In the Presence of Trees

I need to catch you up on how things have been going with our new home here in Galesburg, IL.

• First of all, Craig recently returned from seeing his mom in Kansas. It was nice that the distance to travel was so much shorter now. He also took the train this time, which was super-easy to do from downtown Galesburg. Overall, we might choose to drive there most of the time. But it’s great to have the train as an option!

• Secondly, you might recall that one feature we were looking for in a new home was wide-open country views. But that’s not what we ended up with (although such fields are not far away). Instead, we are surrounded by trees. I’m learning to love all the trees, although that wasn’t my immediate reaction. Unlike where we lived in Shady Side, Md., here, I must walk a little farther to see the sunrise in the morning, and I almost never see the sunset. But the stars are quite stunning at night.

• Trees are sort of a thing here. I was attracted to the nearby parks and all the lovely green grass. But each emerald field of lushness is punctuated by towering and sprawling oaks and pines, honey locusts, elms, walnut trees dropping their black baseballs with a thud, and crabapple trees dropping their little green and blush globes.

• While we were still living in Chisoku and waiting for our house-closing to happen, a huge, sprawling oak sort of split open and dropped a thick, gnarly limb right on top of another campsite, crashing onto the poor campers’ tent and car. (Yikes!) Apparently, in parks, with all the open spaces, oaks don’t always grow straight up so much as out. Lurching and majestic. But those heavy limbs weigh a lot and are prone to resting on the ground or just… falling off.

• After moving into our house, I thought we’d focus on putting in the dog fence immediately. But taking down some potentially problematic trees became a higher priority. We’ve taken down three now and trimmed others. I believe tree maintenance will be an ongoing occupation for us here. (And when I say "we," I often mean Craig. He does most of the work, but I help, and I document it!)

• We’re also becoming acquainted with the things in and among the trees. Our many hikes on the nearby trails have taught us to grab a long stick on the way to knock down the spider webs. Spiders are building fantastic webs all over the place here, but they are unpleasant to walk through. We have one spider out on our porch that I am fond of. Google tells me it is a Marbled Orb Weaver. What a cool name! And she makes some cool webs.

• Then, there’s what you hear in the trees. We have at least one Barred Owl in the woods next to our house. It screams, “Who cooks for you?!” every now and then. Sometimes the call is preceded by what sounds like a crazy lady screaming in the woods. It’s sort of terrifying, but when you hear the cooking question after that, you know it’s just the owl. (Listen to this video I took to capture the owl's call.)
• Beneath the trees, we have plenty of interesting things as well. Mosses and vines and loamy smelling dirt and mustiness. But best of all we see a great variety of mushrooms that spring up after a good rain. Bright, ruffly orange ones, super-huge melon ones, shelf-like ones on the sides of the trees, cute little gnome-shaped ones, and toasted marshmallow ones that sometimes burst into the shape of a daisy a day or two later. Enjoy the many photos I've taken...

• Alas, sometimes, we must come inside. And there, in our garage, we have trees of a different form. Towers of boxes that we’ve yet to unpack. We lived just fine in Chisoku without all this stuff, so it’s hard to confront it now. But we are slowly figuring out what we truly need (and where to put it!) and what will go to Good Will. Even after getting rid of so much stuff back in Maryland, we still want to be judicious about what we keep or bring into this new place. It’s such a slippery slope!
• Aside from the trees and the parks and so forth, we have also checked out the restaurant scene here in Galesburg, and we have been pleasantly surprised. It’s not bad for a small town/city. We’ve come up with some favorites, including: Landmark, Iron Spike Brewing (which is in an old fire station), Fisk, and Judy’s Family Café (which has a super charming backstory – watch this short video!). Possibly our favorite place to go when we are just tired from doing yard work and want to have a casual meal is called Gimpy’s on 150. The first time we went there, we were blown away that our entire check was only $17!
• Another event we happened to be here for was the Great Balloon Race (hot air balloon festival), which happens every July here at Lake Storey. How cool to be able to walk out of your house and see hot air balloons!

• We also enjoyed going to see a movie at The Orpheum, which is an old elegant theater downtown. We saw The AI Doc (which was both scary and uplifting), and it was $5/person, which includes a free box of popcorn! Here is a video about other things to do here in Galesburg – for anyone who might want to visit us: Experience Galesburg video.

I hope to start documenting the changes we are making at the house soon. Craig is starting to get "Chisoku House" set up. (That's the shed we are going to put our Airstream into once we add a door that she can fit through.) Also, we are taking down the fenced-in garden and have already removed the chicken coop. Once the weather changes, we will focus on some indoor projects as well. Here's wishing everyone a happy fall!