Summer in the City

This gull, along with 700 of his friends, has been guarding the Waukegan beach. It’s been difficult to bird the beach without disturbing the gulls or getting in the way of the very vocal Spotted Sandpiper and Killdeer. They seem to have hatched a second clutch and they are very protective of their territory.

Between the dunes there has been a pond stretching the whole length of the beach. This is perfect habitat for the Black-crowned Night Heron and the Green Heron. They can be found early in the morning close to the southern most entrance to the north beach.

The Fourth of July parade was uneventful and mostly boring. Aside from the horses, the best thing was the vintage firetruck.

The city fireworks had been cancelled due to the tragedy in Highland Park, but the neighborhoods west of us provided their own displays. All fireworks have been outlawed in Waukegan but this only reduced the number and firepower we heard by a fraction.

When I got up and went to go birding I realized that the real action was overnight, right in our front yard. As I drove out the driveway I saw a lot of dirt on the driveway right under the magnolia tree. I didn’t think much of it and kept going. A bit later, I thought I needed to investigate more thoroughly. I found the trunk of the tree facing the driveway had it’s bark ripped away and was damaged down to the base. The flower garden was disturbed and my very healthy cactus was gone!! There were tire marks on the neighbor’s lawn that extended through the flower garden and ended at the magnolia tree. There were small plastic and glass shards all over the front yard, especially on the north side on the garden. Finally the neighbors came out and explained what had happened. While we were asleep, a car had spun out of control on Sheridan road, driven through their yard and land with the back of the car crashed into the tree. The police were called, the tow truck removed the car and nobody so much as put a post-it note on our front door. We are still in the process of getting it fixed. This is the second time we had a car in our yard, the second tree damaged and the 7th time a speeding car missed the turn and crashed in this block. We complained to the neighborhood police officer and he said he would try to run s speed check. They are so understaffed that I can’t see that happening enough to make a difference.

I’m sorry to say that the neighborhood news gets worse. The school district has decided to repurpose Lincoln Center as a school for those high school students unable to function in the standard high school environment due to social and mental challenges. Basically, the neighbor said these are the kids who come to school with guns and knives. The district has kept this under wraps and it is already a done deal. Soooo…

We are going to move. As much as we love the house there is really nothing to keep us in Waukegan. Yesterday we looked at a beautiful home in Wisconsin, on the southern edge of Sheboygan. It is very near to Kohler Andrae State Park. It was on a private road and backed up to the Black River. Unfortunately the house was very big and not really what we wanted. But we will keep looking. After talking to our financial advisor we know what price point is feasible for us. None of this will happen in a hurry, so hopefully we can have Feast here this fall.

The next big project is for us to empty the house of as much junk as possible. That will keep us busy for a while!!