Fun in the Mud

Rain or shine, trees still need to be planted and weeds still need to be wacked. The Laguna holds more wildlife than you could imagine and protecting and restoring this is of great importance to Sonoma County. On a cold, rainy and gray day the Laguna De Santa Rosa Foundation pressed on in their work. I guess they figured that some mud would make the work more fun!

The Laguna De Santa Rosa Foundation’s mission is to preserve, restore and enhance the Laguna, and to inspire greater public understanding and appreciation of this magnificent natural area (lagunadesantarosa.org). Not only are they out in the Laguna restoring wildlife habitat but they are also bringing lifelong lessons into children’s classrooms and conducting research. The Laguna de Santa Rosa is home to 200 different bird species and its watershed is home to almost everyone in Sonoma County. Instead of just trying to root out invasive plant species like the Cotati Creek Critters, the Laguna De Santa Rosa Foundation is trying to restore this area for animal species and humans.

When I stepped out of my car with my boots and gloves, the most beautiful sight was directly ahead of me! The rain had revealed bright green grass and mustard fields. The marsh land we were working on, right on the outskirts of Sebastopol, looked all the way out to Santa Rosa. It was so beautiful! They had an awesome show-up with about 30 volunteers. Before getting to work, our leaders gave us an educational introduction to the marshland and what work we would be doing, along with hot chocolate and delicious mini muffins! We broke off in groups in which I jumped straight into the tree planting group, a bit anxious to get away from the weed whacking considering my weed and mulching work I did at Bayer Farm a few days previous. I worked three hours straight through; digging, pulling weeds, planting down a plastic weed cover and then putting in the baby plants. We would finish every plant off by staking down the water pipe close to the base of the plant. It was hard work but very satisfying.

Volunteers are the heart and soul for the Laguna De Santa Rosa Foundation. Volunteers assist in exotic plant removal, native plant and tree planting, trails construction and maintenance and restoration project monitoring (lagunadesantarosa.org). It is organizations like this that bring people in the community together. I met so many interesting and kind-hearted volunteers and learned more about the work that Sonoma County does to their natural, ecological sites. In a time when the economy is bad and the GREEN movement is kicking off, volunteering with organizations like this is a great way to get involved and learn about issues at a local level.
And the thing that people forget is that it if fun!

Go help, Go volunteer, Go GREEN!

Bayer Farm; A Little Project with the Big Idea

Volunteering at Bayer Farm will not be a one time thing! Even after working there on a drizzly, cool Saturday afternoon when most others are snuggled under the covers watching movies and sleeping in, I can say that I will be there again on another Saturday with a shovel in my hand! Walking out to the site at Bayer Farm, a 6-acre urban farm and city park in the largely Latino area of Roseland in a part of Santa Rosa, the smell of wet soil and sight of mini garden plots and bright painted mini tool sheds got me all wound up to see what work I would be digging my hands into!

This community garden serves 30 families with individual land plots and gives lessons to children from the elementary school down the street. Bayer Farm teaches kids how to plant, compost, harvest, pick and even cook their own food so that they can go home and bring a healthy and more affordable way of living into the household. The rest of the 6-acres of land are gardens for the public so that people passing by or coming home from downtown Santa Rosa can pick up some fresh produce and support Bayer Farm’s mission. I really believe that their goal to reach into the Roseland community and educate families and children about how to eat healthy while sustaining the Earth is a crucial lesson that needs to be learned around the world. In a time when people’s pockets are running dry and obesity is increasing more than ever, we really must get back to the root of things and learn how to make use of our own yards and back away from processed, preservative fast foods. Children leave Bayer Farm with knowledge to grow their own food at home and cook up a delicious and nutritious meal!

Now that Bayer Farm can begin to prepare for spring harvesting, some dirty work was needed to be done. Although the work I did may not be glamorous to a lot of people, I loved getting my hands in the dirt and smelling the nutrients pour out of the soil that the rain had delivered. I mostly did weeding, mulching and compost. For those who are new to gardening or getting their hands dirty, mulching is when a protective covering of organic material is laid over soil to prevent erosion, retain moisture and enrich the soil even further. Compost is a mixture of decayed and organic plant materials that are reused as fertilizers. I worked with Magdalena, the Community Outreach specialist who is bilingual and helped develop the Spanish Outreach Program for Bayer Farm. Working with Magdalena made the work even more fun and worth the while because you could tell that she truly puts her whole heart into the Bayer Farm Project and believes that they are making positive changes within the Roseland neighborhood.

After a few hours of hard work at Bayer Farm I was ready for a hot shower and a big, green salad! As I walked away from the farm and observed all the tall green plants and vegetable rows, I could only imagine the fun, growth and community bonding that is yet to come in the spring! I will definitely be there for the harvest, hopefully digging my hands into fresh vegetable gardens and flowers instead of weeds and soil.

Go help, Go volunteer, Go GREEN!

Global Warming Plant Invasion

Climate change due to global warming is the new hot topic! Going GREEN is becoming the new Gucci and recycling is becoming a hot trend. Yet our process of going GREEN cannot just be a trend with an endpoint. Going GREEN needs to be a process that continues throughout time and space. We have officially pissed off Planet Earth and it is time to befriend it again. Climate change is affecting endless organisms, species and life on this Earth. To understand climate change, global warming and the GREEN movement, let us start small and get into the nitty gritty details.

With rising temperatures on the go we can see the first struggle right at the roots. Native plants are being invaded by non-native plant species. It has been discovered that non-native plants are reacting better to the current climate changes than native ones. Invasive plant species, meaning invading plants, are able to change their seasonal activity timing more successfully than native plants. Some people hear that invasive plants are positively reacting to warmer climate temperatures and think it is good news! That is not the case at all.

Invasive plants that congregate in abundance with warm weather are wiping out the native plants which lead to ecosystem and wildlife destruction. Invasive plants cannot support the same diversity of wildlife as native species can. What can we do? How can we help?

I have volunteered with a non-profit organization called Cotati Creek Critters (CCC). CCC is a grassroots citizens' group that works to restore a section of the Laguna de Santa Rosa that runs through Cotati and Rohnert Park. One of CCC's main goals is to enhance natural habitat for native species. I went out with CCC on a cold, Saturday morning to get my hands dirty and see what this organization was all about.

Weed, dig, mulch, dig and mulch some more! That is what my first day with CCC consisted of... but it was fun! Our stewardship coordinator, Wade Belew invented a cozy mulching technique for the plants on the Laguna de Santa Rosa. Yes, I said cozy. After weeding around the trees and laying down cardboard in a perfect square around the plant bases, we would cover it with soil and nutrients and then cover that with a biodegradable net, peg the corners into the ground and create a comfy bed for the plant species to flourish! These native plants that we help to preserve will help stabilize water banks, prevent soil erosion, improve water quality and provide habitat for wildlife.

So remember when you are out walking next time and you comment on a pretty field of flowers and plants…. Are those flowers native? Are they supposed to be there?

This is just one little hole that climate change and global warming has dug up.

Go help, Go volunteer, Go GREEN

http://www.cotaticreekcritters.info/index.htm