Once in a while I take a walk along the road to Wingo at the south end of Sonoma Valley. Starting from the end of Millerick Road at Larson Family Winery, the old public access road is bordered by the tangled riparian corridor of Sonoma... Continue
Wild Valley
The forest felt pensive as I entered Hood Mountain Regional Park from the Los Alamos Road entrance on the last Monday morning in September. Temperatures above 100 degrees were forecast, so my plan was to take a short walk down to Wildcat Creek where the... Continue
The beaver dam is back along Sonoma Creek in Maxwell Farms Regional Park, after winter storms washed away the previous dams, as usual. We can find beaver dams here and there in the Sonoma Valley watershed, and the ecological benefits include slowing and storing water... Continue
On a recent morning, I strolled l around Lake Suttonfield at the former Sonoma Developmental Center. It is in the heart of the wildlife corridor where I’ve walked for decades. I was dazzled by the wildflowers and birds that I might have missed had I... Continue
Wildflowers enthrall me. Over the past three years, since I lost Stan and stopped working, I’ve become enchanted by the native wildflowers that brighten our hillsides once everything’s turned green. And now I’m learning when and where to find them! For a long time I... Continue
Now that the rain is here and the ground is muddy, it is the best time of year for animal tracking in Sonoma Valley. While our local coyotes, bobcats, fox and other wild creatures live here year-round, finding their tracks is much harder when everything... Continue
The beaver dam is back on Sonoma Creek in Maxwell Farms Regional Park. It was washed away during last season’s storms. Last time I looked, the intertwined limbs and branches were holding back the low water flows as summer turned to fall. I also found... Continue
When squirrels lay flat on tree limbs and ravens pant through their beaks, you know it is unbearably hot. I mean it’s been dangerously hot this summer for beast and man as well as for plants, soil, creeks, and the ocean. Indeed, the summer of... Continue
On the evening of the Summer Solstice, after walking my dog and watching the sunset, I spotted a coyote trotting along the fence line between the Montini property and open space. To watch, I pulled over next to the pasture where cows were settling down... Continue
The sun set and the moon rose as we danced and gazed up at the rusty face of Hood Mountain and the rugged Mayacamas range. Honestly, it felt like paradise for us boomers as we boogied with others young and old at this season’s first... Continue