Welcome
Welcome to the Deerpath Homeowners' website. Here you'll find links to our ACC request form, by-laws,
meeting minutes, newsletters, and information about our prairies. Please visit our
Facebook page
for the latest information about our neighborhood.
Just to make you aware
there is a request to build a
Chicken processing plant
on the farm just west of the Deerpath subdivision.
West of Twin Oaks street in the subdivision.
On Greenwood near Wondermier
Additional Infornmation:
Slaughterhouse Hearing Date:
May 22, 2025 at 1:30 pm at McHenry County Courthouse.
Visit meeting portal at www.mchenrycountyil.gov/meeting-portal
Here you’ll be able to download and review all documents associated with it.
Zoning Board of Appeals - Zoning Hearing
May 22, 2025 at 1:30 Pm
County Board Conference Room
Administration Building,
667 Ware Rd., Woodstock, IL 60098
Mandy Crespo, and some Deerpath residents,
will be going door to door in our subdivision to get signatures
to petition against the slaughterhouse behind our subdivision.
NEW OPTION TO PAY YOUR DUES ONLINE!
Email
Deerpath Treasurer
with your phone number
for an invoice texted to your phone,
or an email.
Dirt Bikes and Four-Wheelers
The HOA has received many complaints about
dirt bikes and four-wheelers in the neighborhood.
If you see someone riding one,
please call the police.
They are not allowed on village streets
per the village of Wonder Lake.
2025 Homeowners Meeting Schedule
Next Board Meeting is Thursday July 17th
Upcomming Events HOA meeting:
December 16th Thursday
Meetings are held at The Parks Building
4200 Thompson Road at 7 P.M., and are open to all homeowners.
We hope to see you there!
View notes for the Wondermere Landscaping Project under the Minutes tab, file "March 2019."
Forms / Docs
If you're planning to build around your home (add a fence, put up a new deck, etc), you'll need to request
approval from the Architectural Control Committee (ACC). Please download the AAC Form below,
fill it in, and attach the form to this email
DeerPathPresident.
If you have a question about our neighborhood or need to review what the restrictions are, click the button
below for a copy of the subdivision's ByLaws. The ByLaws are in a 3.3mb PDF file.
Minutes
Click on a date below to review the Minutes from that Association meeting.
Newsletters
Click on a date below to view our Subdivision Newsletters.
Prairie Purpose
Forty-nine homes and outlots in the Deerpath Subdivision own, or border, the prairies. There are eight distinct
prairie areas. Of these, six are entirely in private ownership. The two largest prairie areas are owned in part
by the association as a whole and in part by individual private land owners.

Regardless of ownership, our prairie areas serve many purposes:
Flood Control - During heavy rains, water pours off our roofs, down our gutters, off our driveways and roads
and quickly over our neatly manicured lawns. Our soils are rocky, gravelly, well-drained tills left behind by the
retreating glacier over 10,000 years ago. Water will seep in quickly if allowed to remain long enough. The physical
structure of the plants acts to slow the water, allowing it to soak in. This protects those living downstream from us
from flooding.
Ground Water Recharge - As the water is allowed to remain on the land, it seeps down to recharge our surface
groundwater. This water, cleansed by the gravel deposits, makes its way into our streams such as Tryon Creek and the
Nippersink as well as Wonder Lake itself.
Evapotranspiration - a big word for a simple process. The roots soak up the water and transport it up through
the plants where it evaporates out through the leaves thereby releasing it slowly back to the environment.
Habitat - while our houses were being built, prairie birds were nesting in our common prairies as well as on the
undeveloped lots. Now that most of our lots are built up, we are lucky to have retained meadowlarks which can be heard
in the summer singing from the playground structures of our prairie park as well as from rooftops of the homes bordering
the prairie. These, along with killdeer, sedge wrens and savannah sparrows are ground-nesting, open-land birds. Not many
developments can boast having them nesting in their parks!
Biodiversity, Beauty & Bucks - the diversity of plant species attracts not only birds but butterflies and other
insects. These and the flowers add beauty to our neighborhood and increase our land values. Look around at the neighboring
developments - we are lucky!
Our prairie needs work. The first few years after planting a prairie are critical in weed control. This is usually
accomplished by mowing and spot herbiciding. As we were getting our feet on the ground as an association, we went through
a learning curve and non-native invasive species gained a foothold. In 2006, a professional ecological restoration company
was hired. Now we are asking for your input and involvement. Stacy Iwanicki is organizing a group of
Friends of Deerpath
Prairies (formerly
Deerpath Prairie Gardeners). As mentors, the DPGs will help with weed spotting and identification
and advise neighbors on how they too can help. Neighbors can mow and dead-head the invasive species, giving the professional
managers time to apply the herbicides and organize and conduct the burns. The long-term costs of maintaining the prairie,
once established, will be low.
With our participation, we can work to keep our prairie management costs down at the same time develop a greater
understanding and appreciation for our common prairie areas.
For more information on invasive plant species, visit
invasive.org
If you are interested in volunteering time and energy to our common prairies or even learning more about landscaping with
natives in your own back yard, please contact the Friends of Deerpath Prairies Mentors at
or Stacy directly at
.
Native Plants
...according to Plants of the Chicago Region by Floyd Swing and Gerold Wilhelm
Print and use this
list as a guideline to selecting native
species for home, prairie, savannah, and woodland planting in Deerpath subdivision.
This
list is intended to be used in conjunction with catalogs,
plant sales, and other native plant sources to help the gardener determine whether a plant is native to McHenry county. It
includes many plants that are adapted to the well-drained, gravelly soils of our Deerpath subdivision with an emphasis on
species of prairie, savannah, and woodland edge habitats. For soil type, see below. As a selected list, it is by no means a
complete or exhaustive list of native plants that may be appropriate for planting in your yard. Further, the list does not
intend to imply that a non-native/non-listed species is inappropriate for planting (although it may be). A separate list of
noxious, invasive, and other undesirable weeds is available. If you have any questions whether a non-listed plant is native,
or a suggestion of a plant that should be added, please contact Stacy Iwanicki at
.
** The numbers refer to the Coefficient of Conservatism as published by Swing & Wilhelm - a scale from 0 to 10 with
0s being very tolerant of disturbed and/or varied habitats and 10s being limited to, and representative of, the highest
quality, rare and unique habitats.
Soil Types: OBL FACW FAC FACU UPL is a range of wetland designations w/ OBL indicating the plant is obligated to
living in wetlands and UPL for plants adapted to uplands. FAC indicates it is facultative (goes both ways). I use
S&W's designations which sometimes vary from the national designation. For the most part, I avoided strict OBL
because they need actual wetlands - few of our areas hold water long enough to develop rich wetland soil.