oc

Junuary’s Humdrum Ho Ho Ho

Wild azalea – the last flower of the season. Photo from a nearby forested seep

Dry farming in a wet spring followed by June Gloom brings weeds and big growth. Dressed like a hoer? Gloves, a sun hat, long sleeves and long pants – all necessary parts of the kit. Hoers are a most common sight nowadays in these expansive rich soiled crop fields. One might even sing “On the 4^th day of Solstice, my true love brought to me four hoers hoing…etc”: every farmer’s dream! Late season rains make for extra germination of seeds that might have (in a ‘normal’ year) been left ‘high and dry’ in the dry farmed tomato and squash patches. The unusually late precipitation makes for crops growing big and fast, as do the weeds, which must have their roots separated from the soil lest they compete and use up the moisture. The most common weed in Molino Creek Farm patches: daikon radish, left over from cover crop let go to seed. Two Dog Farm has its own suite of pestiferous plants, a weedy amaranth being chief among them. Despite Santa’s continual bowl full of jelly Ho Ho’ing, these weeds are no joke.

We dub this drizzly, cold, and sometimes breezy month: Junuary!

Drippy Roadsides, Scooting Quail, Turkeys (redux)

When dew and mist hang heavy from every grassblade and shrub leaf, there is no place for quail to go. They must stay on the road to avoid hypothermia. So, we drive or walk slowly watching the ground birds weave and scuttle trying to find a dry path off the gravel road. The first baby quail emerged in the past week or so; the oldest hatchlings are able to fly already. Nervous quail parents try to herd their frenetic fluffball chicks one way or the other but they sometimes scatter anyhow. It takes quail parents a long while to gather their covey once it flushes. High delicate peep peeps whine from under bushes, hoping for the deep cluck cluck of parents calling them back to their nomadic homes. The adult quail would love it if the babies could take to the air especially for the night roost up in thick trees farther from marauding predators.

We look for turkey patterns, anything to make sense of what these large birds are up to. One group of turkeys has 2 adolescents, ¼ the size of the rest of the flock, which has 4 females tending to the emergent young: thanks, aunts!

Some small percentage of Ceanothus thyrsiflorus, blue blossom, survived after an epic seed flush due to the 2020 fire. Those that didn’t survive are now a world of kindling for the next wildfire.

Fuel, Fire

What does one do to prepare for a Super El Niño? The 2020 CZU fire was spurred by remnants of a hurricane which started fires across much of the State. Hurricane predictors have warned to expect many more hurricanes this coming season in the Pacific…so, chances of a piece of hurricane hitting California in the middle of our dry, dry summer are increased. I recently surveyed Molino Creek Farm’s and nearby Bonny Doon’s fireshed: it is ripe to burn. There are miles of dead and damaged trees dropping bone dry limbs onto the awaiting dead shrub understory. The Ceanothus that came up after the fire is 12’ tall but only one in 30 of the shrubs survive, leaving stacked dead shrubs with lots of air between them: a legion of kindling to light the shed limbs and dead trees. Terrifying. It could happen this summer. That next wildfire will not be like anything anyone alive has experienced in the Santa Cruz Mountains. When it lights up and the fire runs from north to south and if there’s any wind behind it, the fire storm will have enough momentum to head into the San Lorenzo Valley and possibly into UCSC and Santa Cruz. Beware Felton!

The late gloom and drizzle helps…but, the heat waves aren’t normally until August with the two last fires leaping in the middle of that month.

Are we acting like we’ve got 6 weeks left before things are crispy and ready to ignite?

Scents

Freshly mowed grass and apples tickle our noses. The mowing has to happen, despite the grass still being green. It is green grass that gives off the freshly mown lawn smell: spicy/sweet and somewhat moldy. That delightful scent is everywhere as we drive tractors up and down every farm roadside.

In the orchard, the surprising first scent of apples…at the bottom of the orchard, in the new Gravenstein apple grove. That type of apple has a distinct sour-floral smell and those trees bear early, which is why we planted a grove. It is the first year we’ll get many from those trees, and I’m looking forward to that harvest. Their flesh turns punky quickly, so timely harvest is key. Their waxy-semi-oily skin seems to be where the distinct almost skunky scent arises. What apple diversity we have!

In the forested springs and on creeksides through the mountains…the last of the wild azaleas are blossoming. A little more complex than jasmine but just as sweet, a bit dusty with a hint of orange-citrus. The scent caries a long way. The flowers are beautiful. If you haven’t caught them this year, you’ll have to wait for next: they might already be gone.

The next warmish night…should we ever have one…will make us smell tanoak pollen. Ugh.

Sounds

Marty’s recent stay in the Barn reminds us of the noise of chorus frogs from the cement pond. Those noisy amphibians call through the night and us locals apparently have put that sound out of mind. Ear plugs are necessary for guests to allow them to sleep past the nature noises.

As the fog lifts, when it lifts, there are zephyrs and slight gusts. Muted long drippy mornings are interrupted by a sudden rustling of leaves. A dust devil appears with a whoosh next to you on the road.

The quiet nights carry wave roar, echoing loud sets interspersed with patterns of fewer, smaller waves.

The lowing of cows on the prairies far below the farm.

Hoots of great horned owls.

Molino Creek Farm lies down below these chaparral covered ridges and beyond it, fog and the Monterey Bay.

Happy Summer Solstice 2026!

Apples

It’s a common question: what do you do with all of the apples? We ask ourselves that, too. We’ve got this issue with oscillation: alternate bearing years having most recently been spurred by the Fire of 2020. Post fire 2021-few; 2022-lots; 2023- few; 2024 – lots; 2025 – few; and guess what…2026 looks like another ‘lots’ year. Other things contribute to changing harvest numbers, such as burnt up trees, age of trees, pests, heat wave apple roasts, lack of chill hours, etc. Nevertheless, in this macro harvest year we will (probably!) have to ask and answer the Big Question again, and we already know the answer: more juice, and more hard cider!

A farewell to spring flower in our grasslands replete with 2 native sleeping bees, droplets of drizzle.

My calculation for this year’s harvest is a record 11,000 pounds, nearly 6 tons. We’ll probably sell 2500 pounds to put up some capital for compost, irrigation supplies, and things we need to keep the orchard running. And, we’ll probably give 2500 pounds to the Pacific School and other charities. That leaves 6,000 pounds of ‘seconds’ apples going to either juice or into the deer-feeding (eg., pest destroying) compost piles. If we can manage the pressing power, that means we could make a record 250 gallons of hard cider! Last I checked, we have 5 cider makers in our midst and we’ll need everyone to pitch in, pick, haul, wash, sort, grind and press this year to make it work. Watch out for October!

Avocados

The other fruit to celebrate is the oily green avocado. The repercussions of the fire also play out here, and this is the first year since 2020 that we have much to harvest. Our Community Orchard is bringing home the Bacon, with thin-skinned avocado fruit on the less oil content side of things but still delicious. About a third of our 100 trees are Bacon and only 4 of the oldest trees are bearing this year. The warm, dry March and a plethora of pollinators made a big crop that will be ready next year. Meanwhile, we watch and wait. The other types we expect larger crops from next year are Reed and Lamb Haas, but we also have a few Gwen, Pinkerton, and Carmen Haas sprinkled in the groves. Bacon avocadoes are the fastest- ‘only’ 16 months to ripen; others take almost 2 years. The ground squirrels and gray fox are already sharing the harvest. One day soon we’ll learn how to cook with the leaves and in a few years maybe we’ll figure out how to extract the oil.

Does it count that we add other plant diversity with this invasive poison hemlock?

Organic AND Regenerative

Another frequent question we are asked is ‘Are You Regenerative?’ That’s a loaded question because there’s not really any way of measuring or verifying such things…not like our organic certification with CCOF. Sure, you can fill out a self-assessment checklist, and proudly attest to your professed stellar farm care, but what thinking third party goes for such balderdash? Anyway, we resonate with some of the apparent principles of the regenerative agriculture movement such as building soil organic matter, creating conditions for increasing (especially native) plant diversity within the orchard understory, and integrating animals into the orchards.

That latter one is a bit of a chuckler. ‘Chickens? Sheep?’ you might ask. Nay, much better: voles and turkeys, fox and squirrel, woodpecker and robin! Some may squint, “Are you serious?!” Yes- and we have evidence that anyone can see. Most recently, we’re seeing one large, fresh, glistening turkey turd every 5 square meters. We don’t need to care for those wild turkeys, they are self-sustaining! And, they are eating weed seeds, mopping up pests, cleaning up fallen fruit, and turning all of that biomass into fertilizer deposited right onto the fungal web that feeds the orchard trees. Plus, they are entertaining. And, if a coyote eats one of our understory flock, we don’t cry or call the wildlife department for a depredation permit nor do we raise apples to pay the bills for guardian dogs. If any of you readers know of any way we can help the turkeys feel more at home in our orchard, please let us know. And, if you are wondering about our other orchard understory animals…stay tuned for more fascinating Regenerative Agricultural Stories about integrating animals into cropping systems.

We’re good at raising lots of poison oak

Noise

What’s the noise around the farm? Vegetation control. Up above the farm, on San Vicente Redwoods land, the masticators are roaring and the saws are revving: they are doing more post fire forestry to make the redwood stands more resilient, to better protect Bonny Doon from the next inferno. On the Farm itself, the noise is mowers. Our discerning gaze turns to the color of grass: is it tawny, is it dead? There are complex calculations involving percent dead grass, relative humidity, nesting birds, proximity to infrastructure, and time left to mow before July 1 spurring us out the door, onto (or behind!) the tractors, and pointed in the right direction. Back and forth, strip by strip of cutting.

More Wild Birds

The size of a couple of bird flocks deserve mention. The goldfinches! Will somebody teach me the difference between the species? Whatever type of goldfinches they are, there are commonly flocks of 30 noisily descending on patches of the non-native dandelion seed heads. Rough cats ear seeds are apparently scrumptious to these seedeaters.

Equally noisy, equally numerous flocks of wrentits are visiting the oaks around the farm. The trees seem to squeak with a bit of an energetic russle then a confetti of tiny birds erupts, fluttering to the next oak. They sure seem to be having fun.

Farewell, Spring!

Here we are, on the advent of Summer and just at the right time this year we can say ‘farewell to spring’ with the namesake flower, which is in full glory right now in patches around our well stewarded grassland. Deep pink-red, large four-petaled flowers open with the sun and close with the night, creating safe sleeping spaces for the cutest of native bees, their pollinators. In other places, the summer bloom is on- tarplants with their resinous, odiferous leaves and yellow sunflowers brighten and scent the midday prairie. As we progress into summer, there will be more miraculous flowers dotting the landscape despite the lack of rain and the bone-dry soil. Week by week, the flowerscape changes. We hope for a mild summer without smoke or fire.

Happy Solstice!

A Wild Weather Ride

Sticky monkey flower is adding a riot of color to the hillsides around Molino Creek Farm

Each month, every month, there is a new shrub in bloom around our farm. This month the featured flowering shrubs are sticky monkeyflower and bush lupine. The sticky monkeyflower of California’s central coast is a striking and unique orange-yellow whereas Big Sur has a paler and larger flowered version and Down South it is downright red. Ours is special: friends don’t let friends infect the local genepool with monkeyflowers from thither.

Our bush lupine is also unique – a lavender jobby contrasting with the common bright yeller form down along the coast.

Bush lupine – our type is this color, but most of California has a yellow form with bigger leaves

Fruit Eating Birds

The native blackberries are ripening, juiced up from the late rains. Band tailed pigeon discovered them and are feasting along our extensive deer-deterring (somewhat) fencelines which prop up linear mounds of prickly canes. The large pigeons balance warily on the top wire and then dive onto a patch of berries, pecking and sucking up fruit. Their bills don’t even get purple-messy!

Impatient scrub jays and acorn woodpeckers are also eating fruit, but unripe fruit, in the apple orchard. Many rock-hard 2” apples are scored with bill marks and sometimes pecked holes. The unabashed woodpeckers sit on the top of orchard trees and fence posts, seemingly saying ‘look at me, I’m beautiful and innocent!’ They are Not. Innocent. But, they ARE beautiful with their stark black-and-white patterning and brilliant red-capped heads. And, they ARE fruit destroyers, but we grow enough for everyone.

Vermin

This, the 6^th year after the wildfire, marks the return of the blood-sucking vermin: ticks! Every foray around the Farm nets at least one feisty little creature, hard to dislodge from crawling on pants or skin. Young brush bunnies are straying farther from home, shaking their itchy, floppy ears, which are festooned with puffed up parasites. Imagine not being able to take those things off of you! Ugg.

Bigger ears are also wagging, but do we really refer to deer as vermin? Some do. Deer ears spoon out like radio dishes aimed right at me when I scritch by on the crunchy gravel road. ‘Hi deer!’ I say ‘It’s okay, I’m not gonna chase you!’ Some of the herd is becoming calmer near me, I think, with such urging. Or, is it more menacing? There are a couple of very large bucks that stand a little too close and eye me a little too intensely, and I hope I never have to toreador around their thrusting antlers. I hear they get more aggressive as their antler felt sheds – still a ways off. Now, their antlers are still growing, completely dark brown felted, the points dull and rounded. Tree bark is not freshly tattered from their rubbing. That’s a ways off.

Lion Sign

Mountain lion sign is becoming more common for the first time in 6 years. Scat on the main road. Scent scrapes on the trail down to the creek. I am searching for paw prints. And there is nary a coyote calling on the farm. They fear the lions: you know…that old cats versus dogs thing and isn’t it funny that its always the dogs that are more frightened?

The lions don’t venture out into the open grasslands down by the highway. It is there, at the gate, that one can hear multiple packs of coyotes singing at each other across the wide open spaces. Quite the cacophony. Quite often.

Gala apples are taking on color, but they won’t be harvested until September

Three Calls

Three calls are catching my ear when walking about: bluebirds, turkey hens, and song sparrows. The lazuli buntings have stopped their incessant singing- they were the last fascinating regular calls. Bluebirds have fledged their young and are travelling in small flocks, constantly foraging around the farm fields. Their moist-sounding low-slurred descending single notes are unmistakable and carry far. Contrast those watery notes with the drier sounding clucking of female turkeys and now you are on your way to the symphony. The hen-clucking is also nearly always evident as they keep in constant touch with their chicks. The early batches of chicks seem to have gotten et, but a new batch is sauntering around in loose pursuit of their family – two hens and a tom. A percussive ‘clucK, cluck, cluck!’ calls them to stay close. The much more melodious song sparrows sing their high and complex lyrics, showing up these other two. Song sparrows are quite common around here and their songs emanate from every patch of weeds.

Wild Ride

All these farm critters and we along with them have been party to a wild weather ride this past week. There was intense, thick fog and cold. Days struggled to get much into the 60’s and one morning was 45F! Then there was WIND…branch breaking wind, gusts coming from all over, random, crazy. The wind brought some clouds and even a few splattery drops of rain. Then, today, there was HEAT. 91F was the high and it is still warm after dark. It was the first Hot Day of the spring. The untilled fields are starting to turn tawny and us grass allergy folks just want every grass to whither and stop poisoning the air.

Crickets and snakes love the heat. Every farm trail and road had a snake today: gopher snakes of all sizes and a few yellow-bellied racers. The snakes loved the heat. I accidently disturbed a nest of 8 freshly laid, leathery southern alligator lizard eggs. They were smartly placed at the base of a giant bull thistle – protection!

The night song cricket chorus isn’t that deep, but it is the first night with much cricket song. Summer’s coming soon…the warmth grows, dryness progresses. What will tomorrow bring?

Chill, Long Days

The days slowly emerge from fog. Many mornings we wake to misty fog close at hand. The silvery blue fog is backlit by the rising sun. It ever so slowly melts away, downhill, into Molino Creek canyon or towards the ocean as patches of pale blue sky emerge…around 10 or 11 in the morning. Grass is wet to shoe-soaking into the early afternoon. The days have never really warmed that much: it was 46F one recent morning at dawn.

The days get light early (5 a.m.) and stay light late (8:45 pm). Solstice is close. One is easily tempted to stay outside too late doing chores, then dinner is late and it is hard to get a full night’s sleep.

Molino Creek Farm – really, truly dry farmed!

Adolescent Plants

Two Dog Farm winter squash plants haven’t started sprawling, but they are starting to cover the ground. Molino Creek Farm’s tomatoes are getting weeded, but will we keep up with the weeds? Parts of the tomato field are covered with huge rosettes of lush daikon radish, the cover crop that went to seed early this year. Those hunker roots will be difficult to arrest from the soil and meanwhile they drink up the soil moisture which had been destined for tomatoes. In other areas, rows of tiny onion and pepper plants decorate the still evident and rich soil.

The Two Dog Farm crew was assiduously weeding their “Roadside” field this past week. So much work is made more inevitable by the recent weed-germinating rain. Mark Bartle weeded large areas with the tractor, leaving only close to the plants to finesse weed-free.

Two Dog Farm’s beautiful dry farmed winter squash

Tweetings

The remarkable thing about this past week has been The Birds. Three days running, Saturday – Monday, the entire region’s bird songs erupted in glory. Bonny Dooners reported it and it was obvious at Molino Creek Farm. The birds were singing like it was dawn all day long. Was it the amazing temperature, the moon cycle, or Spring: who knows? Here’s a list of the birds we can see every day, easily, around the farm: 2 ravens, 1 kestrel, 1 red tailed, 8 bluebirds, ash throated flycatcher, olive sided flycatcher, robin, dark eyed junco, goldfinch, pine siskin, purple martin, violet green, barn, & tree swallows, great horned owl, scrub and stellar jay, band tailed pigeon, lazuli bunting, song sparrow, black headed grosbeak, pileated woodpecker, turkey, California quail, spotted towhee, California towhee, Bewick’s wren and finches….probably more! And, they are all singing, all day long for unknown reasons. Pure joy?

Along the Boundaries

In 2010, Molino Creek Farm established a 1600-foot hedgerow along our main road’s northern fenceline. The NRCS funded the project, enabling us to put in a water line and to purchase plants and root cages. All of the plants burned to the ground in 2020 but are standing tall once again this year. Valley oaks from Felton acorns, Oregon oak from Annadel State Park acorns, hazelnut bushes & flowering currant from nearby stock, and many elderberries from the Work Ranch in southern Monterey County…and many more species are growing (soon to be intertwined?) in the long, linear row. Birds love it.

We have also been planting even more floriferous bushes along the orchard fenceline, and that fence needs more flowering shrubs. Anyone want to donate some beauties to fill that out? There is another 100 feet to plant along that area. We love the 4 types of rose bushes there, each with its own unique color, scent, and seasonality of bloom. There’s also a patch of spreading, rhizomatous ‘swamp sage’ with beguiling sky-blue flowers – we may uproot some and spread it around. Add in a mallow, buttonbush, and butterfly bush and you have most of it.

Several floriferous species at the ochard hedgerow

In The Orchard

The Community Orchard is making fruit! This will be the first harvest of avocados since 2020 and the Big Fire. It looks like we have 100+ pounds of bacon avocado fruit rapidly getting ripe right now. We are also hauling in bags of Valencia oranges for juice. The Satsuma mandarin branches have collapsed with the weight of ripe fruit. Meyer lemons are keeping a pace with the harvest. A few limes linger, and the Eureka and Lisbon lemons are just starting to ripen. This will be the first in many years with no prunes, missing due to unknown reasons. Apple trees have enlarging fruit at the same time they are still flowering: odd!

The Work

I already mentioned the weeding, but there is also the mowing. Alas, 2 of the 3 active mowers are down right now. The DR done drowned, having been left out in the freak rain storm and now probably flooded with water in places water should not be: it won’t keep running. The Kubota mysteriously developed a cripplingly bent steering rod. Sometimes, it seems like we need a full-time mechanic! And still… the BCS keeps running, and much more mowing is needed. Now to find the time to walk behind that machine, wrangling it around corners and on steep hillsides.

We are in the midst of fruit thinning for the apples, thousands of tiny fruit littering the ground and thousands more needing plucking. Some fruit rolls off with a twist, but the Fuji and some others are more stubborn, requiring clippers.

Wild LifeSlinking away from the house…a gray fox. Fox poop is everywhere, thank goodness. Coyote scat is also evident but they stopped singing a while back. Deer antlers are getting longer but still thick and velvety. No sign of mountain lion. Bobcat tracks are around but not that common. No skunks. No raccoons. No recent weasel sightings. There are (a few) bats

Wind and Cold

March…the warmest and driest in decades. Might May be the coolest? The heat’s gone to Europe and the East Coast where the poor folks roast and sweat. Will the cold, windy May place at more distance Summer’s wildfire? Nay, this topsy turvy human-driven climate change world gives us dizzying unpredictability. Just out of sight, out on the horizon, who knows what lurks? For now, this week, fog and drizzle rule.

Two layers of clouds roll downcoast: wispy white puffs rapidly curl and pout in the sky over the farm, and an unbroken wall of fog, dark gray and more oceanward is more ponderous and slow in its southward march. The wind’s sudden roar bends trees, flattens grasses. I glance towards the ridges far above our land where scantly needled (post fire) firs and redwoods move more subtly, boughs flexing, tree tops swaying. Birds dart low lest they be pitched downwind by the gusts. Tuesday this week was a day to be inside. Luckily, it lasted only one day. And still the chill remains. Ah- surprises! Rain! Tomorrow!! Maybe a half inch…

Feisty Animals

We sneeze loudly outside (the pollen is thick and swirling) and turkeys gobble back. These foggy days lengthen the bird chorus from dawn to midday. A pair of white throated swifts called their sharp tee-tee-tee-tee-tee-tee for a bit this morning – perhaps drinking at the pond and then playfully departing, wheeling through the swallow and martin flock. Antlers fat and velvety, the brood of deer is moving less furtively away. A two-foot-long Santa Cruz aquatic gartersnake spends mornings on the cement front porch, preparing to molt. One eye is blind: from shedding skin or from old age? This one is far from its aquatic home…old and big.

Sylvie caught a fox and bobcat standoff in the deep, dark night this past week. The sound recording is awesome and harsh. Those screaming and hissing critters were doing their level best to avoid each other’s’ teeth and claws through loud ‘diplomacy.’

Santa Cruz Aquatic Gartersnake basking on the front porch

Liquid Sunshine

We celebrate the fruit, which becomes more numerous and tastier each year. The pride of the orchard recently has been citrus. There are still some (very few) Persian limes. Lisbon lemons are ripening and a few Meyer “lemons” are ready every day or so. Two Valencia orange trees, one much larger than the other, bear juicy, thin skinned, sweet fruit: 3 of those will make an 8-ounce glass of liquid sunshine. Thanks goes to Chuck Overley for planting those and more thanks to the legions of Community Orchardists for nurturing them to bear such mighty crops.

The Wetting

We are officially on the irrigation routine, no turning back until the winter rains next October. Just in time, our second solar-powered well pump is on line for this dry season. The sun allows us to keep the irrigation going to meet the needs of hundreds of trees. 9 more irrigation lines need to be ‘renewed’ before the whole system is ready to roll. We have a total of just over 100 irrigation lines feeding the orchard and each one needs looking after (some- a lot) at the outset of the watering season. That’s a 20 hour job, and it sure is nice to be 90% of the way. But oh my gosh did portions of the orchard get dry before the water flowed! We hope the trees forgive us.

Jen and Ian donated a weed eating crew and look what happened: nice understory to Wickson Crabs!

Mow, Mow, Mow

The first mowing is almost done in the orchard and nowhere is the last mowing taking place. A donation from Jen and Ian brought forward a paid, Highly Skilled weedeating crew to make short work of nearly 25% of the orchard, a thick late Spring tangle on the steepest part of the North Orchard hill. That part hasn’t looked that nice for years! Uplifting!

The mowing machine had chopped and ground up head-high bell beans between the orchard tree rows, and then they resprouted and are flowering 2’ tall, again. Where they grew thickly, regrowth is deep green: the nitrogen those beans created is in evidence and we are thankful. Now to mow the resprouting things to keep the cycle going: second mowing, anyone? Some years it takes 4.

Aster chilensis – native perennial late spring aster!

Floral Report

Ah, where to start with the flowers? Our local version of the perennial bush lupine has its lavender flowered charm and is in peak blossom, especially evident roadside. Native summer aster has started flowering, spikes of many petaled stars. Poppies still color field and hillside, but it has become difficult to find a single annual sky lupine. The farewell to springs opened their magenta petals this past week, joining the late spring tarplants.

Most citrus blooms have past but apple flowers persist. Deep purple, pale blue and many shades in between – vetch, twining and matting, is having its flowering heyday.

Conservation Strategy for Coastal Prairie Conservation

Grey Hayes, PhD March 10, 2004 A white paper that was reviewed by many botanists and managers and presented during a workshop “Management and Restoration of California’s Coastal Prairie” at the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve.

Comments welcomed.

Hayes 2004 Coastal Prairie Conservation Strategy Download

Don’t Look Back! State Parks Forward?

Press is rolling unveiling what might seem like a ‘new’ initiative, obscuring and ‘moving on’ from some really UGLY past issues with California State Parks. But, hey- we all want to move on, keep moving forward…especially those with criminal records or histories of abuse.

Parks Forward: a brief history

The origin of the Parks Forward initiative was a crushing blow in 2012, an event that should make every Californian, especially those dedicated to natural areas access and conservation, doubt whether the California Department of Parks and Recreation can be trusted. Some may recall the closing of many State Parks supposedly due to budget shortfalls, which some of us recognized at the time as being a political ploy to pressure the California legislature into increasing Parks’ budget. Sure enough, ‘fiscal irregularities’ (as stated euphemistically in Parks’ subsequent report) were discovered, but only after the panicky scuttling of thousands of volunteers, non-profit organizations, and private donations to keep parks from closing down. Many nonprofits made good money from this fundraising boon, which also cemented their cache with the public.

The Bigger History

The State Parks corruption boondoggle in 2012 needs to be put into context with a larger history for a wholistic understanding of the situation. Since its inception, State Parks has been the recipient of lands purchased by private organizations. It has been typical that ‘conservation’ organizations use private donor funds to purchase properties while lobbying for public bond initiatives earmarked in such a way that they profit by subsequently selling those properties to the State. This process violates all sorts of legal and moral codes such as illicit 501(c)3 lobbying, private organizations setting State priorities, adding land to an agency already unable to manage the lands it holds, etc. Conservationists recognize that purchasing and ‘setting aside’ land for ‘protection’ is the relatively easy and affordable first step- the real work is sustaining species on those lands in perpetuity. For a while, recognition of these ‘irregularities’ put a halt to adding more land to the State Parks system.

Santa Cruz County Parks History

Much of that ‘bigger’ history is reflected in what has been occurring in Santa Cruz County where a disproportionate percentage of land is owned by State Parks. State Parks General Planning processes were successfully challenged for Castle Rock State Park, Nisene Marks State Park, and the Gray Whale Ranch addition to Wilder Ranch State Park. In each instance, private organizations were instrumental in transferring land to State Parks while State Parks was unable to either plan for or manage those properties in alignment with California law. And yet, each park welcomes visitors, pouring funding into private businesses at the expense of biodiversity protection and visitor experience. Henry Cowell State Park and the State Park beaches at Cotoni Coast Dairies were opened and remain highly used without any planning, whatsoever. The General Plan for Wilder Ranch State Park, a mecca for mountain bikers, does not allow mountain biking and private recreational businesses openly operate mountain biking concessions. Yet, Parks rangers have been ordered not to enforce prohibitions against either mountain bikers or their unpermitted concessions.

The ‘New’ Parks Forward Initiative

Surrounding Earth Day 2026, there has been much press about the Parks Forward initiative. One might even think it was ‘new.’ More new parks were added to the network of State Parks and some parcels were added to expand certain existing State Parks. In some cases, the press releases note property was ‘donated’ and in other cases, the situation is far opaquer. Nowhere in the press releases is there any mention of species conservation- it is all coached in ‘more access.’ Both access and conservation are expensive to do correctly, are not being done correctly in any State Park currently, and are conflicting uses with vast tradeoffs that go unanalyzed by Parks’ mandated General Plans and concomitant ‘carrying capacity analysis.’

Symptoms Make Sense

This new roll out of “Parks Forward” is quite predictable given public amnesia, popular myths, and the level of oversight from the Parks Forward Commission. Apparently, the public has forgotten about the origins of the Parks Forward initiative: if citizens remembered, there would be some acknowledgement in the many press releases. Overriding the grave concerns of the past is a fervor for more public access to natural areas. The myth, echoed by everyone touching this new version of the Parks Forward initiative, is that ‘more people accessing more natural areas is good for conservation.’ This balderdash flies in the face of science and common sense. The logical conclusion of this thinking is that if every human accessed every last piece of nature then every species would be conserved…the opposite is true. But, conservation organizations want to make money from donors and State politicians want to look successful, so enter the echo chamber of the deeply mistaken myth, which is doing permanent damage to the potential for wildlife conservation in California.

It is amazing to me that there is a Parks Forward Commission with smart people allowing such misguided endeavors to continue within State Parks. Perhaps they, too, accept the mythology. The symptoms of their complicity were present many years back when the Commission swallowed the poison of the progress report in year 2 of their formation. That report includes ‘four strategic focus areas’ with no metrics for success and two incredibly tiny ‘natural and cultural pilot efforts underway,’ which likewise have no metrics for conservation success. The apparent acceptability of these puerile efforts to the Commission point to an inability of the Commission to provide substantive oversight and input into the broken State Parks system.

Ask, Please

With the unveiling of new parks and new land ‘protections,’ we must ask: is there any additional funding for long term stewardship for biodiversity conservation, or are these new areas merely to continue the silent death of species to the overwhelmingly poorly managed public access/private inurement money machine?

Has California State Parks apologized to the People for the lies and manipulation it promulgated in 2012? Does that apology include details of what they will do to change this sordid past? Can we identify specific individuals who were responsible for those actions? Is there new management? Or, is this situation much like that exposed by the Epstein situation, where the abusers are still in charge? Abusers – is that too much to say? Well, in this case the victims do not have voices and will never speak out…the wildlife will simply go away while the abusers will vocally claim victory with their empty promises of conservation alongside public recreation and access to natural areas.

A Babyness of Plants

The highlight of the week has been PLANTING. Two Dog Farm has a huge patch of peppers taking root in beautifully prepared beds with drip tape efficiently irrigating the tiny baby seedlings into their new life in the real world: what promise! Molino Creek Farm has a patch of newly planted really, truly dry farmed tomatoes thanks to a close collaboration with the Two Dog Farm’s generous Bartle couple. Judy also had some help planting row upon row of onions this past week. And, those Bartles planted their winter squash seeds, the beginning of the annual unfolding of the Miracle where something appears (prolifically!) where nothing was, without any added water. There’s also Sylvie’s endeavors in some beautiful big patches…dry farmed beans, anyone? What experiments will this expert plant person reveal to us this year?

Hundreds and hundreds of new plants are gracing the fields of our most magnificent farm. Tiny green dots in a sea of freshly tilled rich brown soil. What a sight!

Each of these flowers will probably make a fruit!

Anti-Apple-Babies

On the other hand, there is the great procession against too many apples. So nice to have many hands’ help snipping or twisting off the too, too many baby apples. We are thinning the fruit. This year, it is time to hone our thinning skill, keeping more fruit on the apple varieties that would otherwise make “Whole Meal Apples” – as with Mutsu or Braeburn. With some apple types, you’d need a cart to carry a fruit to lunch if they were ‘properly thinned,’ and no one would enjoy a ‘lunchbox apple’ without leaving more apples per stem. The ground is getting littered by hundreds of marble-sized apple kids. Up on the stems: one apple per cluster where there used to be 5+. Long each bough: one apple every 4 – 6 inches! Those are our goals: high hopes!

And….here’s what a cluster of flowers turns into- a mess of fruit!

Thinned apples look like this- nicely spaced, and not squinched into a clusters

More Cool Weather

This past week has been another ‘the sun sure feels nice’ kind of weather. It has been creeping up to maybe a low 70F hour or two with nights in the low 50s. Foggy mornings, mostly. When the fog clears, the air feels a bit oddly dry. Perhaps the cold soil condenses out what moisture was in the air. “They” say it might get warm this coming weekend.

Baby Trees

Believe it or not, we are still rejuvenating our orchard…through grafting! The 2020 Fire still is echoing- the trees that inferno fried still have promise. Sylvie has taken to grafting desireables onto the few remaining post-fire rootsuckers. Here and there you encounter her artistry- grafting tape at the base of a rapidly sprouting scion. One graft from last year, a persimmon right inside the main gate to the apple orchard, is especially luscious with its bright green, glossy, big leaves. The many, many cherry trees Drake grafted onto rootsprouts from fire kill, in 2021, right after the fire, are getting to look more like adult trees than babies.

In 2025, Sylvie Childress grafted this beautiful persimmon onto some rootstock that had turned into a tree post 2020 Fire

Native Grass Seed

Judy, Sylvie, and I harvested a few pounds of native grass seeds recently. Hanks of seed slowly cure and dry in paper grocery bags warmed by midday sun. We have tens of thousands of California bromegrass seeds, the dominant grass on the Farm which has been getting ripe lately. This is restoration material. The farm has already been transformed in many places from thistles and other weeds to native grass swards. We’ll do more of that as we turn brush fields into prairie just by tossing seeds from one place to the next. If there is a prescribed fire this year, this pile o’ seeds will do just fine.

Upside Down Spring

In our Mediterranean Spring, it is supposed to stop raining and the flowers bloom. This year, it stopped raining, the flowers blossomed and then it started raining again. Purple needlegrass has already bolted and set seed. Sky lupines and poppy are more pod than bloom. It is downright gushy out there: m-u-d spells mud. Spring mud. This late rain makes it very unlikely that wildfire will plague us this year, at least close by. Official reports from the surroundings put us at ‘normal’ rainfall with this past storm. How we got to that is quite a story: rain in November then none for most of December then a bit more into the New Year, then a fairly hot January…a few storms to wet things again through February and then No Rain March (and hot!) and then here comes all this rain in April. Topsy Turvey.

Potentially, this is a Valencia orange tree- not quite ripe, yet.

Oranges

We have Washington, Cara-Cara, Robertson, and Lane Late navel oranges as well as one unknown navel type and a tree full of what look like Valencia oranges. We should mention the bitter orange, Seville?, tree that bears quite a few fruit each year. We have enjoyed the fruit from the two 7-year old Cara-Cara so much that we planted six more last year, and we must wait a long while until we get lots of those fruit. Cara-Cara oranges are red from the same compound that makes tomatoes red, Lycopene, so it makes sense that we grow lots of them on this here tomato farm.

It takes a bunch of work to establish citrus trees; they aren’t happy with weed competition, so we have to keep them weeded frequently…like 4 times a year, for their first 3+ years. This is orange season: the fruit has been hanging for a year and is starting to get sweet. The various Mandarin varieties have a lead on them, so we haven’t been wanting for sweet citrus for a bit.

The Deer would love to eat this cabbage seedling, but maybe they won’t

Deer Report

We chatted about The Deer a bit this past week. Mark Jones reports frequently seeing more than 20 deer. By flashlight, the many pairs of glowing deer eyes are a bit surprising. One can glimpse grazing deer whenever one wants. They scamper or saunter about- normally they are quite shy and run, but not always. We should be pleased for the grazing of the plants, which would otherwise be fuel for summer fires, but some people grumble about all the deer: “landscaping” damage is probably the foremost complaint. With all the deer, one would expect some happy mountain lions, but alas the sign of the cougars is rare, still.

The varied habitats at Molino Creek Farm provide for great bird diversity

Bird News

This past week brought yet more neo-tropical migratory songbirds. A lazuli bunting is high-squeaking right through midday. Black headed grosbeak song is also wonderous. The background noise of bicolor blackbirds, song sparrows, and golden crowned sparrows is ubiquitous. One is occasionally startled by the vast rush of a startled quail covey. Their cousins of the sky, band tailed pigeons, are quite active flapping from walnut tree to walnut tree. Today’s discovery was a female turkey clucking quite loudly for who-knows-what reason. The turkey flock seems to have dwindled to one hen, a young tom, and an older, dominant tom. Just 3 turkeys – maybe the other hens are sitting on nests or perhaps they were eaten…piles of feathers were here and there the last few weeks and a coyote was close by.

Squirrels

We used to have Western Gray Squirrel, but now we only have ground squirrels. The gray squirrels were before the fire – they supposedly are fond of truffles, so maybe that food source changed. We have a local gray squirrel type without a common name, Sciurus griseus ssp. nigripes, which only occurs along the coast between here and San Luis Obispo. I hope they come back!

The latest on our ground squirrels: have you ever looked carefully at their color patterns? They have the most amazing white eye liner, making their eyes oh-so cute! Their back fur also has cute, cute dots. Their hands are quite agile- today I watched one grab grass stalks so it could get at the seeds, which otherwise were above its head. This squirrel was feasting on ripgut brome seeds, a bad weed with heavy weight seeds that are quite rough to touch – good, brave squirrel with strong seed-eating teeth!

Mechanical Chewing

Speaking of tearing things apart – we are seeing more of Mr. Matthew Todd’s expertise with his brush mastication machine. Huge thistle and French broom patches are being chewed up into tiny pieces as we attempt to reclaim coastal prairie patches collaboratively across property boundaries with our neighbors managing the San Vicente Redwoods property. This will be Part 2 of the recipe to try to get rid of the broom: last Fall was Part 1, then there will be this Fall to hit it again…and the next 2 Falls, too, before we expect to see a reduction in this weed.

A Cotoni Coast Dairies Update

It has been a while since I gave an update on Cotoni Coast Dairies, but I have previously written much about that piece of (unfortunately) federally-owned ‘conservation’ land on Santa Cruz County’s North Coast. In August 2025, BLM staffer Zachary Ormsby had a chance to address the public about the parkland. Here, I present additional perspectives including some more recent developments.

This and the cover image compliments of Steven DeCinzo

Ch-ch-ch- Changes!

In 2025, as many of us had predicted, the Federal government made yet another of its radical political shifts, affecting the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which oversees Cotoni Coast Dairies. Just before that transition, California’s BLM director changed. Karen Mouritsen, a Trump appointee who had lasted most of the 4 years of the Biden Administration, had been pressing to maximize public access and denying any funding to take care of the land’s pressing invasive species, wildfire, and erosion issues. Then, in 2024, Joseph Stout was appointed head of the California BLM; Joe had previously been deputy director of BLM but mysteriously left for most of Karen Mouritsen’s term. At the start of their term, the Trump Administration fired the national head of BLM and, as of March 1, 2026, has yet to replace them. Nevertheless, the leaderless BLM has turned its already understaffed offices to resource extraction rather than conservation. The staff in our BLM region now spend much of their time advertising, negotiating, and monitoring leases to extract oil. Luckily, the nonprofit conservation organization Trust for Public Land, which signed the land over to BLM, restricted the property deed, prohibiting oil extraction.

The Public loves to wonder what “Supplementary Rules” might mean – very helpful! The unspecified acronyms are an 8th grade writing class-level error, too.

More rules posted for Cotoni Coast Dairies. The question is: any enforcement? Also, ‘knowingly…disturbing wildlife?’ Any visitation to a natural area disturbs wildlife, but since that fact isn’t on the signs, everyone can proclaim ignorance…so they don’t “know.” “I didn’t know!” is the universal excuse.

Public Access

Public access is a little less extractive to open space than pumping oil out of the ground, and usually less toxic. Visitor use of natural areas has long been recognized as one of the top threats to species, globally. Nevertheless, at Cotoni Coast Dairies, an area set aside primarily for conservation, BLM (in close partnership with mountain biking sports advocates) has begun development of an extensive trail network through globally significant threatened habitats, disrupting and possibly displacing endangered wildlife species. Sole source government contracts paid these mountain bikers hundreds of thousands of dollars to organize volunteers in transforming a little-known virgin wildland into a recreational park. The nine miles of new trails emanate from a 90-car parking lot replete with two restrooms and a few interpretive signs. Despite promises to the contrary, the restrooms are often locked, even when there are lots of visitors filling the parking lot.

“Never feed fish” and other randomly ‘useful’ information, neglecting to mention the only issue identified by BLM as a threat of public visitation: the spread of invasive pathogens that can kill plants and wildlife. BLM’s management plan explicitly noted that signage would be their only solution to such a serious threat: we see none of that.

The interpretive signs have minimal interpretation of nature but lots of rules. If you don’t speak English, you better have a smart phone (and reception!) if you want to translate the signs, which don’t present even Spanish language translations. One of the rules is to stay on the marked trails, but there are well worn and often-used roads that aren’t labeled for access but frequently used by mountain bikers. The trails are too narrow and the sides too steep to accommodate mountain bikers comfortably passing hikers. During a recent visit, I experienced a mountain biker who was furious about being interrupted from bombing down the trail…there was nowhere to get off the trail– after a wave of explicatives, red faced and loud, the biker stumbled past me, his embarrassed girlfriend trailing. But, pedestrians far outnumber the barnstorming bikers who are no doubt made all the more angry because their volunteer work hasn’t panned out for their unimpeded high-speed endorphin-laden ‘rad times.’ Such glowering is occasionally interrupted by the too-frequent trailside plastic tacky signs profusely gushing about the generosity of mountain biking volunteers for everything the visitor might experience.

Cattle grazing COULD be an essential means of land management, but is it?

“Innovative” Cattle Grazing

One of the mandates for BLM at Cotoni Coast Dairies was changing the historic livestock regimes to something more innovative and natural resource protection oriented. Up went super expensive high-tech antennae. Cattle were fitted with electronic shock collars designed to train them into grazing within ‘invisible fences.’ Innovative, indeed- especially if there was a grazing PLAN (there isn’t)! As of Spring 2026, this technology remains innovative in one way only: convincing the public that something innovative is happening with the livestock program: otherwise, no one has turned on the switches to make the system active. However, innovative livestock management isn’t the only thing lying dormant on the landscape…

Science-Based Land Management

At the apex of conservation lands are National Monuments, which (logically!) must publish science strategies to support their (also mandated) Management Plans. Being one of many units of the California Coastal National Monument, Cotoni Coast Dairies required BLM to publish a “science strategy;” this was completed in April 2026 with the help of experts at the US Geologic Survey, a decade and two years after BLM acquired the property…and long after the agency made seemingly permanent decisions about recreational access.

Along with such science-based strategies, BLM is required to update its California Special Status Animal Species list every 5 years. The last one was published in 2019 and the most recent update was due in 2024. Where is it? Not on their website. Have they, as required, worked with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to collaboratively develop that updated list? Who knows? (a message back from CA BLM says that they have not updated the wildlife list as of March 2026) One thing of interest…the mountain lions on the Central Coast have recently been listed as Endangered by the State of California. As such, pumas should receive priority protection by BLM at Cotoni Coast Dairies, applying Dr. Wilmers’ (UCSC) research findings indicating the importance of protecting large areas from any human visitation whatsoever and planning for wide, forested movement corridors. The emphasis here is on forested areas, which on Cotoni Coast Dairies are being threatened by French broom invasion.

Prize winning French Broom patches qualify BLM for awards from regime change seeking eco-terrorists

Broom Farming

The BLM at Cotoni Coast Dairies has been officially recognized for their expertise in French broom farming by the Invasive Species Agricultural Association (ISAA). President Rex Fowler, in awarding the distinguished prize noted, “BLM has exceeded expectations both in fostering the health of, and increasing the spread of, the dreaded and most pernicious invasive species French Broom. We look forward to marveling at extensive fields of this excellently invasive pest for generations to come.”

Hillsides of once diverse prairies, stands of majestic coast live oaks, and ridgelines of coastal scrub and maritime chaparral are being overrun by monocultures of French broom at Cotoni Coast Dairies. With a seedbank that lasts 40+ years, the scope of any eventual control program is expanding rapidly. BLM managers’ unsubstantiated smokescreen for corrupt, self-serving sole-source contracts with mountain bikers for spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on visitor use access was the proclamation that ‘there shall be no land management until visitors are flooding the park.’ Well folks- what now? Visitors are flooding the park! Now we hear ‘we must drill baby drill!’

The job ain’t finished until the paperwork is done! Cartoon compliments of S. DeCinzo; Restrooms at Cotoni Coast Dairies episodically open nowadays

What Next?

There is an opportunity in the current Administration to solve this mess. What?! How so?? The Federal government has been murmuring about dumping federal property: why not give it back? Back to who? How about the Amah Mutsun? California’s land back movement is gaining momentum. Let’s give the land back to the tribal people! Why not?