By Jack MacRae Our bobcats are busy. February means females are looking for houses and males are looking for females. Bobcats den in old forests with a dense, shrubby under-story, where they create a hidden home within the hollow logs and tangled roots. Gestation lasts 60 days and the circle of life continues. Hakuna matata. … Read more
By Furry Jack MacRae Voles live fast and die young. There are millions of these mousy rodents in our grassy neighborhoods throughout the Fox River’s watershed, but they almost never make it to their second birthday. Meadow voles have their own cycle of life. Bio-chronologists have learned voles do not subscribe to a typical 24 hour circadian rhythm, but … Read more
By Art Malm, P.E., FOFR Director Recently I was at Disney World with my granddaughters who told Pocahontas how much they loved her song “Just Around the River Bend”. “Do you live near a river bend?” Pocahontas asked. “No, we live in Elgin” Kayla replied. “Oh” said the Princess, “You live near the Fox River.” … Read more
By Gary Swick, President In December’s newsletter, I offered the Fox River’s holiday gift list. I also promised that I would suggest a few resolution ideas to help you to give the Fox River what it wants. The resolutions should be specific, achievable, relevant, measurable, and personal. We are all friends of the Fox River, … Read more
By Meghan Yancey The fall water quality monitoring season has come to a successful end! This was my first season with Friends of the Fox River (FOFR) and it’s been great for me to see both students and teachers committed to continuing this work. This fall we worked with 12 schools and over 1,000 students … Read more
By FOFR Director Art Malm, P.E. Since I’ve received no dam questions this month I’ll take this opportunity to start a conversation about contamination of fish in Our Fox. As Joni Mitchell famously sang at Woodstock, and astrophysicists now explain, we are all stardust. Every element in our body, all the carbon, oxygen, phosphorous, calcium … Read more
By Jack Frost MacRae They were the perfect American tree. They were among the tallest, the widest, and had the straightest grain. They grew fast, were numerous, and were resistant to rot and decay. Their nuts fed billions. They were pretty. And, Mel Torme wrote a celebrated song about them. Then the blight came and … Read more
By Gary Swick, President Many years ago I was given a wood carving from an anonymous source. The accompanying note read: “This is the River Spirit. It only speaks to children and a few select adults. You are one of those.“ So I was sitting by the Fox River wondering what it has on its … Read more
By Jack MacRae Witch Hazel was one of my least favorite Looney Toons characters. She wasn’t a deep thinker like Foghorn Leghorn or a slapstick genius like Yosemite Sam. But I do like her namesake shrub. Witch Hazel was named after an attractive tree native to our understory of our wooded lands. Blooming during the fall, this … Read more
From time to time Friends of the Fox River receives questions thru our website or Facebook page about the river, pollution and other watershed related issues. Here’s a question we received that FOFR Director Art Malm researched and answers. J. Faust asks: Do you have an estimate of the volume the many water reclamation districts … Read more
