Festival celebrates prairie work in Lombard

In between bouts of rain, Lombard residents got a chance Sunday to sense what their hometown was like before all the people arrived.

The eighth annual Prairie Days Festival took place Sunday at Terrace View Park. The event served as a showcase for, and celebration of, efforts by the Lombard Garden Club and Lombard Park District to restore a prairie site at the park.

Volunteers from the garden club have worked for years to rid the area on Greenfield Avenue of undesirable plants and replace them with those that are native to Illinois.

“We’ve been introducing natural prairie plants to the area, which is what grew here before we all came to live here,” said Barbara Muzzey, a garden club member who helped organize the Prairie Days Festival. “It takes a lot of time and hard work to do this, so we figured that a festival would be a nice to celebrate that effort.”

Sunday’s free festival included live music, food from local restaurants and a slew of exhibits on plants, nature and animals.

“We try to make this a great outing for families,” Muzzey said.

Lombard resident Lisa Mendenhall said her daughter, Cynthia, loved the animal exhibits, including a bird demonstration from the Flint Creek Wildlife Center.

“We’ve come to this event before. It makes for a fun afternoon,” she said.

The only complaint Sunday was the rain, which kept attendance lower than expected.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this today,” Muzzey said. “But I guess that’s nature for you.”