Northern Illinois Weekender_062020

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YOUR GUIDE TO ARTS & LEISURE IN NORTHERN ILLINOIS

SATURDAY, JUNE 20, 2020 • ShawMediaIllinois.com

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Winemakers share picks for Father’s Day / 2

GOOD NATURED

Puzzling burrows spur hunt for their origin / 7

HITTING THE LINKS Golf courses recovering from pandemic in time for Father’s Day / 4

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Shaw Media Illinois / ShawMediaIllinois.com • Saturday, June 20, 2020

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By JAMES NOKES

An expert taster shares favorite finds to consider adding to your own wine racks.

Winemakers give personal Father’s Day picks

F

ather’s Day came a little early for Anthony Yount.

The new addition to the family of the owner and winemaker at Kinero in Paso Robles, California, arrived in early April when his wife, Hillary, gave birth to his second daughter, Loretta Lyla Yount, at their home on the Royal Nonesuch Farm.

“Everyone is healthy and happy, albeit a little less rested,” Yount said.

True to form, it was back to work the next day for Yount, who also makes wine at Denner and under the Royal Nonesuch Farm label. Thus is the life of a winemaker. It could be a harvest that turns into an odd-hour work binge that offers limited time with family, or a summer cold snap that sends them into the vineyard for some canopy removal.

These winemakers reflect on the time spent with their family, and how they’ll share their special day.

“It’s important to keep everything in perspective. I am very serious about my winemaking, but I recognize that my job isn’t saving lives or coordinating international world peace,” said Louis Martini winemaker Michael Eddy. “Sometimes, you have to prioritize your family and their important events. I’m lucky enough to have a fantastic team of winemakers at Martini, and we are all able to support each other when we need to take some time for our families. Harvest is definitely the most difficult time of year for winemakers. We might be working 12-hour days, starting before dawn. It can definitely put a crimp on family life. My trick is trying to connect when you can. Sundays tend to be light, so that’s a day I’ll devote to my kids.”

For a winemaker who joked he started a white wine only label because his father had a strong dislike for it, Yount always has pushed the envelope in the vineyard and cellar.

There’s nothing pedantic about any of the wines he makes.

Bottled the day after Loretta was born, the Kinero Cellars “Alice” Grenache Blanc 2019 continued Yount’s visionary exploration in the cellar as he traded concrete aging for cocciopesto opus, using an amphora-shaped jar made from small pigments of crushed terracotta, sand and stone.

He compared its effects to a concrete egg and said it has affected the “mouthfeel and richness on the palate” and “adds a complex savory element to the aromatics.” The technique traces its roots to Roman times, and the purchase of a case from kinerocel-

Photo provided

Anthony Yount is the winemaker and owner of Kinero Cellars in Paso Robles, California. lars.vinespring.com/purchase will net you a 20% discount.

Also with young children is La Crema winemaker Craig McAllister, who said the La Crema Russian River Valley 40th Anniversary Pinot Noir 2018 ($100), which is packed with fruit and spice flavors, could be on his grilling menu on Sunday.

“My kids are 10, 9 and 6, so they are probably more excited about Father’s Day than I am,” McAllister said. “I’ll probably be treated to a bit of a sleep-in, followed by breakfast in bed. My guess is that it will be a quiet day, we’ll probably go for a bike ride around Healdsburg, maybe stopping for ice cream, and will follow it up with some grilling in the backyard.

“There will be a couple of cold beers, IPAs, while I’m grilling,” McAllister said. “I’ll change gears and have a glass of pinot noir with dinner.

La Crema Russian River Valley Pinot Noir pairs fantastically with food off the grill, I’m thinking this will be the perfect wine for the day.”

Family-owned Charles Krug has a unique connection to the past and the future. Peter Mondavi Jr. worked with

his father, Peter Mondavi, until he passed at age 101 in 2016. The co-owner of the iconic Napa Valley winery can count on a fourth generation carrying on the family legacy. He and his co-owner and brother, Marc Mondavi, both have children in the business.

“Father’s Day is a time to reflect on family: past, present and future,” Mondavi Jr. said. “Looking back at my work with dad has given me an informed perspective about how to help our kids engage with the family business. Our focus with them has always been about education and expanded horizons. It is important for them to embrace and appreciate what past generations have accomplished, but not to be bound or defined by it.”

For Eddy, the shelter-in-place orders will limit his social options, which is a perfect time to head outdoors. The Louis M. Martini Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2016 ($40) is one of the best values in wine, as its currant, tobacco spice and cedar flavors offer the perfect snapshot of what the region’s flagship grape variety has to offer.

“Well, my ideal Father’s Day would

be a relaxing day with my kids,” Eddy said. “For us, that means doing something engaging. I’d love to be able to do something like visiting a museum in San Francisco, a paintball excursion, swimming in the Russian River or maybe seeing a live concert. Then we’d wrap up the day with a casual, but nice, meal.

“Under the summer sun of Father’s Day, I’m more likely to choose a craft beer or cocktails, like a top-shelf Margarita or gin and tonic,” Eddy said.

“If I choose a wine, I’d pull the Louis M. Martini Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc. It’s crisp, it’s cool, it’s perfect for the patio while reminiscing with your dad and kids.”

Because Justin Winemaker Scott Shirley marks another special occasion with Father’s Day, he takes time to soak in the day. Justin wines from a recent virtual tasting will be featured extensively next week. Any of their wines would be a great Father’s Day gift.

“Father’s Day, my birthday, and our anniversary all fall in the same week, so we will usually combine the birthday and anniversary celebration with a weekend trip or special dinner and then have a quieter day with the family on Father’s Day,” Shirley said. “There is a restaurant in Avila beach that overlooks the ocean and has Justin Sauvignon Blanc on the wine list, which pairs perfectly with either their poke tacos or fresh diver scallops. They’re doing takeout during the shelter-in-place, so we could dine in the trunk of our car while watching the surf from the parking lot, which we’ve done once already.

“Similar to a day in the life for many dads, I think I’m always chauffeuring to dance classes, piano lessons, Girl Scout meetings, helping with homework and enjoying watching them grow up,” he said. “They don’t care that I’m a winemaker, except that we get to live in a beautiful spot with lovely California weather.

Of course, it’s different during harvest – working six to seven days a week, 12- to 14-hour days, when they don’t see much of me. I leave before sunrise and try to return home in time to say goodnight. Which is easier now that they’re older and stay up later.”

This Father’s Day, make a call, cook a meal or simply pour dad a glass of wine, if you can, and enjoy the moment.

• James Nokes has been tasting, touring and collecting in the wine world for several years. Email him at jamesnokes25@yahoo.com.

STARVED ROCK COUNTRY

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Ottawa resort offers outdoor fun for families

By KEVIN DRULEY

Shaw Media correspondent There’s an abundant network of getaways and recreational opportunities available in our own backyards – or at the very most, a short drive away.

At Heritage Harbor, a waterfront resort community in Ottawa, the idea of finding an escape without crossing the state line is evident. A wide list of activities and amenities include water sports, fishing, hiking, biking, running, walking, swimming, live music, a restaurant, and a tiki bar, all within comfortable range of your private, rented cottage or home.

With vacation season approaching and sojourns of any sort beckoning amid the evolving COVID-19 pandemic, Heritage Harbor stands as an intriguing option along the Illinois River.

“People are getting out and they’re wanting to find places to get away,” says Heritage Harbor Marketing Director Pierre Alexander. “Get away from their own house and just break the lockdown, break away from feeling imprisoned by the lockdown kind of thing. It’s a good getaway.”

Heritage Harbor connects to the 97-mile I&M Canal Trail and is located adjacent to Starved Rock State Park and the Marseilles State Fish and Wildlife Area.

“Anyone can rent a cottage, from one night to the whole year,” Alexander says. “We offer short-term all the way to long-term rental in different cottages and homes, and it’s a good way to get away, to vacation, and to explore and be close to the outdoors.”

Additionally, Alexander says management has waived rental cancellation fees in many cases to allow for unforeseen situations during the pandemic.

“The nice thing about the cottages is that they are over 6 feet apart, so it’s not like going to a closed hotel with corridors and being confined,” Alexander says. “Each cottage is standalone, so there’s adequate distance between everybody. People look at us and they feel safe and they feel that they want to get out a bit and get their mental health right and enjoy their vitamin D and sunshine, so it’s a good combination.”

Dogs are permitted at select cottages, but a $75 guest pet fee applies.

A dog park is available at the west entrance, while a “doggie menu” is part of the bill of fare at the resort’s Red Dog Grill, which has maintained

Photos provided

Heritage Harbor, a waterfront resort community in Ottawa, boasts a wide list of activities and amenities including water sports, fishing, hiking, biking, running, walking, swimming, live music, a restaurant and a tiki bar, all within comfortable range of your private, rented cottage or home. It is located adjacent to Starved Rock State Park and the Marseilles State Fish and Wildlife Area.

curbside pickup service as well as a walk-up and call-in carryout menu during the pandemic.

Before the anticipated visitor boost of Memorial Day weekend, resort staff noticed various guests getting creative despite the closure of indoor restaurant dining as part of Illinois’

shelter-in-place order. Some visitors, Alexander says, brought their takeout to enjoy in front of their cottages or while seated near the marina or harbor wall.

While management will continue to assess its options for resuming past communal events along the water,

as state orders dictate, Alexander says Heritage Harbor expects things to progress as the summer does. One crowd-pleaser that figures to be back, he says, will be the harbor’s float-in movies, in which boaters, flotation device users or people seated on the marina lawn can enjoy a film projected on a large screen as they relax during a summer night. A 2019 screening of “Jaws” drew about 600 people – and nary a shark.

Staff continues to brainstorm additional ideas for 2020, as the eager-to-escape public adapts to the new normal related to the pandemic. “(Heritage Harbor is) a place where they like to vacation, they want to get out of the suburbs. So, it’s got a very holiday resort kind of feel,” Alexander says. “There are also lots of people that retire there. They love it so much that their vacation second home becomes their retirement home, and they just enjoy the lifestyle. There’s a bit of something for everyone.”

For more information, call 815-4335000, contact hho@heritageharborottawa.com or log on to www.visitheritageharbor.com.

SHAW MEDIA ILLINOIS Shaw Media Illinois / ShawMediaIllinois.com • Saturday, June 20, 2020

Dedicated to growing the awareness of everything the Starved Rock area has to offer

Shaw Media Illinois / ShawMediaIllinois.com • Saturday, June 20, 2020

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Back in the

SWING Golf courses see emerging leisure opportunity

By JON BILYK

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Shaw Media correspondent

or David Paeglow, the roughest part of operating a golf course amid a pandemic has been the industry-wide back swing away from the usual never-ending effort to serve customers.

“It’s the strangest thing,” says Paeglow, head golf pro at Kishwaukee Country Club in DeKalb. “We still want everyone to have as great a day as possible, but we’ve built everything around providing service as much as possible, from the moment you arrive to the moment you leave.

And now, for your safety and ours, we’ve got to stay away from you as much as possible.”

As the COVID-19 pandemic broke across Illinois in March, public golf courses and private country clubs across Illinois did the previously unthinkable, closing off their greens and fairways to golfers, just as spring dawned across the state.

However, in late April, the state announced it would ease its strict lockdown, and allow golfers to resume play, though without the frills and extras that previously had been par at many courses and clubs.

Throughout most of the month of May, golfers only could play in pairs.

The use of carts was almost entirely forbidden. Caddies? Carry your own bags. Benches? Ball washers? Water coolers? All removed.

In addition, flags must remain in, while clubhouses, practice greens and driving ranges all remained closed.

While the interior of the cups was adjusted to minimize physical contact with the inside when retrieving balls, reservations at public courses now were required, and mostly encouraged to be made online.

Yet, despite all the changes, the demand for golf remains strong, says

Robert Markionni, executive director of the Chicago District Golf Association.

“Everything we’ve done has been about safety first,” he says. “But we knew there was a lot of pent-up demand, and as the weather gets warmer, more people will want to get out and play.”

Dennis Johnsen, general manager and head golf pro at Pine Meadow in Mundelein, says golfers generally have been “wonderful and understanding, if still a bit frustrated.

We’re all figuring out how to keep people out there playing,” says Johnsen.

However, with the restrictions, Markionni, Johnsen and Paeglow all noted the numbers still have been sharply down, mainly due to capacity restrictions.

Courses just can’t expect to get the same amount of golfers through in a day, if they must send them out in pairs, rather than foursomes, as has been traditional.

So, with the arrival of even lessened restrictions in June, the summer looks increasingly bright for golf courses. Foursomes have resumed.

Practice areas and driving ranges have reopened, with distancing restrictions and sanitation protocols.

Carts have become more available.

Even outdoor dining can be possible again.

It’s a sharp turn from even a few weeks earlier, when courses and clubs teetered on the brink. Now, the golf pros believe the game could even find a silver lining amid the current uncertainty.

They noted golf enjoys built-in advantages over other pursuits during such times as this. For starters, they noted it is played outdoors. Secondly, there is no shared equipment, not even the balls.

“Golf is a game of natural social distancing,” says Markionni.

As Johnsen sees it, golf offers a

Photo provided

rare opportunity amid a pandemic to enjoy several hours out of the house, while engaged in an athletic contest, even for those who might be a bit hinky about being out in public.

“If you can’t head out to play golf, you can’t go to a grocery store,” says Johnsen.

Paeglow notes that with many other sports and leisure activities shut down for the time being, golf could look attractive to a large number of people who previously may have overlooked it. He says he already has received a relatively large number of calls from parents interested in lessons for their children, who may have otherwise participated in team sports or other pursuits now largely canceled by COVID-19 restrictions.

“People are looking around and saying, you know, a day of golf looks pretty good,” says Paeglow.

However, Johnsen expressed one note of caution for those looking to bag a tee time at a public course like his: Jump online and book early. He noted tee times, particularly for busy

weekends, can be locked up a week or more in advance.

“Things have changed,” Johnsen says. “And some of these changes are going to stick around for a while.”

Northern Illinois offers no shortage of outstanding golf opportunities.

Here are a few 18-hole courses to consider throughout the region for your next golf outing.

DEKALB COUNTY River Heights Golf Course 1020 Sharon Drive, DeKalb Owned and operated by the DeKalb Park District, River Heights offers 18 holes of scenic golf along the Kishwaukee River. “A mix of traditional and links-style holes challenges both weekend golfers and the more serious player. The friendly, professional staff provides first-rate golf and excellent service for an enjoyable golfing experience.” The DeKalb Park District also offers the nine-hole Buena Vista Golf Course in DeKalb.

GRUNDY COUNTY

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While available only to Morris Country Club members Monday through Friday, Nettle Creek opens to the public on weekends and holidays.

A long, links-style course, Nettle Creek offers “bent grass fairways, generous landing areas and large greens,” according to the Morris Country Club website.

KANE COUNTY Settler’s Hill Golf Course 919 E. Fabyan Parkway, Batavia “Settler’s Hill isn’t so much a golf course as it is a golf odyssey,” according to Settler’s Hill’s website.

Owned by the Kane County Forest Preserve District and operated by GolfVisions Management, the course “lives up to its name with dramatic elevation changes across a layout that traverses a variety of landscapes, mature woodlands, vibrant wetlands and windswept highlands.

Heralded as one of Chicagoland’s best buys for 18 holes, Settler’s Hill is a favorite in Kane County and beyond.”

Tanna Farms Golf Club 39W808 Hughes Road, Geneva Tanna Farms boasts of memorable golf at outstanding rates at its par-71 course. “A thrilling, ‘big-shouldered’ championship 18, Tanna Farms Golf Club is located on the west side of Geneva … Winner of the Reader’s Choice award for best golf course in 2007, 2008 and 2009, Tanna Farms will delight you and have you coming back for more.”

KENDALL COUNTY Fox Bend Golf Course 3516 Route 34, Oswego

Mark Busch - mbusch@shawmedia.com

The view from the first tee at River Heights Golf Course in DeKalb.

LaSALLE COUNTY

McHENRY COUNTY

Senica’s Oak Ridge Golf Club

Chapel Hill Country Club

658 E. U.S. Highway 6, La Salle

2500 Chapel Hill Road, McHenry (just south of Johnsburg)

Billing itself as “a golfer’s delight,” the course has been “masterfully designed to utilize the area’s natural beauty,” according to the Oak Ridge website. The par-72 championship golf course features gently rolling bent grass fairways that weave their way through a challenging landscape of oak woodlands, past five sparkling lakes, along a meandering creek and over 49 sand traps. The course is designed to allow players of all abilities to enjoy the course.

Chapel Hill’s 18-hole championship course “has been a perennial favorite of both Lake County and McHenry County golfers,” according to a description posted on VisitMcHenryCounty.com. “The course features one of the area’s most serene settings.

Chapel Hill is truly a staple of northwest Chicagoland golf. Operated by GolfVisions Management since spring 2012, Chapel Hill is held in high regard.”

LEE/WHITESIDE COUNTY

Golf Club of Illinois

Emerald Hill Golf Course 16802 Prairieville Road, Sterling

Fox Bend has been voted a five-star course by Chicagoland Gold and has played host to multiple tournaments, including three Illinois Opens, the USGA Qualifiers and the Illinois State Amateur Qualifiers. The par-72 course boasts plush fairways, mature trees and challenging greens, and will test the skills of all levels.

Serving golfers in the Sauk Valley since the 1920s, Emerald Hill now is operated by the Sterling Park District.

The 18-hole course is a pleasure for golfers of any skill level. “The course will challenge you while providing a relaxing, picturesque backdrop.” Emerald Hill was voted No. 1 in the 2019 Sauk Valley Media Reader’s Choice survey.

Whitetail Ridge Golf Club

Deer Valley Golf Club

7671 Clubhouse Drive, Yorkville Calling itself the “crown jewel of the Whitetail Ridge Golf Community,” the club’s Greg Martin-designed championship golf course, coupled with luxurious amenities, have made Whitetail Ridge one of the Chicago area’s premier daily-fee golf facilities.

1575 Edgewood Drive, Algonquin “The Golf Club of Illinois in Algonquin is a classic links-style course featuring high fescue grasses, treacherous sand bunkers, and strategically placed mounds on each hole,” according to VisitMcHenryCounty.com. “Early on, the course quickly developed the reputation as a stern test for all skill levels of golfers, and consistently was ranked among the top 10 public courses to play by Chicagoland Golf.”

3928 Hoover Road, Deer Grove

OGLE COUNTY

Offering an 18-hole championship course and a nine-hole executive course, Deer Valley boasts courses that are “fun and challenging,” with a “good mix of short and long holes, for golfers of all abilities.” The course was voted No. 2 in the 2019 Sauk Valley Media Reader’s Choice survey.

PrairieView Golf Club 6734 N. German Church Road, Byron Just a chip shot south of Rockford, along Illinois Route 2 in easy-going Byron, lies a golf course that plays like the best country clubs in the region, but costs like a municipal

course. Sculpted out of an ancient landscape, this is a big course that weaves its way through remarkable tall grass prairie and the remnants of old oak savanna and other hardwood stands. PrairieView is a golf course where you can breathe, relax and enjoy the beauty of the natural environs, left remarkably untouched by architect James Spear’s design. This course is an amazing, naturalistic example – a true rarity in the world of golf.

WILL COUNTY Mistwood Golf Club 1700 W. Renwick Road, Romeoville Renovated by course designer Roy Hearn, Mistwood’s design, including 20 St. Andrews-style sod wall bunkers, brings “a feeling of Scotland to the Midwest,” according to its website.

The club recently underwent a twoyear, multimillion-dollar renovation, realizing a new standard of excellence, excitement and entertainment for Chicago area golf. The course boasts a public course with a private experience.

Cinder Ridge Golf Course 24801 Lakepoint Drive, Wilmington The public, 350-acre, 18-hole Cinder Ridge course is named for the ridge of cinders still visible amid the diving ravines, flat areas and coal refuse that were created over 70 years prior by mining operations on the site. It boasts a course for everyone that enables golfers of all levels and abilities to enjoy the course at their pace and preferred challenge.

SHAW MEDIA ILLINOIS Shaw Media Illinois / ShawMediaIllinois.com • Saturday, June 20, 2020

Morris Country Club - Nettle Creek 2615 W. Route 6, Morris

Shaw Media Illinois / ShawMediaIllinois.com • Saturday, June 20, 2020

SHAW MEDIA ILLINOIS

6 STREAMING THIS WEEKEND

Neil Young music, ‘Miss Juneteenth’ film, food in focus

to Associated Press critic Scott Bauer.

Neil Young: Neil Young also has a new album just out, though he Here’s a collection curated by finished it 45 years ago. Young, The Associated Press’ entertainment notoriously known for shelving fully journalists of what’s arriving on TV, completed albums throughout his streaming services and music platcareer, is releasing the 12-track set forms this week.

“Homegrown,” originally planned to be released after his 1972 multi-plati“Recorder – The Marion Stokes ProjMovies ect”: No one has ever been glued to TV num effort, “Harvest.”

“Miss Juneteenth”: In Channing news quite like Marion Stokes. From John Legend: Singer, songwriter, Godfrey Peoples’ leisurely first feapiano slayer, EGOT winner and father ture, Turquise Jones (Nicole Beharie) the mid-70s until her death in 2012, Stokes, a reclusive communist activist of two John Legend put out a new is a single mother and former beauty album Friday called “Bigger Love.” queen, once crowned Miss Juneteenth, and former librarian, was obsessed with recording television 24 hours a On the same day, Juneteenth, Legend who wants her teenager daughter, day.

Matt Wolf’s film, which debuted and Alicia Keys battled in the latest Kai (Alexis Chikaeze), to follow in her on PBS’s “Independent Lens,” is “Verzuz” series on Instagram. And footsteps. Peoples’ film debuted Friday on Father’s Day, Legend will host the on-demand on Juneteenth, the annual about Stokes’ paranoid but visionary compulsion to create a mammoth VHS variety special “John Legend and holiday commemorating the end of archive of history as depicted, filtered Family: A Bigger Love Father’s Day” slavery in the United States. “Miss and distorted by media.

(ABC, 7 p.m.). Special guests include Juneteenth” isn’t about that history, Chrissy Teigen, Stevie Wonder, – Film Writer Jake Coyle but the contemporary African AmerShaquille O’Neal, Anthony Anderson, ican struggle to remain in the middle Common, Jesse Tyler Ferguson and class. Turquise is juggling two jobs Music Scottie Pippen. and a lot of regret, and Beharie imbues Bob Dylan: It’s been eight years – Music Editor Mesfin Fekadu her life with strength and dignity. since the legend Bob Dylan released an album of original material. He’s back “Disclosure”: Sam Feder’s docuwith “Rough and Rowdy Ways,” which Television mentary on Netflix surveys trans came out Friday and sounds “moody, representation in film and TV. It’s a • Padma Lakshmi, a longtime reflective, meditative, befuddling, history wrought with painful caricajudge of Bravo’s “Top Chef,” created funny and awe-inspiring,” according and hosts the new Hulu documentatures, cruel punchlines and dubious

The ASSOCIATED PRESS

erasure. But it’s also a joyful, celebratory journey that chronicles the increasing presence of trans actors and filmmakers in Hollywood, and the difference they’re making for a larger trans community. With Laverne Cox (a producer), Lilly Wachowski, MJ Rodriguez and others.

ry series “Taste the Nation,” which celebrates the food of American immigrants and indigenous people.

It’s sort of food as resistance – “Taste the Nation” sees Lakshmi go to the Texas border city of El Paso and talk to locals about the wall. She goes to South Carolina to go crabbing and explore Gullah Geechee food. She goes to Las Vegas to spend time with Thai immigrants, and to Arizona to forage for Native American ingredients. The show premiered Thursday.

• The ESPYs, ESPN’s annual celebration for all things sports, isn’t going to let a halt in most professional sports stop it this year. For the first time, the show will feature three hosts in remote settings and a changed focus. Instead of honoring the past year’s top athletes and moments in sports, the show is celebrating heroism and humanitarian aid. Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, soccer star Megan Rapinoe and three-time WNBA champion Sue Bird will preside over the two-hour broadcast airing Sunday on ESPN.

– Entertainment Writer Mark Kennedy

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By PAM OTTO

Taking interesting dives into the natural world around us, Pam Otto opens new avenues of exploration.

After May’s heavy rains, dozens of mystery burrows erupted in a backyard, the smallish holes about nickel-size.

Adult fingers and puppy paws are included for scale.

Photo provided

Puzzling burrows spur hunt for their origin

S

o today I’m wondering how many of you passed at least part of our coronavirus quarantine poring over jigsaw puzzles? I have several friends who did, and most reported with a note of triumph that they finished their however-many-piece puzzle in days or weeks, depending on the complexity.

(Well, except for that one person who attempted a 1,000-piece murder-mystery puzzle that had no picture to go by. That puzzle is still arrayed on a card table with only the border complete. And yes, that person was me.)

At any rate, finding pieces that go together, whether in jigsaw puzzles or in life, is tremendously satisfying.

That little snap, that snug, precise fit – they combine to create a clearer picture and a feeling of accomplishment.

It follows, then, that when pieces don’t fit, a feeling of disorder ensues.

You know what I’m talking about … you try to make the piece work. You push, you shove, you thump with your fist but, doggone, it’s just not right.

That sense of discord is exactly what I was feeling for the better part of a recent week. But instead of a jigsaw, it grew from a puzzle of a different sort – one that turned out to be 17 years in the making.

I suppose I should back up a few weeks to May. Our rainiest, soggiest

May ever.

During a brief dry spell, I headed over to Wheaton to take care of some yard work at my mom’s house. As I pushed the mower around the backyard, I kept a careful eye out for morels. You never know, I thought as I reflected on my previous week’s find, if lightning can strike twice in one spot, maybe mushrooms can, too.

Well, the ersatz mushroom hunt was a bust, but I didn’t mind. I found something way more interesting.

Distributed around the backyard were dozens of holes surrounded by tiny chimneys made of mud. Most were about as big around as a nickel, and some were filled with water. Curious, I stuck my finger down one and realized I couldn’t touch the bottom.

Hmm. A puzzle!

Before we go about putting all the pieces together, here’s a little more of the picture. Twenty years ago or so, my parents’ backyard neighbors moved their house forward about 50 feet on their large lot. That move triggered a big change in the way water behaves on the block, and led to my folks getting water in their basement and an overall squishiness in the yard after big rains and snowmelts.

A French drain system and upgraded sump pumps helped with the basement issues, but, to this day, the backyard gets very marshy when we

have a lot of rain. And, speaking of marshes, my mom’s house is about a mile from the Lincoln Marsh.

Why is this important? Well, as I was trimming some dead branches, I was musing over those holes with the mud chimneys and who or what might have made them. And the first critters that came to mind were burrowing crayfish.

You might recognize crayfish as the freshwater version of a lobster.

Smaller by a great degree, they nonetheless are equipped with the same number of legs (10) and an impressive pair of chelae, or pincer-like claws.

While most crayfish live in water, a few species are more terrestrial, digging burrows extending down to the water table. As I pulled sow thistles from groundcover bordering mom’s yard, I mused on the three species of burrowing crayfish in northern Illinois, and the likelihood of a slew of small, young ones traveling through groundwater channels from Lincoln Marsh to my mom’s very landlocked yard.

That night, around midnight, I headed out to the yard to see if maybe I could find some crayfish foraging in the damp grass. I found some muddy haze around some of the burrows, as if a creature had emerged, but, when I shined my flashlight down into the holes as well as across the yard, I saw

nothing, save for a few small moths attracted to the light.

The following week, I kicked those crayfish thoughts around quite a bit, researching movement in terrestrial species, and still nothing came to light – flash or otherwise. There was something about that puzzle piece that just didn’t fit.

The burrowing crayfish holes I’ve seen in the past tended to be larger than the ones at my mom’s – a half-dollar or so in diameter as opposed to nickel-sized. The chimneys were taller, too, which would indicate that their burrows go deeper than what I was seeing. Still, if the crayfish were young enough …

Determined to solve the puzzle once and for all, I went back the following day and got a shovel from the shed. I sunk the blade into the ground, turned the soil and found, again, nothing, save for a few earthworms.

Remember how back at the start of the column, I said some puzzles take days or weeks to solve? This is one of them! We’re out of space for this week.

But be sure to tune in next week, when we’ll look high and low for the missing piece to this fun nature puzzle.

• Pam Otto is the outreach ambassador for the St. Charles Park District. She can be reached at 630-5134346 or potto@stcparks.org.

SHAW MEDIA ILLINOIS Shaw Media Illinois / ShawMediaIllinois.com • Saturday, June 20, 2020

GOOD NATURED

Shaw Media Illinois / ShawMediaIllinois.com • Saturday, June 20, 2020

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