under the oaks

I spent a day under the oaks monitoring what's growing. We had cows grazing last season, as they will again this season, on a small area of the Reserve. They ate the leaves on the oaks and everything underneath. I go on either side of the electric fence and write down what is there. I spooked an owl twice on my monitoring journey.

Then I spent some time weeding around the 500 or so plants we planted in the nasturtium. The bottom picture shows the native clusters of woodmint, mugwort, and beeplant thriving. I am totally jazzed about this project. The nasturtium is easy to pull. The ground is easy to plant in. The poison oak is far away. Volunteers helped in every step of this project so far. I'd like to double the planting next year.