Manmade Objects at Spring Valley Nature Sanctuary

This group of figures resides just outside the Vera Meineke Nature Center at Spring Valley Nature Sanctuary in Schaumburg.

It wasn't cold at all yesterday afternoon, so Ann suggested we go to Spring Valley, and we did. The figures were still dressed for winter by unknown hands. I don't think I've ever seen them dressed, but then again we usually don't go to Spring Valley in the winter. They're a Rockwellesque trio. No plaque or other marker describes who made them, and for all I know they're something you can pick up at a garden superstore.

Follow one of the footpaths into Spring Valley's grassland and eventually you'll find some large wooden spools. Probably they had an industrial use once upon a time. Telephone line? Electric cable? Whatever their former purpose, now they sit in a clearing and add visual interest to the place.

About 10 minutes' walk from the nature center is the Merkle Cabin, formerly an office for the peony farm that was once on the site of the nature sanctuary. Among other items near the cabin is this bench.

It's made entirely of cast iron.