STANISLAUS CONNECTIONS
Working For Peace, Justice, and A Sustainable Environment
February, 2001
Living Lightly
By DAN and BARBARA POLLOCK
Dear Friends and Fellow Gardeners,
Barbara and I just returned from a great trip to New Zealand. We spent 18 days on the South Island, beginning at Christchurch, traveling south to Dunedin, then further south to Stewart Island, then on to the fiordlands at Manipouri, Te Anau, and Milford. Drove north up the West coast to Abel Tasman State Park and the Farewell spit. Headed South again back to Christchurch.
Now that we know some of the great places on the South Island, we would like to go back and spend more time at specific locations. We visited botanical gardens and parks throughout the South Island and were amazed at the size of many of the trees. One in particular, the Monterey Pine, which is grown commercially for lumber, were in excess of 100 ft. I think we were most impressed with the rain forest areas and the 84 species of ferns, huge tree ferns with an understory of beautiful smaller ferns and native vegetation
It is a shame that so much of the podocarp forest (native rainforest) is gone but we were grateful to see the parks of rainforest that are preserved. New Zealand is truly a unique environment and if you love plants, mountains, waterfalls, fiords, the Pacific and Tasman Sea, friendly people, and o1yes birds, wonderful, wonderful birds, then New Zealand is the place for you.
As you develop your spring and summer vegetable gardens this year, keep in mind the importance of plant diversity. All of the effects that plants have upon one another are not yet known, but what we do know is that the relationship between plants is very important to their health and growth. So whether you are a farmer or gardener, large or small, plant with diversity! Sunflowers, for example, attract ants and aphids and keep them away from other plants (the sunflowers will do just fine) Examples of beneficial companion planting are cabbage and beans, beets and onions, carrots and peas, tomatoes and parsley, cucumbers and bush beans.
Even more important than companion planting is the use of flowering plants and herbs in and around your garden. Colorful flowers are attractants to many species of beneficial insects that pollinate plants and control insect pests. Annual flowers such as Marigolds, Cosmos, Poppies, Nasturiums, Calendulas, Phlox, Alyssum, Larkspur, Delphinium, Petunia to name a few, and herbs such as Yarrow, Chives, Sage, Lavender, and Rosemary are all wonderful for the garden.
On one of my first trips to Mexico, I wondered what the heck were those big yellow flowers growing between the rows of corn. Upon closer inspection, I saw squash and beans growing with the corn and they all appeared to be healthy and happy. What a great way to utilize space, grow important food crops, and put some nitrogen (via the beans) back into the soil. Until next month Peace and good gardening.
Wild
on Wetlands Weekend mixes learning with lots of fun
By
TINA ARNOPOLE DRISKILL
Wild on Wetlands Weekend
will celebrate California’s “largest wetland treasure” Saturday, March 10
and Sunday, March 11 with wetland field trips and workshops, family and youth
activities, educational displays and booths, food and performances by the Bungee
Jumpin’ Cows.
The fourth annual event
will be centered at the new Los Banos Junior High School campus, 1750 San Luis
Street, Los Banos, Saturday from 7:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sunday from 5:30 a.m.
until 4 p.m.
Choices feature birding and
wetlands field trips to various locations throughout the 160,000 acre wetland
ecosystem internationally recognized as a Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve
and a Globally Important Bird Area by the National Audubon Society.
Workshops will feature
“Where Ducks Go for Dinner”, “Wetland Webmasters-Spiders and Their
Relatives”, “Pacheco Pass-Highway to History”, “Invasion of the
Superweeds”, “Fallen Wildlife”, “The Wondrous Wood Duck”, “Go Batty
with Burleigh”, “Snakes Alive”, “A River Runs Through It... Streams of
the San Joaquin”, plus poetry writing (see poem on this page), nature
photography, drawing wildlife, birding, geology and botany of the Central
Valley.
Field trips can take
festival goers along the Path of the Padres, bicycling the grasslands, to vernal
pools, on a visit to the San Luis Dam and Power Plant or canoeing the Lower San
Joaquin River.
Festival goers can stick
close to campus for fly fishing, cooking, duck calling, decoy carving, wildlife
rehabilitation and retriever training demonstrations or listen to Cowboy Poetry
or the Bungee Jumpin’ Cows.
Registration is $15 for
both days or $10 for a one-day pass. Children and youth 16 and younger are free
with a paid adult. To register or learn more about the weekend find it on line
at http://www.losbanos.com/wow.htm
or call 1-800-336-6354.
By
ELAINE GORMAN
The local Yokuts Sierra
Club group is offering a springtime “History and Hiking” series that will
give you a bit of Californian history and some exercise at the same time. These
low elevation hikes will get us started on early season hiking. All hikes will
be less than 10 miles with less than 1000 feet of elevation gain. Sierra club
members and non-members are welcome.
The first tour will take
place on Saturday March 17 at the John Muir House National Historic Site. We
will visit John Muir’s home and ranch in Martinez. The visitor center will
offer further insight of the person who started the Sierra Club. Afterwards,
we’ll hike up nearby Mt. Wanda. Visit the John
Muir House website for more information:
The second adventure will be to Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park on Saturday, April 7. We will visit the only California town to be founded, financed, and governed by African Americans. Allensworth was born a slave in Kentucky, joined the Union Navy during the Civil War, then moved West after the War to escape discrimination. The site, located near Bakersfield, has been restored to its early 1900’s appearance. Wildflowers and burrowing owls will grace our visit. More information can be found at the Colonel Allensworth website.
The third hike will be
along the Old Big Oak Flat Road on Saturday, May 12. This road, built in the
1870’s was the 2nd road into Yosemite. We will start at Crane Flat, hike
downhill to the Tuolumne Grove, ogle the Sequoias, continue on the old paved
road toward Hodgdon Meadow, check out some grinding rocks, and end up just west
of Yosemite National Park. This 6-mile hike is all downhill!
Yokuts outing leader Elaine
Gorman will lead all hikes. There will be a small admission fee for all hikes
plus participants are expected to share the costs of carpooling. Bring lunch,
beverages, and appropriate hiking attire. There will be early morning departures
and early evening returns. Call Elaine at
524-7630 for more information. Space is limited.
Making Our Streets Safe for All: A Pedestrian Safety Forum
Saturday, March 10 is the date for the Pedestrian Safety Forum , from
10 am to 1 pm., at Hanshaw Middle School, Location: on Las Vegas Street in south
Modesto.
This event is free and open to the public. Sponsors include: The League of Women Voters of Modesto, the City of Modesto, The Surface Transportation Policy Project, The Great Valley Center, and others. A task force of Modestans called “Stanislaus Land Use Transportation Coalition” or “STLC”, are doing the planning.
Speaker Dan Burden, a nationally known expert on planning to make streets safer, will be with us all day. He is coming out from his home in Florida to conduct forums in Sacramento, Fresno, and Modesto. In planning the forum, it was realized that many problem areas are along major collector streets, such as Sylvan (Beyer High School), Paradise (Burbank School), Crows Landing Road, (Shackleford School). Needless to say, these are not just within the city of Modesto. Where roads are four lane, traffic increases and with it the speed of the cars. What is wrong with this picture?
Trouble spots have been identified so that Mr. Burden may give us concrete suggestions for change. We expect various community groups to participate, as well as staff from city and county government, and concerned citizens, parents and teachers.
Many other cities already have advocacy groups. (such as “Walk Sacramento”) We are far behind in organizing to make streets safer, as we know from a recent rash of accidents involving pedestrians vs. cars. As one official said to me, “When cars and pedestrians mix, pedestrians always lose.”
With many levels of government responsible, attention to
the needs of pedestrians and bicyclists often gets lost in the shuffle. (to say
nothing of the funding)
COME AND PUT IN YOUR TWO CENTS WORTH. It’s free!
Vernal pools: Sea of Flowers and
puddles of sky
By LYNN M. HANSEN, Professor Emeritus of Biology, Modesto Junior College
It
is often said that we fail to value something until it is gone. Historically we
have caused extinction of species or destruction of habitats simply because we
thought they were so abundant that they will always exist, for example the
passenger pigeon and the prairie of the central plains. In other cases, unique
habitats are destroyed because they are thought useless, at war with the
economic needs of people or simply unnoticed, such as the Everglades, or more
locally California’s vanishing vernal pools.
The term vernal pool, derived from the latin adjective “vernalis”, means belonging to spring, although some would argue the termed “hibernal” pools should be used since it is during the winter that they fill with water. An important feature of these pools is that they are ephemeral ecosystems located in the Central Valley floor, on foothill alluvial terraces, or on volcanic basalt flows in California. They occur where the collection of winter rain is perched or prevented from percolating through the soil by hardpan, clay or basalt. Due to California’s Mediterranean climate, the warm spring weather followed by summer drought allows water to slowly evaporate leaving spectacular concentric arrangements of flowers, then grasses and finally cracked mud. Unique animals such as the endangered fairy shrimp (Branchinecta) and tadpole shrimp (Lepidurus), the tiger salamander (Ambystoma californiense), a species of special concern, and the spade foot toad (Scaphiopus hammondi) also have life cycles attuned to the temporary water and food supply characteristic of vernal pools. Seeds, cysts, eggs and spores rest during the dry time awaiting winter rains. Such is the cycle of the vernal pool.
There are three types of vernal pools in California: the saline/ alkaline pools such as the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge (Glenn and Colusa Counties) and Pixley Vernal Pools (Tulare County); alluvial terrace pools such as the Hickman vernal pool complex (Stanislaus County) and the Flying M Ranch (Merced County) located next door to the proposed site for the new U.C. Merced; basalt flows such as Table Mountain (Tuolumne county) and Table Mountain (Butte County). For each type of pool, the water depth, duration of inundation by water, size, pH, soil type, temperature of soil and water dictate the specific paramaters within which unique life exists.
It is estimated that about 200 plant species are restricted to the vernal pool habitat. Many are rare and endangered, most are annual native plants. If you observe these pools during the season, a zonation or distinct distribution of plant species will be observed. Meadow foam (Limnanthes) is often seen as a white ring around the shallow edge of the pool, with the yellow of gold fields (Lasthenia), white of popcorn flower (Plagiobothrys) and silver green of wooly marbles(Psilocarpus) following as water receeds. In the deeper water one can see Downingia and tricolor monkey flower (Mimulus tricolor), with Orcuttia and Colusa grass (Neostafia), native grasses unique to the vernal pool habitat, to emerge last. Grasslands often border foothill and valley pools with their characteristic wildflowers and grasses.
Since vernal pools are temporary and contain species with endangered or protected status they present problems for various kinds of development. It is anticipated that the expected population growth in California will triple by the year 2040. It is no wonder that vernal pool preservation is controversial. Balancing the value of vernal pools against the economic advantages of development is a hard sell, partly because few people are aware of the importance of these ecosystems. What good are they anyway?
As ecosystems, vernal pool plants continue to provide rich research opportunities. The plants and animals within the pool boundaries hold the secrets of survival during drought conditions, something food producers in many parts of the world might like to genetically engineer into food crops. Similar to the Galapagos Islands, vernal pools offer a laboratory for studying the processes of evolution: they are somewhat isolated from each other, life cycles of organisms are restricted to the pools cycle ( in this case occurring rapidly) and conditions are extreme, providing selective pressure on the gene pools of all organisms in the vernal pool. Some of the animals that inhabit vernal pools such as the tadpole shrimp are “living fossils”; they appear to be identical to specimens in the fossil record and as such warrant study. Vernal pools are part of a network of seasonal wetland habitats important to many species of birds both migratory and residential. With the population of California expected to dramatically increase, open space such as provided by vernal pools and associated grasslands will be valued greatly for its “re-creation” potential. Without the vernal pools, many endemic plant and animals species will become extinct, gone forever!
Believing that familiarity can breed understanding, appreciation and hopefully protection of the most vulnerable vernal pools, the Great Valley Museum is fulfilling its charge to provide an educational resource in two ways. First, people interested in educating the public regarding the seasonal cycle, biological significance and uniqueness of vernal pools may contribute to the SME Vernal Pool Exhibit Fund. Seeded with $1500 from the Purdy Award for Educational Excellence at MJC designated by the Year 2000 recipient Lynn M. Hansen, the fund is specified for the creation of a vernal pool habitat display at the Great Valley Museum. The estimated cost for exhibit is $15,000 and as of this writing the fund has generated $10,300. Contributors may send their donations % Dr. Dennis Gervin, Dean of Science Math and Engineering, Modesto Junior College, 435 College Avenue, Modesto (95350). Second, the Great Valley Museum is sponsoring a Vernal Pool Field Trip for educators guided by Mr. Bob Edminster on Sunday, April 1, 2001 from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. Contact the Great Valley Museum for details and registration.
Although approximately 90% of the vernal pools that were present in early California are gone, a remnant of pools remain for our enjoyment, education and stewardship. Visit a vernal pool this season and experience the scene described by pioneer Ellen Hubbard Keith: "When the spring time came and vegetation began to clothe the plains in an emerald hue, they presented a scene of wonderous beauty, which was surpassed in a few weeks when every plant burst into bloom, and the plains became one vast sea of flowers, waving and nodding to each passing breeze.”
NOTE: For further reading about Vernal Pools refer to the following editions of the Journal of the California Native Plant Society: Fremontia January 2000, and Fremontia October 1976. Also see the California Wetlands Information System Vernal Pools website.
Dreaming of Tulare Lake*
For Trudy
1.
I am flying like Nils**
But unlike Nils I have no goose to cling to
No wild geese or cranes to show the way
I am flying with a little girl
And because I worry about her
How quickly we drop from the sky
And soar back into the heights
I teach her how to use her hands
To slow the fall
Below-
In all its lacustrine splendor-
Is Tulare Lake
We haven't made it vanish, after all
Acres upon acres of cotton
No longer fill a lifeless bowl
The pelican rookeries are back
As are large stones and islands
I do not remember
And on its overgrown shores
Stands a natural history museum
In which all the local luminaries-
Preston, Hansen, Mayfield, Edminster-
Hold forth on the productivity
Of this shallow, mussel-lined
Basin of snowmelt
2.
Of course, I wake up
But I know now that the lake exists
And I can visit it in my sleep
While learning to fly
Over its lustrous tilting waters
Who dares deny it?
Who dares to ignore
The tiny cell in the brain stem
Where its shoreline grows
And shrinks with the seasons?
Where turtles lift their heads
From the bulrushes
And the Choinumne people
Meet the Tache
On their summer rafts?
I can finally rest
With the wild swans
I can finally gather
In the tall reeds
The scattered pieces
of my beloved
and rejoice in the fresh nests
Of weary pelicans
No longer circling, circling
No longer looking, looking
For Tulare Lake.
- Lillian Vallee
*Tulare Lake was once the largest freshwater lake west of the Great Lakes and one of the most critical freshwater pelican rookeries in the Central Valley; there are those who say that the pelicans still circle the Tulare Basin, looking for their lake; couldn't we reward this feat of their collective memory with an effort to bring it, or some part of it, back?
**Nils was the hero of Selma Lagerlof's book The Wonderful Adventures of Nils Holgerssen in which he travels over Sweden on the back of a goose.
ACTION: Vallee will lead a poetry workshop at Wild on Wetlands Weekend (see adjoining article) called: "Dreaming of Tulare Lake: How Poetry Ignites the Imagination and Helps Keep Wild Places Alive." She'll be reading and discussing her poems and poems by other poets. Audience members will be invited to write and share short poems about Central Valley wild places they want to keep alive. Participants may bring already written poems or can choose to write from prompts presented during the workshop
