The prairie opening in the middle of Cap Sauers Holdings is the most beautiful place in the state of Illinois. I suppose some people will argue with an assertion that unequivocal, but those people are wrong, and I can prove it.
I came in from the south end of the holdings. I left my car by the roadside and followed a footpath that has been created by the steps of volunteer workers over the past four years. I walked downhill through a couple of clearings and then into deep woods. The trail dropped into a ravine and crossed a small creek–amazingly still flowing in the middle of this dry August–and then climbed out of the ravine and passed through an open oak woods. The woods had obviously been burned last fall or this spring. The ground was bare, completely devoid of leaf litter, and the shrubs and small trees of the understory were all leafless and dead. In time their dead trunks will fall, leaving the forest floor open to wildflowers. The woods were quiet. Somewhere in the distance blue jays were crying, but the only sound nearby was the gentle tapping of a downy woodpecker searching for bugs on a dead trunk.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
I hadn’t been there since a spring morning four years ago, when I helped out on a workday conducted by volunteers with the Palos Restoration Project. The prairie was smaller then, and lots more brush was growing on it. Four years of brush cutting combined with controlled burning have expanded the prairie boundaries and eliminated the islands of shrubs.
Following the recommendations of this plan, volunteers and staff are now at work on several sites beside Cap Sauers Holdings. Regular workdays are now conducted at Spears Woods, which lies north of 95th Street and west of LaGrange Road; at Paddock Woods, off 86th Avenue between Route 83 and 119th Street; and at Cranberry Slough, east of LaGrange Road between 95th and 107th streets.
