nature

Misty Stillness

After work it is time to walk around the farm, legs swishing through soaking grass. Each one I touch lets loose a shower and, lightened, the stems straighten for a bit until more mist collects. Where I walk today and where I walked yesterday will remain evident for weeks: tall, lax vegetation flattened and so fat with moisture as to be unable to get back upright. Above the tall boots my pants still get wet; the grass is 3’ high. The mist muffles sound like snow, and it is very still. The moist chill has hushed the birds, the only sounds my feet and the dripping of a million drops.

Native brome grass and poppy, laden with moisture

Composting Fields

The brief drying and warmth allowed everyone a chance to mow and till, but there was still not enough time. Some fields got more thoroughly tilled than others. A sweetish funk of rotting cover crop hangs in the air near turned up earth. Topsy turvy pieces of cover crop stick out of the mud, the finer leaves and stems melting into mush. The tiny pieces of ground up punk will enrich the soil, hold moisture, feed microorganisms, and nutrify plants. “Green manure.”

Freshly tilled, ‘Pepper Field’

Standing Crop

In the orchards, the cover crop gets cut but we don’t till. This year, in the poorer soiled areas between trees, I ran the flail or mulching mower, grinding up the cover crop to feed the soil right where it grew. Where the fava beans are towering taller, it’s the dance with the sickle bar mower, cutting the tall plants, which fall in rows to dry and then get raked as mulch under the trees.

I keep the orchard mower regularly running not just for exercise but to ‘keep up’ with re-growth. It is nice to get March rains after the cover crop is cut. The ongoing moisture allows the soil to digest the shed off nitrogen rich cover crop roots and make that food available to wakening trees. It is becoming critical to mow the last of the fava beans, but there is never enough time. The Avocado Bowl and Cherry Hill cover crops are going to be 4’ tall soon, thousands of flowers feeding hummingbirds and bumblebees. I hate to deprive those friends of their nectar.

A sea of fava beans (and vetch!) surrounding the Avocado Bowl

Cherry Buds Swelling

The cherry trees are about to flower. Buds are showing color and the sleek red bark is taught from running sap. It is the last moment to observe the bare tree architecture and envision summer pruning. The old, fire-damaged trees are hanging in and the ones that died, root sprouts grafted, hold lots of promise to become more tree-like this year. The piles of grass mulch the Orchardistas hauled and stacked last June have almost entirely melted away but not too soon: there are few weeds where those mulch piles sat at the beginning of winter.

Lapins cherry buds nearly bursting
Old, fire damaged cherry trees (left) and the sprouted Colt rootstock grafted (right)

Native Wildflower Spring

The Community Orchardists not only steward trees but also the mulch fields, some of which are becoming amazing and beautiful native grasslands. Molino Creek Farm was a hay farm in the early 1900’s. It still makes fine hay and those hayfields are alive with many flowers and lots of wildlife action.

Our farm has a curious pattern of shallow-soiled knolls surrounded by pockets of deep soil. The rolling landscape provides for diversity in crops and native habitats. It seems that cutting hay (at the ‘right’ time) and hauling it to the trees as mulch has helped wildflowers proliferate. We are at the onset of poppy spring and two types of lupines are soon to glow. After that, rafts of tiny tarplants will flash yellow each morning. The brome grass has already started and will keep producing seeds at the end of waving graceful arched stems, towering over the wildflowers. Blackbirds march noisily across these fields in lines, scaring up the bugs that find feast in grassland diversity. A giant mound indicates gopher action, a few seedling poppies germinating on the fresh, moist soil. Networks of pathways and open burrow entrances means voles are active. Deeper, bigger holes with fresh claw marks – coyotes at work digging up furry late-night dinners in the hay fields. Where we don’t collect and manage for hay, those fallow fields are humpy with thatch and scattered with shrubs and poison hemlock: a different type of habitat…one which we hope we can muster new energy to manage. More orchards- and more need for mulch…the fate lies with the capacity of Community Orchardists.

Poppy, brome, bicolor lupine and madia- cutting hay creates knoll diversity!

Not Passing Through

A fundamental issue related to the inter-connectedness between humans and between humans and Nature is how we move. How often do we change homes? When we are doing errands or our work, how quickly do we move around the landscape, in cars, bikes, buses, or on foot? When we visit nature, how do we move…and how fast?

Changing Homes

According to surveys, US citizens move from one house to another 18 times. On average, they move every 6-11 years, depending on region and economic status. In other parts of the world, such as China, there are millions of itinerant workers who are on the move all of the time. Refugees from war, climate disasters, cartel/mob threats, etc., are numerous. Is this natural?

Some would suggest humans are naturally nomadic. Long lived civilizations are very rare, and I’d be interested in knowing how long pre-industrial indigenous group are thought to have remained in the same territory.

The Social Meaning of Moving

Neighbors are a very long type of human relationship. Some people don’t know their neighbors. Some even don’t want to. The throng of cities provide anonymity that some crave. Rural areas lay bare the need to interact with neighbors. Some loner rural denizens stand out in their desire for isolation, leaving the rest of the neighborhood wondering and curious. That spectrum means there is a wide variety of meaning when we move away from the social fabric of our neighborhoods. When we move farther still, we leave behind those we chose to interact with, our communities, our friends. How have those moves affected you, your family, your friends?

Lost Communities

I posit that the frequency of people moving is negatively affecting the quality of communities. If people stayed put more, wouldn’t they come to better understand the things that affect their community? Even if they aren’t particularly interested, it seems like people gradually come to understand housing issues, strains on water sources, the health of the public transit systems, who has power and who doesn’t, how weather affects people, social norms, and history. Each of those types of understanding influences our relationships with others in our community and can affect the political parties and politicians we choose. When we move, our votes make less sense, and our communities suffer the consequences.

Moving Around Where We Are

Closer to home, how do we move about in our daily lives? I am amazed at rush hour traffic and suppose that most of those people can’t afford not to be moving so slowly, breathing thick exhaust. For a long time, as a commuter, I tallied the very expensive vehicles on the road at various times of day. Not surprisingly, the rich are better able to avoid rush hour. So, how and when we move around is highly affected by how much money we have. But, everyone moving in cars on the road share the experience of isolation from each other and from the world as a whole. The more time people spend in their cars, the more isolated they are.

Economic conditions notwithstanding, Covid lockdowns changed many people’s movement patterns. People looked at their homes differently. For instance, people started cultivating many more houseplants. As the urban bustle subsided, wildlife started edging further into the built environment. We noticed the world around us a lot more. It was quieter both on the streets and in the air. Air pollution declined. Some of our movement patterns remain curtailed despite city governments’ attempts to get businesses to reverse work-from-home policies.

Moving Around In Nature

A ‘avid’ mountain bike enthusiast once told me that they rode carefully so as to avoid running over newts. For those who read my column regularly, you know I have an affinity with newts. When I walk in the forest, avoiding stepping on newts is something that keeps my attention. It is not easy. Newts blend into the forest floor easily, are varying sizes and move at varying speeds, and are sometimes so numerous that you have to walk ever so gingerly to avoid them. It is even more difficult for a bicyclist to avoid smashing newts, and that example serves for a world of other nature interactions. The faster you move around nature, the less likely it is that you will see the nature around you. Also, bicyclists, by covering more ground than those on foot, also disturb more wildlife than other, slower-moving parks visitors. If we are looking to increase the nature sense of humans, we must work to get mountain bikers off of their bikes, so they move more slowly and experience nature more deeply. The same goes for joggers. Parents who care about helping their children connect with nature have a challenge to show their kids how nature is exciting even if you aren’t on a bike or running through a park.

Infrastructure in Nature

‘Stay on the trails’ is an increasingly common park visitation rule. It wasn’t that way very long ago. Technically, State Parks has to formally designate an area as a natural reserve to legally restrict use to trails. At Cotoni Coast Dairies, the land managers have to go through an arduous rulemaking procedure to restrict future visitors to trails. Staying on trails changes the way you experience nature. Wildlife avoid trails. The vegetation surrounding trails is different. Your chance of encountering other people on the trails changes your experience. And, most trails are designed as straight lines, as if we are all in a hurry to get from one place to the next when we visit nature. Trail builders with parks agencies think that people want ‘loops’ and are averse to ‘out-and-back’ trails. Turn offs from the main trail better end in some giant attraction, like an incredible view. Those straight lines and loops create a certain type of experience for parks visitors. I suggest those designs enforce a more fleeting and more separate interaction with nature. What would it be like if more trails led one way to nothing obviously spectacular? What if parks managers designed in slow, immersive experiences into their ‘infrastructure?’

If people slowed down, looked around, and took more time to experience nature, wouldn’t that connect them more with the natural environment? Wouldn’t that connection make them care more about protecting the environment? Just as people moving less increases the possibility of caring more for their neighbors and human community, people moving more slowly in parks should increase their caring for the non-human world.

-this post originally published by Bruce Bratton in his highly engaging and enlightening weekly blog found at BrattonOnline.com, where you can turn for the most meaningful news for the Monterey Bay area.

Animals of our Hearts

We each come to loving non-human wildlife for our own reasons, and we want to assure that all species are thriving for future generations. Among the many people with whom I interact, their answer to an intriguing question is uncannily and increasingly resolute.

“How many species do you need to maintain the quality of life you desire?”

“All of them” is the answer more and more people are giving me.

How does that work?

Only through the goodness of our hearts will we conserve wildlife. What doors open our hearts enough that we are willing to act to restore wildlife?

Cute, Fuzzy Creatures

As children, we are fascinated and kind towards non-human animals. Often, what we glean from children is that they find wildlife to be ‘cute.’ Whether they are stuffed plush toys or animated cartoons, we indulge our youngest children’s inherent love of wildlife. They have pets, or visit friends’ pets, and develop relationships with non-human species. Children learn to cuddle and stroke pet fur, and the pets purr and roll, and show pleasure, giving love back. Humans and non-humans give and receive love, reducing stress and building trust. We expand the community from our core human families to include non-humans.

As adults, we carry with us that love of cuteness, the desire for connection with non-humans, the tactile pleasure of the furry cuddling interaction. And we develop still other ways to connect with non-human animals.

Non-Human Friends: Our Pets

The friendships we create with non-human species are complex, and we each have our own approach. Many share a basic understanding that has developed with our non-human pet species. There are troves of common wisdom about dog and cat behavior towards, and expectations of, humans, which I will not repeat. I’m sure you have plenty of material to reference, as this is a deeply cultural realm and the subject of many conversations, especially when extended family gathers and ‘pet talk’ is a relatively safe space for discussion.

As those pet conversations get more personal, it becomes clear that many humans rely on non-humans (and vice versa) for friendship. Our pets go with us on adventures and reveal to us much that we may not have otherwise experienced. Our pets recognize our ups and downs and participate actively with all of our emotional territory.

Wild Friends

It’s not only pets: some people recognize friendship with wild creatures. The stand-out crowd are those who feed or provide water for wild birds. This bunch is so numerous as to have a sizeable economy surrounding these connections. People buy and maintain hummingbird feeders, bird baths, bird feeders, suet cages…some even invest in specialized foods such as worms or fruit jellies for their favorite bird species. There is an emerging movement in gardening for wild birds.

Still others connect with the wild furry animals that they frequently encounter in parks or in their yards…squirrels, deer, and foxes are the ones I hear about the most. People put out squirrel food, some even getting to know a squirrel well enough to feed it out of their hands. Some folks get to know a certain local doe and her fawns, watching her through the year as she raises them from spots to adolescents. The doe may very well know about the safety net provided by their proximity to a friendly human’s habitation. She and her fawns will feel comfortable near the humans they recognize. Being very sound-centric, they respond attentively and curiously when we talk to them. The very habitual fox, trotting the same paths at the same times each day, will know just how to avoid human encounters but we catch glances of them when we break our rhythms. They poop on our shoes outside the door as a way of saying hello. For a while, foxes were so regularly seen in Bonny Doon that when their populations dipped a whole community was saddened.

Wildlife Viewers

Many of us are falling in love with more and more species of wildlife. We call ourselves naturalists or wildlife viewers. We study the critters we encounter in order to learn new stories. Domesticated dogs provide a gateway into the natural world…through our regular ‘dog walks’ and through our observation of their sniffing around and explorations. Wild animals do those things, too, in many more ways. They draw us out of our cozy homes to visit them and see what they are up to. Observing their behavior, we learn new things about the natural world. As our curiosity grows, we find ourselves in places we wouldn’t otherwise venture, at times of day we might not otherwise get out. Wildlife viewers must get up very early sometimes. To see a river otter, they go to the riverside; to see whales, they go out in boats; to see pond turtles, they spend time gazing at logs in ponds; to see snowy plovers, they squint into binoculars on a wind-blown beach; to hear owls, they stay up late and scritch gravel to goad them to calling.

Hunters

A significant and important segment of the human population connects with wildlife as part of the hunt. Sometimes, hunting provides important food for subsistence; historically, this was even more so. Other times, hunters enjoy the sport as well as the food. Hunters and people who fish get to know the species they pursue and the habitats those species rely on. And, their love of wildlife for hunting has actualized incredible conservation successes. Ducks Unlimited and Trout Unlimited are two of the many organizations supported by hunters which have helped steward wildlife habitat and recover species.

All of Us

Statistics suggest that the vast majority of humans, even here in the apparently divided USA, strongly support wildlife conservation. When we realize the importance of wildlife to our standard of living, we are compelled to learn more about what wildlife need to survive. When we connect with wildlife, we realize we are part of something greater than ourselves, bigger than our simplified human-oriented world. When we see wildlife make a connection with us, we feel part of the natural world, and our basic selves become more grounded and real. When we work to conserve wildlife, we are at our best…serving the world that serves us. Three ways we can be effective at wildlife conservation:

  • Vote for candidates that detail their approaches to conservation. Every political candidate has the means to make a bigger difference than any one of us acting alone.
  • Join a wildlife conservation organization, donate more than membership fees. The Center for Biological Diversity is my choice. The Audubon Society is a good one, too. I’m vetting others…suggest one that you think I should mention!
  • Tell your friends heart-felt wildlife stories. Help create a culture that connects with wildlife!

-this post originally part of a Bruce Bratton weekly blog at BrattonOnline.com, read it and be enlightened!

-to be further enlightened on this subject, see the recording of my recent presentation about local wildlife by clicking here.