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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?

“Bikers yield to hikers” means ____ ? We ALMOST have BLM admitting that there is such a thing as user conflict. Interestingly, this part of the sign has nothing to do with the “Leave No Trace” title of that part of the sign. Well done!

Should read “Where Conservation Conflicts with Recreation” but we must bear with the Federal Government’s notorious Orwellian doublespeak here in Santa Cruz County. Praise Be!

“Onshore Units” should translate well and be easily understood by the many cultures visiting Cotoni-Coast Dairies. You want someone to speak with regarding these mostly ridiculous signs? Luckily, there are 2 organizations claiming credit.

Large Sideways Rain

Sideways rain washed the windows clean this past week. Well, sometimes it blew the screens clean, depositing the early season dust and pollen onto the adjoining windows. For a few days, trees and shrubs did their crazy wind dances, nodding and bowing and whipping and shaking. It was a sporadically blustery and showery affair, mainly. Towards the end of the storm, there was sunshine in between the gales and rain and…rainbows! So happy to get a bit more rain. It seems to have (re)wet the soil, which had dried two feet down. A big sigh of relief, giving us more time to get the orchard irrigation up and running again without the trees wilting (like last year!).

And, it’s been cool, again. A few nights in the mid-forties. The woodstoves were at work keeping our dwellings warm.

Fabulously Flowing Bell Beans – building soil and providing pollinators happiness

Active Critters

The first squirrel started squeaking this past week, joining the crickets and birds with the high notes. Western bluebirds sure are bright and particularly vocal. Song sparrows are also very song-y. I saw one picking seeds off of grasses in a fallow field – it was very shy and jumpy-nervous. There are innumerable robins posted across the farm. Maw and Caw chased two interloping ravens recently: that was a noisy air battle – noisy, but not long lasting. Perhaps they were just saying ‘hello!’ In the past, there has been less aggressive interactions, which I assumed was one of the offspring bringing a mate back ‘home’ to meet the parents. This was different.

Fox and bobcat have been frequently sighted by various neighbors. One very young bobcat is wandering the road just onto our property at the top.

Greenhouse

The Two Dog Farm greenhouse is vibrantly full of baby plants. There are large tomatoes looking ready for the ground as well as lots of other things. It is the drum roll to planting time.

Orchards

Each Spring presents a mandatory 40 hours of mowing, but the run up is quite beautiful. The artistry of cover crops is overwhelming: lush, flower-filled stalks of bell beans are more than 5 feet tall where they are still growing. Some areas are already mowed, stubs of bell beans sticking up, crunchy-green still. Between those stubs, mushy ground up plants, sometimes stinky-rot, black slime. Patches of mown radish grounds present a particularly unseemly brassica stench. Between mowing sessions, I wander into the uncut cover crop, appreciating the ranks of lush flowers, the fleshy leaves, and the impressively thick shoots.

Fire!

The last bit of backyard burn season is upon us and folks around the farm have been burning accumulated biomass in piles. Alligator lizards snake away from the stacks of branches that we move one-at-a-time into an adjoining flaming pile. Burning in the rain is particularly exhilarating…if you can get the piles started. Bright poppy orange flames counter the graying dusk. The following morning presents an ash pile with satisfyingly little left unburned.

Cherry Blossom Special

It is stupendous and so very fleeting – a grove of cherry trees in bloom. Buds swell quickly, then bare branches soon festooned with pure white petals unfurling. Almost immediately the flowers fade, carried on the breeze, carpeting the ground. Just as rapidly, leaves emerge, grow, and fill the canopies of the trees: fresh, thickly green and lush. New shoots are next, poking into unoccupied voids to capture sun and feed the juicy dark red fruit.

Watering

Cherry Hill, like all of the orchard areas, needs water, NOW…a month early. The microsprinklers and irrigation tubing need uncovering, tested for leaks, pressurized and flushed….2 sprinkers for each of 400 trees, a mile of tubing, hundreds of feet of hard plastic pipe and so many risers and valves. Over the winter mice and gophers have chewed holes, errant mowers or hoes have compromised irrigation: all needs fixing and fast for the thirst of the trees. Marty and Mike chipped in and covered the largest patch of orchard, and I follow to the next places – only 4 more hours to go until irrigation is wetting the soil in all orchard areas! The sun is shining…the pumps are pumping…all is wonderfully waterish well.

Winter Crops

Mostly, the fields are making ‘green manure.’ Cover crops are nearly all in full bloom, making for beautiful color. Head-high yellow mustard is the eye candy from Molino Creek Farm – with an understory of daikon radish: mow that stuff and the roughly chopped remains smells very rich (!) (rank?) as it rots. It is better left tall and flower-filled and habitat for redwing blackbirds a’plenty. In the orchard, the wet, thick stalks of bell beans are festooned densely with flowers, leaves wilting as the soil dries. Oats and vetch are lagging portions of the cover crop: flowers still to come, they are the understory or sometimes the overstory when in stunted, poor-soiled parts of fields.

Tall mustard and Daikon radish – big cover crops inviting nesting birds

Coyote, Turkey, and Quail – Oh My!

Coyotes have gone quiet – a sure sign that lions are near! Wild dog turds are commonplace along trails – that’s how we know they are here. But, they are tip-toeing, nose to the wind, sniffing the big kitties, trying to keep one step ahead. Turkeys – way less bashful. Two toms have been frequently flashing their huge tails, puffed up, dragging their dirt-drawing wings, drumming. Their fleshy head parts are very impressively flashing purples, blue, and crimson. Hens are unimpressed. All are pecking at grass stalks, picking off the first seeds. They take to air easily, flying into the woods, across fencelines. I counted 140 quail in one covey, crowded along a freshly mown road. The big group or smaller all seem particularly skittish right now- what’s up? This ground created lots of quail last year – we’ll see how this year’s eggs hatch. They aren’t paired up yet, so chicks are a long ways off. I saw a finch feeding a baby today, though- early? odd!

Human Stuff

The diggers found the pipe break. Mowers are mowing. Grape growers are fencing. The soil is getting ‘worked up.’ We are trying to discern why one would run a trencher so crookedly, but they did. Every 10 or so feet: an elongate hole was excavated until the pipe was encountered. Then off in the approximate direction for the next hole. From the water pressure, we knew the pipe broke at around 6’ elevation above the well head, and Sylvie’s measurement put that up near the fence/road…but had to trace the pipe to that point and then, YES, that’s where the pipe burst. We’re in business again- the well is pumping to the tanks once again and all is happiness and satisfaction.

With the long days, drizzle, and mucho sun, things need mowing. Mowers are stretched. Already two of the six mowers are down. Thanks to the generous gifts last year, the Community Orchard has its very own mower and it is working quite well: there are 20 hours of mowing to do in the orchard in the next few weeks! Chipping away by the day.

The solution to elusive in-fence deer: build an interior fence! Two Dog is putting a fence within a fence – fencing their vineyard. Beautifully aligned, white-tipped T posts stand in long lines awaiting the fencing.

Speaking of Two Dog Farm – the master tractor operator Mark Bartle is busy making the soil luscious. The rough discing has been followed by more soil work so the fields are looking dark brown and fluffy. The color and the fresh tilled soil smell is something to behold!

Earthstar Fungus popped up thickly under an oak

Wildflowers

Away from the tilled or cover-cropped fields, the native wildflowers are bursting forth. The poppies are in full swing- huge orange patches brighten the slopes, especially in the area that the Central Coast Prescribed Burn Association burned in Fall 2024. Looking more closely at those poppy patches, you see blue: sky lupines are also in full bloom: the mix of orange and blue is the mix we get for the best displays. In the woods, the checkerlilies are bobbing their speckled blossoms and the dense 12’ tall ceanothus is making the Whole World smell of native lilac. It is peak spring come a month early.

Naming and Renaming

Ecologists often note that place names reflect things that have been destroyed. Elk Grove, California has neither elk nor groves. The Elkhorn Slough likewise is missing its elk. Grizzly Island in the Delta doesn’t have grizzly bears anymore. Oakland is no longer a place full of oaks, and you’d be hard pressed to find that many oaks in Thousand Oaks. Clear Lake is turbid. Forestville is distinctly unforested. The fine pools for which Los Banos Creek received its name have been replaced by a huge reservoir, which is sometimes unswimmable due to dangerous algal blooms. Examples go on and on. All of these names are recent, all colonist names.

Indigenous Names

Somewhere along the way humans saw fit to keep the indigenous names of places. Soquel is the original people’s name meaning ‘rushing waters’ – Soquel Creek still rushes and that seems a fine name, still. The indigenous name “Aptos” could have meant people, which works still, or ‘meeting of two streams’ which is also true. It might be a good start to begin revitalizing the indigenous names of places.

Changing Back

Junipero Serra Peak is being changed back to Pimkolam a shortened version of “pimkoia’m, ti’at aula” the indigenous name for an unknown plant that grows there. Prior to 1950, it was known as Santa Lucia Peak. Near San Juan Bautista (a terrible name), an important site to local native peoples is now protected and is known by its original name, Juristac.

Other Changes

Without explanation, the current administration is making some seemingly sinister changes to place names. For instance, the highest peak in the USA is appropriately named by indigenous people ‘Denali’ but the President wants to change it to Mount McKinley. That same someone with power recently also decided to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America; I say let’s at least add an ‘s’ to that – the Gulf of the Americas would at least help us to realize that South and Central Americans are Americans, too. If it is becoming more acceptable to change place names, I say let’s go for it- there are lots of other changes and perhaps the next administration can force through a bunch in its first 100 days.

More Changes Needed

I have a particular problem with some place names imposed on locations and wish them changed. Far too many places have the name ‘devil’ in them. Devil’s Gate in Eastern California is one such instance. There are many more. Then there are legions of places named after people who barely deserved to have anywhere named for them. Scotts Valley, for instance: why do we care so much for Hiram Daniel Scott to have his name affixed to the town, still? And, does the town really deserve to be called a ‘valley’ anymore? Davenport, (for ‘Captain John Davenport’ the whaler) for that matter, deserves another name.

And then there are the religious references, so out of date. Santa Cruz makes little sense, anymore, if it ever did. And all those saints, San Lorenzo, San Luis, San Jose, San Francisco – so much potential for renaming there!

Let’s Ask The People

As we thankfully have momentum for recognizing the lands around us as unceded territory of various other peoples, wouldn’t it feel good to begin replacing the colonist imposed names of places with the names given those places by the people who lived there for thousands of years? If there are places without such names, why wouldn’t those representing the tribes play a central role in giving those places appropriate names? Let’s learn together the renaming that needs to take place – it will help bring us together and help more people respect and look anew at the land around us.

-this post originally published in the wonderful BrattonOnline blog featuring smart commentary and analysis by the Monterey Bay Area’s most insightful journalists.