The Third Planting

The weeds continued to be a menace, especially after the rainy season (winter), so we continued returning to weed Burrowing Owl Billows. See how the weeds are choking out the California native we planted in the bottom left?

Phil and I continued collecting data by using the sweep net and paper cups. Using the paper cup to collect data meant counting the bugs we found who'd fallen into it the night before. Most died. We eventually stopped using the paper cups because we found it a cruel method for collecting the data we needed when there are alternatives.

Francesco transplanted 130 California Native Blackberry plants from The Emerald Triangle up north to containers in preparation for the third planting.

Phil has a nursery where he'd started seeding and growing California natives that we could also plant at Burrowing Owl Billows. His nursery consisted of California rose, California mugwart, gumplant, red fescue, asters, California sunflower, telegraph weed, and others.

For the third planting, I managed to recruit a few of my teammates from Google and both my parents!

And then... we weeded again! Yes. Maintenance is forever, but we'll need to do less and less of it over time.

This time there were burrowing owls nesting nearby! We could see them through Phil's binoculars.

There were also birds nesting in the nest boxes Phil had set up.

I really couldn't have done any of this project without Phil, my dad, and my mom's help. Thanks, guys! ❤️

My mom's shirt says, "I don't need Google. My wife knows everything!" 😂