August 23rd Results
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The excellent weather during the August clean-up and picnic made events of the day very enjoyable. Early in the morning the garbage can provided by the Forest Preserve District was placed on-site to greet volunteers upon their arrival. Throughout the three hour clean-up volunteers from previous efforts as well as new members of the team spent much of their time conversing on various topics as they removed material from the area. About a dozen bags of garbage and a few large items were collected and placed to the side of the road to be picked up by the Forest Preserve District. Comments by volunteers and general visitors to the area about the lack of garbage to be collected was certainly a positive reflection on how much has been accomplished this year.
At the end of the clean-up a portion of the volunteers relaxed at the picnic across the street in Rubio Woods. Discussions varied throughout the afternoon as everyone sat back to grab a drink and get something to eat. Some reflected on their early experiences of the area more than two decades ago as well as received a chance to browse through some of the artifacts recovered from the area such as a horseshoe from the horses used by early settlers, to a purple-hue milk bottle in excellent condition dated between 1910 and 1920. Other items present were the top portion of an 1800s handheld lantern, some recently discovered documentation about the old house that used to stand near the roped off entrance in 1939, and even one of the original doorknobs to one of the houses that stood in the 1800s just west of the cemetery.
Bill Fath from the Bachelors Grove Prairie restoration team also made a appearance to the picnic as well. He gave a brief introduction to the efforts currently in effect to restoring ecology to one of the central points to what was the Batchelors Grove settlement. Restoring ecology to the area has many benefits and it will also help reflect what the area used to look like when the Batchelder family first settled here in the early part of the 1800s.
Photographs of the clean-up provided by volunteer photographer Pam Bednarz can be found in the Gallery. If you also wish to become a volunteer photographer to help document the hard work performed by other volunteers we welcome you to email a coordinator to be notified of future events. As always, we appreciate everyone coming out to help take care of the area and we hope you all had a great time at the picnic!
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