From Toxic Waste to Greenspace

Like a lot of places in the world, it has been extremely hot lately. While we stick to using our treadmill during the week for exercise, on the weekends we like to try and get out and enjoy nature. As I said though, the temperatures and dew points have been so high lately that hasn't been much of an option.

We decided to risk the constant sweat anyway this past weekend when we headed out to the Sygo Nature Preserve.

The Sygo Nature Preserve is actually a smaller part of a larger project consisting of three separate areas. They don't announce this sort of stuff, but the nature areas were recently created as part of a settlement between the Dow Corporation and either the federal or state organization that sued them for contaminating the local waterways with dioxins over the past couple of decades.

As part of the settlement, they created these green spaces just around the corner from where @mrsbozz and I live. One of them is not open to the public and it is simply a nature preserve. The other area is a bit closer to our house, but it is just a paved path winding through a open wetlands area. We were hoping for something a little less open to direct sunlight, so we headed over to the Sygo area which is mostly wooded.

We didn't end up covering the whole property, but we did walk just about a mile and a half, so I am going to include this as a #wednesdaywalk post sponsored by @tattoodjay. I actually thought they had made a paved path through this area too, but it turns out it was just a really well groomed grass path. It was still a little humid and damp, so our shoes got a bit wet, but not too bad.

Like most nature trails, they had these little signs at different intervals telling you about the areas that you were looking at. This old oak tree was pretty impressive and I am a huge fan of birch trees in general, so I had to take some photos.

Towards the back half of our hike the trail got a little more rustic and we had to walk along this ridge to reach the back part of the park. We were going to go all the way over to one of the other loops, but it crossed a road that I knew was probably going to be muddy, so we ended up turning around and heading back.

This area has always been known for having a huge deer population and before they made it a green space the Dow Corporation used to have a lottery system allowing a certain number of hunters to bow hunt on the land during the season. I think the structure above is a deer blind from that time. I don't know if they are still going to allow people to hunt on the land or not.

The park actually has a good variety of open and wooded areas. If it hadn't been quite so hot and muggy we probably wouldn't have minded spending a bit more time here. The bugs were only mildly annoying, but I have a feeling if you had strayed from the path a bit you would have likely been accosted by ticks.

There were a couple areas where they created these walkways to cross small ditches or low lying areas. @mrsbozz said she wished that they would have made the entire path like that, but she knew it would have been quite expensive. I think she was just mostly annoyed that her new shoes were a bit wet. Like I said, I thought the whole thing was going to be paved (the other area is), so that's on me.

I expected to see a bit more wildlife on our walk, but towards the end we did see a deer walk across the path. You can just see it in the distance in the photo above. We were actually getting quite close to it, but then all the sudden @mrsbozz made about the biggest sniffle I think I have ever heard and the deer took off as you see in the second photo.

Remind me not to take her hunting with me if I ever take up the sport again!

As we were getting close to the lot where we parked our car we did see a rabbit, but it was too fast for me to snag a photo.

When we got up to the clearing where the deer had been I was hoping to catch it hanging out in the open area, but it was long gone. I did get a photo of the wildflowers and it was a really beautiful area. The only complaint I would have besides the heat and the humidity was the fact that there was a bit of a funky smell. I think part of it can be attributed to the general "dampness" of the air lately, but it also could be tied to the large chemical plant that sits just a mile or two away from the property.

Overall, this was a pretty cool area and I wouldn't be opposed to visiting again. Next time we might park in one of the other areas and cover a different section of the park. I also think it is just a matter of time before we take a walk on the open area they call the Redtail Nature Preserve.

My Sports Account - @bozz.sports