German red cabbage

This is my husband's old family recipe for German red cabbage. His mother and grandmother were German and taught him how to make this delicious sweet and sour cabbage dish:  

Red Cabbage (6 servings)

2 tablespoon vegetable oil

½ yellow onion (sliced)

1 apple (diced)

1 potato (diced)

1 head of red cabbage sliced into 1/8^th inch strips (use Cuisinart!)

1 tablespoon sugar

Pinch each of ground cinnamon, cumin, salt and pepper to taste

½ cup red wine

½ cup red wine vinegar (or ¼ cup of balsamic vinegar)

½ cup water

1 bay leaf

**

Heat oil in enameled pan and sautee onion and apple for five minutes. Add everything else and cook over low heat, simmering, for one to two hours (the longer the better).  Better yet, cook for one hour the day before and one hour before serving on the day!

France bans single use plastic bags

France is outlawing single use plastic bags in 2016:
 http://www.france24.com/en/20141011-france-outlaw-single-use-plastic-bags-2016/

Let's hope it will be more successful than Chicago's 2015 ban:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-plastic-bag-ban-0622-biz-20150622-story.html 

The Pogues & Kirsty McColl - Fairytale Of New York

I'm not overly keen on Christmas pop songs but I do like this one from 1987:

Say Something

I'm putting this on here so that I don't forget how much I like this 2013 song, Say Something, by Great Big World and Christina Aguilera.

63rd Street beach at sunset

We walked over to Lake Michigan at sunset this evening:

Chicago Field Museum

Spent a snowy Sunday afternoon at the Field Museum: https://www.fieldmuseum.org/

Chicago cops

Project 120

Photo taken in Jackson Park at twilight: Marge Ishmael

Some of us local residents are concerned about the restoration and semi-privatization of our much-loved Jackson Park. We fear that the "wildness" of the place will soon be forever lost. I've been walking and biking in Jackson Park since 1998 and I've seen beaver, coyote and raccoon in there; not to mention a plethora of wild birds.  The continued removal of all non-native species and the inclusion of a Phoenix pavilion building and music court are particularly worrying; along with an access road to the pavilion over what is now the Clarence Darrow bridge. 

Here is a link to the proposed Project 120:
http://www.project120chicago.org/

Here is a link to Save This Space:
http://www.savethisspace.com/

Thursday, December 10, at 12:15 PM at the Chicago Cultural Center

Project 120 founder/director Robert Karr will speak about this project. 

Here is my recent letter to our local alderman and I would encourage others to send her their concerns:

Subject: Phoenix Pavilion music venue

Date: October 20, 2015 at 9:57:37 AM CDT

To: "ward05@cityofchicago.org" 

Dear Alderman Hairston,

I am writing to express my concern about the Phoenix Pavilion with Music Court that is planned for Jackson Park, adjacent to the Museum of Science and Industry, as part of the Project 120 collaboration. This is an area of the park that I see many people using for parking, family picnics, dog walking, birding and nature walks.

It seems to me that a loud music venue would not be in harmony with the natural environment. We already have the Northerly Island music venue, not so far away, in what was "supposed"to be a nature reserve on the former Meigs Field. 

The great American landscape architects - Frederick Law Olmsted and Daniel Burnham - will be spinning in their graves as they hear about yet another encroachment on sacred parkland.  Of course they lived in a bygone era when pubic figures were long sighted and not simply motivated by money and profit.

I agree with the Japanese belief that time spent in nature lowers stress levels and can even help the immune system to fight cancer, as mentioned on this Happy Parks Happy People website: http://www.hphpcentral.com/article/forest-bathing

Sincerely,

Marge Ishmael

National Parks

Watching Ken Burns' excellent The National Parks: America's Best Idea  http://www.pbs.org/nationalparks/

 "The national park idea, the best idea we ever had, was inevitable as soon as Americans learned to confront the wild continent not only with fear and cupidity but with delight, wonder, and awe.  Once started, it grew like the backfire it truly was, burning back upwind against the current of claim and grab and raid...proving that our rapacious society could hold its hand, at least in the presence of stupendous scenery, and learn to respect the earth for something besides its economic value." --Wallace Stegner

Lights Out for British Coal

The last deep coal mine in England will close in December. The end of an era and I feel very conflicted. On the one hand I come from a British coal mining area and my great grandfather was a coal miner. On the other, pollution from burning coal is responsible for about 30% of global warming. It puts our communities and wild places at risk from dirty air (from mercury, arsenic and other toxic pollutants), acid rain, and a variety of health problems such as asthma and other respiratory diseases.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/01/world/europe/lights-out-in-britain-for-the-coal-industry.html?src=mv

Cooper's Hawk on Halloween

Saw this Cooper's Hawk on driveway just now: http://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/coopers-hawk

Photo: Marge Ishmael

Indiana Dunes Fall Weekend

Two shots taken in Indiana today - the fall foliage is at its peak this weekend.

Photos: Marge Ishmael

Highbush Cranberry

Highbush cranberry in Jackson Park -- not a true cranberry.
http://umaine.edu/cranberries/highbush-cranberry/

Photo: Marge Ishmael

Colors of my "hood"

Walking around my neighborhood: the fall colors are underway.

Fall window display

A local shop window:

Photo: Marge Ishmael

Derelict bank turned art gallery

This is a great example of re-cycling and renovation in my neighborhood:a 90-year-old derelict bank building, bought from the city for $1, turned into an art gallery, library and community center. http://rebuild-foundation.squarespace.com/stony-island-arts-bank/

Photo by Marge Ishmael

Fall

I love this time of year. 

Photos: Marge Ishmael

Sweden aims to be fossil fuel free

http://www.iflscience.com/environment/sweden-combats-climate-change-aiming-be-fossil-fuel-free-nation

Indiana sunset

Tonight's sunset at 6:30 p.m.

Super Harvest Moon

Two photos I took of last night's super harvest moon: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/09/150924-super-total-lunar-eclipse-moon-sky-watching-viewing/

Monarch butterfly

Came across a Monarch butterfly this afternoon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarch_butterfly

Photo: Marge Ishmael

Leak turns Colorado River yellow

Millions of gallons of waste water turns Colorado River yellow:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-33857381

"The pollution includes lead, cadmium and arsenic. More than 1,000 wells may have been affected by yellow water stretching over 100 miles (160km) into neighbouring New Mexico."

Monarch butterfly

We saw lots of Monarch butterflies at Bobolink Meadow today: http://www.monarch-butterfly.com/
They seem to like the wild bergamot in the meadow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarda_fistulosa

Photo: Marge Ishmael

French banks say no to coal plant

Three French banks say they will not invest in the Rampal power plant in Bangladesh. As the plant struggles for funding, a report says it is non-compliant with minimum environmental and social standards.  http://www.bangladeshchronicle.net/index.php/2015/06/french-banks-say-no-to-bangladesh-coal-plant/

EPA Clean Power Plan

http://www.iflscience.com/environment/four-things-you-should-know-about-epa-clean-power-plan

Red-spotted purple butterfly

Red-spotted purple butterfly at Bobolink meadow yesterday: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limenitis_arthemis

Photos: Marge Ishmael

Africa's wildlife poaching crisis

https://www.awf.org/campaigns/poaching-infographic/

Paula Kahumbu is an influential conservationist and here is her bio:
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/explorers/bios/paula-kahumbu/

Sunset and storm clouds

What a difference a day makes!  Top photo showing Saturday night's sunset, followed by storm clouds on Sunday afternoon.  These cloud formations are a bit strange!  They are a sign of violent storms and are called mammatus clouds: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammatus_cloud

Dead and dying salmon in Pacific Northwest

Out of the more than 507,000 salmon that have passed through the Bonneville Dam, some 235,000 have died — a number that Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife fisheries manager John North told Reuters is unprecedented.  http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/07/29/3685149/dead-salmon-pacific-northwest/

The lion killer

This American dentist apparently paid $50,000 to kill Cecil the Lion.  Unbelievable.....words can't express how I feel right now: we have to find a way to stop these trophy hunters!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/zimbabwe/11767119/Cecil-the-lions-killer-revealed-as-American-dentist.html

Jane Goodall's full statement reads as follows:

"I was shocked and outraged to hear the story of Cecil, Zimbabwe's much loved lion. Not only is it incomprehensible to me that anyone would want to kill an endangered animal (fewer than 20,000 wild lions in Africa today) but to lure Cecil from the safety of a national park and then to shoot him with a crossbow...? I have no words to express my repugnance. He was not even killed outright, but suffered for hours before finally being shot with a bullet. And his magnificent head severed from his wounded body. And this behaviour is described as a "sport." Only one good thing comes out of this – thousands of people have read the story and have also been shocked. Their eyes opened to the dark side of human nature. Surely they will now be more prepared to fight for the protection of wild animals and the wild places where they live. Therein lies the hope."

BBC article: What Cecil the Lion means to Zimbabwe: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-33722688

How walking in nature changes the brain

Informative New York Times article: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/22/how-nature-changes-the-brain/?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0

Getty Images

"A walk in the park may soothe the mind and, in the process, change the workings of our brains in ways that improve our mental health, according to an interesting new study of the physical effects on the brain of visiting nature. Most of us today live in cities and spend far less time outside in green, natural spaces than people did several generations ago. City dwellers also have a higher risk for anxiety, depression and other mental illnesses than people living outside urban centers, studies show."

Apache protesters fight U.S. land swap with mining company

Native Americans from one of the poorest reservations in the country are using cell phones, Twitter and Facebook to throw a flash mob in Times Square to save a sacred site in Arizona stolen by a multi-national mining company in Australia. It’s their land, but it’s public land, and John McCain is bent on privatizing it.

See more @ http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/17/from-times-square-to-the-capitol-apache-protestors-fight-u-s-land-swap-with-mining-company/?_r=0

Update on 7/24/2015: http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/07/24/3683935/citing-religious-freedom-native-americans-fight-take-back-sacred-land-mining-companies/

Fracking linked to hospitalizations in Pennsylvania

Hydraulic fracking has been linked to illnesses and hospitalizations, says a study conducted by the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University. The study indicates hydraulic fracking is leading to an increase in hospitalizations for heart conditions, neurological illness, and other conditions, according to UPI. Read more at http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2015/07/17/Hydraulic-fracking-linked-to-hospitalizations-in-Pennsylvania/4481437167118/

Farmers Market at Harper Court

Some lovely fresh fruits and herbs at today's Harper Court farmers market: http://www.secc-chicago.org/discover-hyde-park/farmers-market

Photos: Marge Ishmael

Wolf Park, Indiana

Last night's July 4th "howl night" at Wolf Park wildlife education and research facility: wolfpark.org

Here are two photos of Fiona, the darker wolf, from my last visit to the park:

Photos: Marge Ishmael

Chipmonk

Chipmonk in our front yard yesterday: animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/chipmunk

Barn Swallow

Mark went for a walk today at Coffee Creek Watershed Preserve and saw a barn swallow in the rafters of the barn pavilion: https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/barn-swallow

"One swallow does not a summer make, nor one fine day; similarly one day or brief time of happiness does not make a person entirely happy."

 

An allusion to the return of swallows at the start of the summer season. From a remark by Aristotle (384 BCE - 322 BCE).