by Corby Hines
It had been awhile since I’d last waited with friends for a big yellow bus to arrive, but that’s just what Omar, Ezekiel and I found ourselves doing a few weeks ago on a bright summer morning on the first day of Bay Camp. Parents would soon be arriving at the El Verano School to check in with us and drop off their kids for the day. We checked our list again: 16 kids, ages 6−13. Some didn’t know how to ride a bike; most had never been in a kayak before. This was Sonoma Land Trust’s first foray into running a day camp for kids and we hoped that we had thought everything through. The bus would show up any minute to take us to Sears Point, where for the next five days, these kids would make new friends, explore the tidal marsh, birdwatch, play games, go on scavenger hunts, catch lizards, create art, make forts, ride bikes along the Bay Trail and learn how to kayak on open water.
Hey Omar, here comes the bus! 
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by Julian Meisler Lakeville Highway is prone to accidents and every year we see at least one vehicle come through the fence at our Sears Point property. In 2016, one section of fence was hit three times! So far this year, we’ve had only one accident, but the damage was significant.
 by Kyle PinjuvFog: Some embrace the cool reprieve it offers from hot summer temperatures. Some feel betrayed by its presence as they approach the beach in shorts and a tank-top with summery intent only to be forced to spend the day wrapped in a towel shivering in a cloud. Fog limits your vision and inspires the creative mind. It reduces contrast during movement, changing our perception of reality and literally causing us to move differently through space. It moves border-free without discrimination over land and sea. We cannot own it or control it. The fog is the San Francisco Bay Area’s breath. It is the gift that allows our iconic redwood forests to flourish. It is itself a coastal icon.
by Crystal SimonsThe days are longer and lighter now that summertime has come to Sonoma County. It’s officially “field season” — the time of year when stewardship staff pull on work boots and set an automatic email reply that reads something like: “Thank you for your email. I’m out of the office for the next two days conducting field work. For immediate needs, please contact so and so...” Translated, what the auto-reply really means is: “Thanks for emailing me, but I’m out on a property getting muddy, identifying flowers, saving fish, mounting wildlife cameras, avoiding poison oak, eating soggy peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, running out of sunscreen, bonding with like-minded environmentalists, landowners and schoolchildren, clearing roads, documenting stream conditions, saving land … and loving every second of it. Don’t expect a response for at least a couple of days because I’m blissed out on the fact that my job takes me outside and I’m probably not going to look at the computer today.”  |