Why I Oughta...

Over the weekend, we went out walking (and playing Pokemon Go) around Barth Pond at Patriots Park down on 55th Street in Downers Grove and one of the kids came across this two-tiered honeycomb that has been abandoned by the occupants.  Based on the color, this hasn't been a vibrant, active home for a while.  Neat to see and fun to have to kids show an interest in nature.

Last Summer, I posted a photo from a walk I took with Lizzie around Barth Pond at Patriot's Park .  That photo is here .  The park is very close to our house - like maybe six houses or so away and it is a nice spot to go walking.  Sometimes with the dog.  Sometimes with the kids.  Recently, I went down there with the two little ones and we spent some time in the playground.  On the way to the playground, I was struck by how nice it was out.  This path in the photo above is one of two on the north side of the pond with this one being 'closer' to the water.  The pond has something to do with water management in our area and I think part of the reason there's two paths is because this part of the path is occasionally under water.  On this day, it wasn't.  And the goose turds that normally make me tiptoe around?  Those were gone, too.  Felt like my lucky day. 

I took little Lizzie out for a walk around Barth Pond  after the kids were put* to bed ( *note...put doesn't mean 'staying' in bed.  And 'put' doesn't mean that Nat doesn't do MOST of the heavy lifting involved with wrestling them into submission each night... ) one evening recently and if not for the enormous piles of goose turds everywhere, it was quite lovely.  There were other folks walking, a few people down at the water's edge with fishing poles and some families on the playground.  The weather couldn't have been better.  The sun was about to set and the water reflected a beautiful blue from the sky.   The summer heat hasn't hit yet, so most everything was green and not yet yellowed. Turns out, the path around the pond is .45 miles, according to a post marker, so a few laps around gets a mile in for me and the dog. With the days being so long right now, this is a nice little way to end the day and wind down.  Who knows?  Maybe we&