Clean slate

 

 A picture Michael Stoyka

                   took of our house before we moved in.

                               

For each of the three homes Dwight and I have owned I have had the vision of native habitat restoration for the land. Each has been increasingly more difficult to begin the native habitat restoration. With our present home in Cotati the past few months have been to get rid of what we do not want on the land: the icky redwood mulch everywhere, the hot tub then the cement beneath the hot tub and the trees and shrubs. The latter was just completed over the weekend. A clean slate is ready for the soil regeneration followed by native habitat restoration once the rains arrive.

                                                             Present day view of the front 

All of the people walking by having been doing a double take. I am imaging many are saying to each other "what are the people living here now thinking?" The bushes cut down along the front of the property from the size of their trunks must have been planted soon after the house was built in the early 1950's. So all who have lived in this neighborhood long before we arrived have never really seen the front of the house. Jim, who walks his dog Julie past our house several times a day, said just that to me Saturday afternoon when I was out getting our mail.

The West side
of the house looking
towards the shed in the background

The East side of the backyard
with the green slate patio

The backyard looking East
The cardboard boxes ready for
the massive mulching project
are evident on the right of the above picture.
To the left of the swing is the
severely pruned Santa Rosa plum
tree that hopefully will now
grow to more bushy
instead of tall and "leggy".

I have now have a pile of wood chips in the front to begin the sheet mulching project. The owner of the company that cut down the trees and shrubs and ground the roots of the shrubs, bushes and trees in the front yard says he will deliver me more wood chips when I am ready. I am so excited to begin the soil regeneration process! The soil here is in dire need of regeneration.

As I mention above planting all the carefully chosen native trees, shrubs and perennials will not begin until the rains come . . . and hopefully we will get some rain in late Fall or early Winter. The natives that thrive here put their roots down in the Winter so that they can survive the usual hot and dry Summer and Fall. I know I will need to water the first year but after that the plants will flourish. I am optimistic that the climate catastrophe will not interfere with this age old practice of growing natives here in Northern California.

During this fire season now underway in the whole of the Western United States may we dissipate our anxiety and foreboding with a good belly