Christmas day here was a beautiful day. It was sunny and the afternoon high was over 50. That makes for a great winter day here. So, we decided to celebrate Christmas by a nature walk, so we decided to go walk the 3 mile plus trail around Lake Glendale. Lake Glendale is really a small reservoir of under 40 acres that was created by the U.S. Forest Service back about 75 or more years ago. It is pretty developed for southern Illinois, which means an artificially created beach where the public can swim (for a fee to a concessionaire), camp, picnic, and hike. It's a nice area. It's also only about a 1/2 hour drive from our place.

But when we got there, and started down to the hiking trail that goes around the reservoir, we immediately noticed that the reservoir was very low. It seemed odd because we have had a record year in terms of rainfall - some 77" of rain in an area that expects only about 50 on a good, decent wet year. And lately it has rained frequently and substantially. Our ponds on our place are full. We knew something was wrong.

We don't know exactly what the reason is, but I will try to find out. It may be that they are trying to kill aquatic vegetation, but I doubt if that will work. It may be that they are worried about the dam after another FS dam that built on a similarly sized reservoir in the same county failed after heavy rains this spring.

On the downwind side of the reservoir, the smell was unpleasant - that of moldy, rotting wet organic plant material. On the upwind side, all you smelled was the nice green smell of the pine plantations which dominate the landscape around the reservoir. But there was little waterfowl. We did see a pair of sapsuckers, several golden crowned kinglets, and a number of the regular birds that you would expect in the winter around here.