Left Coast Cowboys

Yes, we are doing our part here on the Sonoma home front. Our enemy is insidious, all but invisible and skilled in taking advantage of our own resources to further his evil plans. Of course, I’m talking about non-Native plant invaders who are encroaching on our little piece of Sonoma paradise. But our defenses are marshalled. At the risk of a pun, I’ll add that we have a Plan. Yes, we are doing our share.

For those of you who have shown up a bit late, let me give you the lay of the land, as it were. When we purchased this land, it had been virtually undeveloped — except maybe for migrating Miwok Indians who used our seasonal creek as a highway (we’ve found their acorn grinding stones and arrowheads.) Some rusty barbed wire at the edge of the property showed that someone at some time pastured some cattle out here. But elderly locals all tell us this area was always “the back of beyond”. Younger Sonoma residents say this was where they came to drink, smoke pot and make out. The result is a forty acre patch of Sonoma that is almost entirely undisturbed. That means a wide variety of native vegetation and animals — even including a stand of 500 year old Redwood trees that, by all rights, probably shouldn’t even be this far from the coast, and an increasing population of threatened Tree Frogs, who have now grown in significant enough numbers to comprise a veritable Amphibian Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Why We Fight: Checker Lily, Mission Bells or Fritillaria affinis

Why We Fight: Milk Maids or Cardamine californica.

Why We Fight: Indian Warriors or Pedicularis densiflora

Of course, we want to preserve it all. Seems easy. But it’s frightening how fast you can compromise a pristine environment, even if you think you are in preservation mode. First mistake, when the vineyard was put in three or four years ago, we allowed hay bales and straw “snakes” to be brought in for erosion control. Big mistake. Apparently, if you aren’t a careful buyer, these things can harbor all sorts of alien seeds and invasive plants that then take over. And they’ve started their march down the swales and water drainage areas. Apparently we should have specified rice bales, which are not native, but can’t possibly survive in Sonoma once the weather heats up. Next mistake, allowing mustard to be planted as a fallow season crop in the vineyards. Apparently, this plant multiplies faster than Aliens. We now need to plan our strategy for eradicating the mustard.

We're doing it for the critters. Although deer aren't endangered, they've got a clean, well-lighted place to graze here.

I should digress here for a John the Baptist Nature Lesson. Again, if you are showing up late, John the Baptist is our trails man, plant guru and freelance forest spirit. With his trusty lieutenants, Louis and Jesus, he speaks for the plants. Many readers of this blog have written, after reading about our efforts, to ask “Why do you make it sound like Natives are so weak they can’t survive as well as invasive species?” I put that question to John, and here’s his answer: “Natives exist in their landscape in a balance. They have enemies and predators and plants that keep them from overpopulating. Certain non-Natives have no native enemies and they just run wild, choking out all the Native plants.”

So we’ve brought out the Big Guns for the Armageddon of the Vineyards. This year is Blitzkreig. We’re even resorting to selective spraying of Round-Up to kill back some of the invasives that already have a foothold. The marketing information says that this particular formulation dissolves into inert ingredients in three months and doesn’t affect the groundwater. John says he doesn’t believe a thing Monsanto says. But, you’ll see the measure of desperation here. Unfortunately, this is John’s Guantanamo and he’s willing to sanction extreme measures to even the odds. Tell it to Dick Cheney, John!

John the Baptist and Jesus armed for chemical warfare on invasives.

Oscar does his bit with more natural herbicides.

Even shy Lucy Terrier got into the act by killing a gopher...which she promptly gave to her new boyfriend, Jesus.

After this year’s Shock and Awe, we’re hoping that we’ll only have about a 5% recurrance next year. With quick burning and pulling before germination, we should be able to reduce the non-natives in the year after next to about 1% ressurgance. And so it goes.

We're keeping Sonoma safe for Wavyleaf Ceanothus.

Neil Young told us that “Rust Never Sleeps”. Ditto for non-Natives. But we’re at the barricades and we won’t be stopped. With a British husband, it’s now appropriate to misquote Winston Churchill:

“We shall fight in the swales. We shall fight at the creekside. We shall fight in the vineyards. We will never surrender.”

A new project here is to photograph and catalog all the Native California and Sonoma wildflowers that are growing around our little slice of heaven. John the Baptist and Louis are leading the charge by bringing me examples of flowers they find in their trailbuilding work. For now,these bouquets will have to serve as my educational pieces as I’m finding it a lot easier to get good photographs in the wild than when the flowers are picked. I believe I’ve also made my position clear on using common names instead of the Latin. A California Native don’t need no steenkin’ Latin. (Sharp eyes might notice the yellow flower outside the vase that has been chewed and stomped by terriers. It’s one of our despised mustard plants. Decidedly NOT native.)

Here’s a selection of flowers I’ll be searching for this weekend to photograph in the wild:

The white showy flower is Star Lily. I'll give its Latin name since it's named after John C. Fremont, pioneer and relentless booster of California statehood: Zigadenus fremontii.

The orange flower is one of my personal favorites, Sticky Monkey Flower. The red brushy one is Indian Warrior.

Here's a beauty: Checker Lily or Mission Bells.

The name for this one seems to have gone right out of my head. According to my flower book, it looks like Blue Dick or Dichelostemma capitatum.

This poor orange guy is getting a bit crushed, but he's an Indian Paintbrush.

This weekend, we’re going on a Wildflower Safari.

The first tour will be along the banks of The World's Most Beautiful Drainage Ditch.

Addendum: Let me know, Informed Readers, if I’ve misidentified anything.

It’s been raining solidly for weeks now. Living in a semi-arid state at the end of a three year drought, most of us want that rain to keep on coming. But it was nice to have a two day break. Yesterday was sunny and warm, definitely Springlike. (In fact, the thousands of tree frogs around here suddenly decided Valentine’s Weekend was a good time to start the mating season.) The forecast said today would be another sunny one, so I was up early for a walk to see the sun break through the clouds. I forgot that the Sonoma sun doesn’t exactly “break out” in the Winter. We have several fog channels that affect Sonoma, the Petaluma Gap and the Carneros up from San Pablo Bay. And just to be different and “Californian”, our fog doesn’t predictably come in and burn off. It hovers, then recedes, then rolls back in again until you don’t know what kind of day it’s going to be.

When we started our walk at 8:00, it looked as if the fog was leaving. Within ten minutes, just a whisp of it could be seen off in the distance.

It looked as if it was going to be a great day for barking at the pond.

By the time we’d hiked up to the vineyards, the fog was a thick blanket.

So how does fog recede in the valleys but linger on the heights?

By the time we left the vineyards, the fog had pulled back down to the valleys and we were in sunshine.

What is this? Fog hide and seek?

We went to the top of a 200 foot cliff looking over the Western part of the property and watched the fog hugging the valleys.

Oscar, look in the other direction. We're observing fog.

Then, in a matter of minutes, we watched the fog recede again.

Leaving a lot of wet grass.

After a quick check on the wine cave, we headed back home through the vineyards.

And what?! The fog was back.

Until it decided to disappear for good. Or at least for the day.

Just in time for a serious session of barking at the pond.

Nice to see blue water again!

See more pictures here.

I won’t say we’ve done everything right here at Two Terrier Vineyards. But we were blessed to be able to get hold of the ecological version of a blank slate. Then careful budgeting and perhaps a lack of ambition kept us from making irreparable mistakes. Our idea of landscaping was not so much planting things as building stuff out of the thousands of rocks that covered the property. Luckily, by the time we got done having retaining walls, stairs, a bocce court, an amphitheater and other things built, we had learned enough about this unique plot of land mostly to leave well enough alone. One of the exciting things about our land is that it’s never been developed, so it’s never been exposed to the meddling of traditional landscapers. In fact, the area was the scene of a pretty devastating fire about thirty years ago and, in the aftermath, was covered with an almost impenetrable covering of mesquite and weeds. That kept out most of the invasive species that people around here have traditionally planted. Things like Eucalyptus, Himalayan Blackberry and non-native grasses. Not that we didn’t plant some non-natives like Rhone grapes, olives and lavender, but at least they aren’t invasive. In fact, it’s hard enough to keep them healthy that there’s no fear they are going to crowd out the locals.

I thought this Houndstongue was an invasive species, but John assures me this is one of the good guys.

Our main “landscaping” has involved cutting back brush and Mesquite just for accessibility. And to keep the whole place from going up like a torch during California’s dry summer since typical California scrub plants have more oil content than the Exxon Valdez. Once we cleared the Mesquite, it was amazing how many California natives rushed in to occupy the space and how fast. I can modestly say that Two Terrier Vineyards is almost like a California Native Botanical Garden. We’ve got Checker Lilies and native Lupines, at least five different types of native Oaks, Madrones, Manzanitas and some wonderful hardy native grasses. Not that it hasn’t been a battle. I tell you, going native is a constant struggle, not the least against our own ignorance.

The pristine native creek -- with redwoods -- that we need to protect.

Case in point: Andy loved the look of the mustard that covers fallow vineyards throughout Napa and Sonoma and asked our vineyard manager to plant some. Which brought our trails guy, John the Baptist, to the point of a massive coronary. Seems mustard is not native and is very invasive. We should have planted some sort of native Lupine to put nitrogen back in the soil. Or at least Fava beans which don’t spread and crowd out the natives. So the next chore here is to plow under the mustard before it gets a foothold.

Our particular concern is protecting the unique ecosystem that is our seasonal creek. That would be the REAL creek, not the glorified drainage ditch that I told you about here. In the former, we have a gully deep enough and, until we bought the land, remote enough that it is home to a stand of 500 year old Redwoods that are vestiges of the Redwood forests that used to cover Sonoma when it was wetter, junglier and dinosaurs roamed the Earth. John the Baptist has impressed on us the urgency of keeping this area pristine. And we’re heeding his warning. Since mustard and other invasives wash down toward that creek, this called for desperate measures.

John the Baptist has morphed from gentle forest spirit to fiery Old Testament Prophet scorching the unworthy with the Lord’s fire. In 2010, that translates to a propane fueled flame-thrower thingy that’s smiting the interlopers before they can invade the pristine wilderness. Don’t like Biblical imagery? How about Johnny Storm from the Fantastic Four? Flame on, Johnny, flame on!

John the Baptist smiting weeds with the Lord's Fury.

Think that’s the end of it? Not hardly. We had straw bales brought in for flood control a few years ago. Seems, if you don’t specify a certain kind, you get bales filled with seeds, especially of the invasive kind. So a particularly invasive thistle seed has been leaching out of those bales and working its way down the hill. Now, luckily, to be stopped by John and his fiery weapon of destruction.

Landscaping, to misquote Pat Benatar, is a battlefield. Luckily, we’ve got John the Baptist and his crew doing the Lord’s Work.

What a difference a month makes. Especially in Sonoma. Especially if that month is January. Especially, especially if it’s an El Nino January. Buckets of rain have been coming down for what seems like weeks. But Saturday offered a rare sunny break and a chance to corral the terriers and walk the back 40 to see how everything was holding up. The first thing we encountered was a lovely little sylan stream, complete with Hobbit-sized waterfalls, running along the back fence. Since this area is usually filled with trash that idiots throw over our fence and into our property, this change was a nice surprise. I got very excited and immediately went into naming mode — as every rock and wide spot in the road has a name here. I’d settled on Danthonia Creek, naming it after Danthonia californica or California Oatgrass, which happens to be one of the few natives I can reliably identify. Then John the Baptist came by to disabuse me of the notion that I’ve got a new creek. Yes, he and Louis cleaned it up and made it what it is, but apparently they can’t make it spring-fed, which he is insisting is the definition of a creek. What I’ve got, apparently, is a drainage ditch. But Danthonia Ditch just doesn’t have the same ring.

Well, no sense getting stuck in semantics. There was so much else to see.

The Goat Rocks are covered by this great multi-colored lichen. Perfect for Terrier King of the Hill posing..

Why are they called Goat Rocks? Because at one time we thought some goats that we might get would enjoy them. Then we changed our minds and decided to get burros. But by then the rocks were named.

Moving right along: ’shrooms were popping up everywhere.

You won't catch us harvesting these. As bad as I am identifying flowers, I'm taking no chances with a plant that might kill me.

Also blooming were these great little flowers.

Which someone will probably tell me is a weed. Flowers I like are always turning out to be weeds.

In the vineyards, the buds aren't yet ready to break on the trimmed grape vines.

But the mustard is as high as a terriers eye.

Dead and dying branches have been trimmed from our Manzanita grove. And piled neatly as living space for small critters.

The coyotes had thoughtfully left some deer legs for Oscar to munch on.

Which it looked as if he might have to fight vultures to keep.

So our perambulations done, Oscar retired by the woodstove with an even better chewie.

His George Bush stuffed toy, which he's not giving up no matter how many administrations come and go.

All the pictures from our foray, here.