The truth is, I haven’t been out much on the land lately. Without field observations, writing a stewardship blog can be challenging. Nonetheless, there’s always something to talk about when it comes to the natural world.

Today, I’m thinking back to August of last year when I read an article in The Atlantic magazine about the app called Nextdoor. If you’ve used Nextdoor, you need to read this humorous article.  
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A couple of things struck me: First was the writer’s conclusion that despite the political polarization in the United States today, people are mostly the same everywhere, be they Democrat, Republican or otherwise. Wherever you go, people are talking about who left the bag of dog poop by the edge of the trail and why, what was the strange noise in the neighborhood last night, or whether anyone can recommend a good plumber. It’s, somehow, reassuring. 

​If you’ve been following this blog, many of the talents and projects of our stewardship crew and On the Land staff are quite apparent. A partial list of projects would include public access, fish surveys, historic buildings and artifacts, wetlands restoration, kayak tours, summer camps, fire recovery, fire ecology, fences, local history, wildlife corridors, grazing, geology, road and culvert repair, bridge work (non-dental), mapping, botany, red-legged frogs and mountain lions. Not to mention writing and photography.
 
They work with ranchers, engineers, builders, ecologists, neighbors, botanists, conservation partners, politicians, attorneys, county planners, housecleaners, farmers, funders and regulators.
 
It probably looks like a dream job, doesn’t it? Aside from the ticks, poison oak, cold, wet, heat, the occasional querulous neighbor, tight deadlines, difficult decisions, limited funding and the self-driving ambitions that create two-year work plans to be completed in 12 months.

Since 2008, Sonoma Land Trust has been restoring the riparian corridor — the land along streams — of Tolay Creek. The stream was unraveling because of loss of vegetation and bank erosion. This process was set in motion because the main creek channel was dropping lower, which we call incising. When this happens, the stream can’t flood as easily and the water’s energy scours the channel and eats away at the streambank. That causes significant erosion and the creek takes all that dirt downstream. It also strips the vegetation of the streambank, which makes the banks more susceptible to erosion, both from the creek, but also from the grazing cattle who run up and down the creek banks to get from one side to the other.