On a rather chippy Saturday morning, the Friends of the Morton Grove Preserves as well as a multitude of Stewards from area forest preserves who all comprise of the 25 mile area of the North Branch Restoration Project, all met at one of the Village of Skokie’s public works facilities just West of the Emily Oaks Nature Center in Skokie. From 9:00 AM onto the early afternoon, they worked with various volunteers who came to process seeds (from native grasses, sedges, wildflowers, etc…) which will be placed back in specific areas where evasive species have been removed all throughout the year in the stewards’ respective areas.
Here’s a really nice piece on the yearly event recently published by Jennifer Slosar of the Chi-Town Daily News.
Emily Oaks Nature Center in Skokie - November 22, 2008
Getting to the Emily Oaks Nature Center in Skokie is easy! Take Howard Street east past Skokie Blvd., and turn left on Knox heading northbound.
When Knox dead ends, you turn left and head to the end of the street and it's on the right side!
Emily Oaks Nature Center - Building Relationships with the Natural World.
Some of the seasonal programs available at the Emily Oaks Nature Center.
Laurel (l), one the Stewards of the North Branch Restoration Project, instructs people on their tasks for the day.
Over 100 various native species were collected and then prepared for seed collecting and broken down by 2 categories - Woodland or Prairie.
John Thill, a steward from Linne Woods in Morton Grove, demonstrated seed processing.
Stewards, school volunteers and members of the public all chipped in until the last seed was processed to make the event a success!
After the seeds were processed they were weighed and then placed into various mixtures in large containers by one of the two gurus at the event.
Paul Dolinko & Joan Meersman, the Senior members of the project, have been involved with the North Branch Restoration Project for over 20 years. Here they're working on very specialized seeds only touched by a few set of hands!
