Following the recent vote by the MPO Planning Committee to approve running a major tollroad through the heart of the Midewin complex, I simply had to come out to Midewin and relish the peace and quiet of the place before major road construction begins. In truth, there remains a slim chance that the tollroad won’t be built. It yet may prove too expensive for the much heralded (but still unidentified) private partners. The state yet may balk at having to backstop millions of dollars of profits for private interests.
But lost in all the raging debate about dollars and politics and legal challenges are the simple, unquantifiable joys of Midewin. And a late-autumn afternoon provides the perfect lens through which to relish them.
For many, I would imagine, this time of the year the restored prairie lands of Midewin appear little more than fallow fields. Of weeds. Dead weeds. Of course, just below the surface, the roots of some 250 different species of native grasses and flowers are very much alive. And to the patient observer, there remain last, lovely snatches of life and color to be observed above ground.
But even as their life energy recedes into the soil for a long, winter slumber, it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to view the husks of towering prairie plants – some reaching more than ten feet tall – as sculptural works of art, set against scrims of scudding clouds.
Among the many joys of strolling through the 750-acre prairie husk gallery of South Patrol Road Prairie is listening to the subtle sounds of the prairie. Juncos and American tree sparrows delicately chirp their return for the winter. Crickets sing from hidden caches in the grasses. Grasshoppers, as you walk along the path, leap frog out your way, throwing their hard bodies against the dry, sandpaper paper leaves of compass plants.
Occasionally, a semi-truck will wend its way along River Road, that runs along the edge of South Patrol Road Prairie – just as the Illiana is proposed to do along nearly the entire southern boundary of Midewin. Just that one truck, its whining wheels like nails on a chalkboard in the otherwise serene soundscape of the place, is enough to drown out the prairie, to shatter the sanctuary that it is.
Mercifully, the truck passes. Your ears and eyes reatune themselves to the prairie. And you love it all the more in light of its potential loss.
