for the business park's business owners (like Medela, Follett, and others) who are interested in using ecological burning to manage the nice wetland that is in the middle of the park

- April 5th, Garden Fest at MCC - TLC will have a booth there, giving local residents a chance to order their 60 gallon rainbarrels at a wholesale price of $79!

- April 19th, TLC sponsored Ephemeral Ponds program in Alden Township with Fish & Wildlife Service's Mike Redmer

- April 23rd, Deadline for Rainbarrel orders

- May 9 & 10, pick up Rainbarrels at the TLC office

- May 10th, TLC-sponsored Seeps, Springs & Streams program in Alden Township with Sierra Club's Cindy Skrukrud

- May - date to be determined - Project Quercus training for oak woodland monitors!

Check out the TLC website: http://www.conservemc.org/ for more information!