Garlic festival Oct. 5 in forest preserve

Garlic festival Oct. 5 in forest preserve

There will be a celebration of garlic from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 5, at Thorn Creek Woods Nature Preserve in Park Forest. Admission is $5 per car, $1 per bicycle. Thorn Creek Woods is on Monee Road, north of Stuenkel Road.

Taste different varieties of garlic and dishes featuring garlic grown organically on Thorn Creek's historic farm. Get information on garlic growing, uses and cooking. See demonstrations of garlic preparation and learn to do garlic braiding. More than 20 varieties of organic garlic will be available for sale.

For more information, call 708-747-6320.

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Fall color walks, Kankakee forest preserves

Jean Hurrle, program director of the Kankakee River Valley Forest Preserve District, will lead tours this month to focus on the many native prairie plants that are at their most beautiful in late summer and early fall.

The walks are:

• At 5 p.m. Sunday to celebrate the autumn equinox at the Aroma Land and Water Preserve, on Hieland Road, 1 1/4 miles south of Illinois Route 17; and

• At 10 a.m. Friday, Sept. 27, at Gar Creek Prairie, on River Road, east of U.S. Routes 45-52 on Kankakee's south side.

Google maps and GPS coordinates can be found online at www.krvfpd.org. For information call Hurrle at 815-549-9072.

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Kankakee man, 25, fighting forest fires

There are times when Luke Garcia is climbing along the side of a mountain in Idaho, a 45-pound backpack strapped to him, smoke billowing on the horizon, when a thought flashes through his mind.

"I think 'How did I get here?'" said Garcia, of Kankakee. "A lot of the guys have the same thought."

Then the thought disappears. For the 25-year-old Garcia there is no place he would rather be.

A member of the 20-member Midewin Interagency Hotshot Crew for the past two years, Garcia is part of a team that hikes into forest fires and battles tree by tree to contain the flames.

Garcia returned to his home in west Kankakee on Wednesday after an exhausting two-week tour of duty helping protect property and lives in Idaho's Beaver Creek region, an area that has been ravaged by raging fires.

The homecoming was brief. The 2006 Kankakee High School graduate was flying back to Boise, Idaho, today to begin yet another fire-squelching campaign.

View the original article here

Kankakee man, 25, fighting forest fires

There are times when Luke Garcia is climbing along the side of a mountain in Idaho, a 45-pound backpack strapped to him, smoke billowing on the horizon, when a thought flashes through his mind.

"I think 'How did I get here?'" said Garcia, of Kankakee. "A lot of the guys have the same thought."

Then the thought disappears. For the 25-year-old Garcia there is no place he would rather be.

A member of the 20-member Midewin Interagency Hotshot Crew for the past two years, Garcia is part of a team that hikes into forest fires and battles tree by tree to contain the flames.

Garcia returned to his home in west Kankakee on Wednesday after an exhausting two-week tour of duty helping protect property and lives in Idaho's Beaver Creek region, an area that has been ravaged by raging fires.

The homecoming was brief. The 2006 Kankakee High School graduate was flying back to Boise, Idaho, today to begin yet another fire-squelching campaign.

View the original article here