Cold Water Canyon rock

Acorn Launch Pad — an Outdoor Classroom Wildlife Habitat Installation

Jun 072017

Acorn Launch Pad is an Outdoor Classroom wildlife habitat installation at the Laguna Foundation‘s Laguna Environmental Center, or LEC, located at 900 Sanford Road, Santa Rosa, California, 95401. Date: June 6, 2017. School: Orchard View School, Sebastopol, California. Teacher: Sunny Galbraith. Me: Tony McGuigan, from Spore Lore.

Acorn Launch Pad, hereinafter at times referred to as “ALP” for brevity, is a 3-season wildlife habitat installation. The project evolved during the winter, spring, and summer months of 2016 into 2017. The installation highlight is to plant a valley oak tree between a hubba hubba hulk of a log and a 1000 pound Cold Water Canyon Rock slab. Will the valley oak (Quersus lobata) live to 500 years? Will the tree lift the rock slab as it grows? Not for me to know in 30, 40, 50 years from now, but perhaps the students planting the tree will.

1 Year, 5 Months Before Installation

Driveway of Laguna Foundation’s LEC (Laguna Environmental Center), east view. The gate is behind me about 50 feet. Note the rock patch left of the road, at the foot of the culvert pipe, and the juncus rush clump. Juncus (Juncus patens), culvert, and ditch — sounds like water to me! This lower area will make good wildlife habitat, providing habitat’s 4 elements — food, water, shelter, and a place to raise young. Juncus at the site indicates year-round water; the valley oak and critters living in the tree, under the rocks, and in the soil will use that water.

Same view as above pic, but along the fence. Not too early to envision the project; Permaculture principles entail waiting a year (12 months!) before working a site. This winter’s job is to watch the water — how much water from winter floods will fill the site AND where will the water line be?

Culvert pipe outlet, north side of driveway, which connects low-lying pastures so the driveway does not flood so quickly. Will take lots of rain to flood over the road. Note how thick (happy) the juncus clump is.

7 Months Before Installation

It’s been nearly a year waiting on harvesting wood for Acorn Launch Pad. Last winter’s wet wood (WWW — and nothing virtual about it!) has sunbaked dry, has become lighter. Lighter wood means we can harvest a larger, bulker, hulkier log or tree trunk. Took 4 hours to get Hulk (strapped at angle) into the truck. Note the plywood board under the rear tire — the soft November ground is soft and a tire rut left in the mud would look messy.

Digging bars keep the plywood in place as the truck’s wheel spins right.

Webbing straps secure Hulk to a perfectly placed telephone pole. Ready?! Set!

Go!!! Hulk, an oak tree trunk section, arrives home, about 50 feet from the installation site, which is close to the fenceline on the left.

5 Months Before Installation

So where’s that driveway road? Winter in Sonoma County means water, sometimes flooding. Note how Hulk rests in slightly higher ground above the culvert. Note the lushness of the terrain — hard to imagine that in six months it will be a parched dry golden brown.

Later that same January 2017 day; the water has risen fast. Yikes! Almost lost Hulk to the flood, but now we know where flood level goes to at the site.

2 Months Before Installation

A rock slab is placed on top of 3 smaller landscape boulders. The rock slab, “Rock”, is a 1000 pound (½ ton) Cold Water Canyon (local to Sonoma County) rock. Thank you Stuart Schroeder for the fork lift delivery! The 3 smaller rocks will slow down Rock’s sinking into the soil and will create cavities for critters under Rock.

Installation Day — Part 1 (6 weeks before Part 2)

The students from Orchard View School have arrived. Rolling Hulk on its side, we discover . . .

ants! Lots of ants. Busy, swarming red ants, that bite. Obviously, we will be destroying some of their habitat, most likely a nest built under Hulk, as we install another habitat.

Today’s outdoor classroom project is about mechanical advantage, mostly class 1 leverage. Left, a long metal pipe is toed into the earth and pushed forward, from the top end, to move Rock more centered on top of the 3 landscaping boulders below. A student (second from right) pulls Rock at the same time using a come-a-long. A third student (right) keeps Hulk in place; on the other side of Hulk (far right, out of photo) are digging bars and pipes to anchor the come-a-long. Note that Rock still sits on the fork lift skid/pallet that helped Farmer Stuart deliver it. The wood pallet creates a lot of catching resistance — all the more reason to use mechanical advantage.

Fine tuning placement of Rock and retrieving the come-a-long chain.

Students begin digging Hulk’s hole, near enough to the rocks so that the tree trunk section will surface and rest on the rocks.

Topsoil and weeds from the hole is thrown into the rock pile to create a rich foundation for planting the valley oak tree.

Extra logs are temporarily placed to help create a mound of soil up against the rocks.

A western fence lizard (tail and foot visible under the pallet) inspects the new Recreation Room.

Finished for the day. Acorn Launch Pad waits for the next work session. North view. Note that weeds and mud have been thrown against the rock pile. Also, the extra logs have removed from the soil-mounding area and are now placed into the hole started by the students to alert anyone walking in the field.

A lizard on its way to the rock pile.

The warm sunny rock has coaxed a lizard out. Notice the little rock alcove it basks in, complete with overhead shelter from predators.

Habitat it and they will come!

Installation Day — Part 2 — Completion on June 6, 2017

East view. Time to finish this job, 6 weeks later than scheduled. Soft adobe mud has turned into brick hard adobe mud. Today’s job is a different job than it would have been in soft-mud spring. Summer’s heat and dryness have hardened the heavy soil. But we can fix that!

North view. First order of business — get water to the hole so that the soil will soften. A garden hose is stretched out in the sun to warm while tools are gathered. Removing any kinks in the hose now will help increase water flow. Note the dryness of the terrain.

Collecting tools and water from the Laguna Foundation’s Nursery.

Spore Lore™ Mobile Hydration Station on truck. Hoses deliver water into Hulk’s hole started by students.

Close-up view of getting water to the installation site. The odd-looking dome screen above the barrels is merely to keep the sun-warmed hose from kinking; I ran out of hard pipe to plumb the siphon. 5-gal buckets of water are used to replenish water flowed out of the drums, before the siphon is lost — sure beats carrying the water buckets to the site!

And we have water!

Plenty of time for the hole to be filled with water. Time to take in the beauty of this pasture land, and time to imagine how this habitat might contribute to it. A good time to plan completion of the job, work some art into the finished product. The metal digging bar represents how Hulk is to rest. Catching the eye — visitors to the Laguna Foundation will spot the oak log from afar. Diagonally, and opening away from the road, the log is positioned to welcome visitors. And as for the critters visiting or living in Acorn Launch Pad, they could care less about such artsy stuff.

Metal digging bar representing Hulk’s position — close-up view. Hulk and Rock will form a “planting box” for Acorn (the acorns planted to seed the valley oak tree). Fill canyon (trench between Rock and Hulk), plant tree. Simple! Oh, that’s right, no such luck; I’m doing the digging.

A lizard climbs rock,

and stops. Perhaps to savor warmth? Perhaps to conceal, not give away so freely, its hideout and/or home. “Who me? I am not here. I have disappeared into camouflage.” Note this camouflage expert’s position. Is it coincidence that this striped animal rests parallel to a like-colored, bleached grass stalk?

Close-up of western fence lizard entering ALP. Note pattern, color, and texture of Lizard’s right arm. Now do the same for the lichen it has landed on. This guy is good! “Where’s dinner? I heard there were wood beetles, earthworms, and froglets here.”

Let’s do the Can Can! Driwater® hydration cans will provide time-released irrigation to young tree roots a year from now. Acorn is set for launch in Fall 2017. Winter rains will help mature the valley oak seedling. Time-released irrigation, using the Driwater® system, will water the seedlings through next late spring and next summer. [No statement here is by Driwater®.] Note the twine line — it was used to keep the cans in place and to “chalk line” surface level. In order words, the twine marks how high the soil will be mounded. Keep in mind that this view of the planting mound is looking through Hulk — Hulk will be installed up against these cans, parallel to them and will form a “planting box”. Note how the cans’ tops have been positioned above soil level. The top will be removed to fill the cans with Driwater® material. Note the oak limbs under and alongside the cans — mycorrhizal fungi trenches in waiting. Those small oak limbs will break down, rot, and become food and homes for soil creatures from today till Acorn is planted. Then, upon planting, the decayed oak limbs will support growth to Acorn through absorbing and holding water and by providing an enhanced mycorrhizal fungi network.

Oak Lake fills while weeds/topsoil are harvested into a storage bin (pond liners are lightweight and strong). The alive weeds/topsoil will be used used to dress Acorn’s adobe hillside.

Roadside trash harvested. These old tree branches are good organic material that will come in handy.

Oak Lake expansion. The water is about 6 inches below grade, just low enough to be contained in the hole and not overfill. Time is the most powerful working agent — the longer the water sits in the hole, the softer the adobe clay becomes. Note the planting of sticks in the center of the soil mound. Those antennae are broken roadside trash branches — wood that will absorb water, break down, and leave a more alive soil for Acorn.

More water. Now the digging is under water, sliver of mud by sliver of mud. Slow digging but doable.

Hulk flipped into position. Note the closer (foreground) digging bar — it provides our workhorse, leverage, and will pull Hulk to it.

Ready?! Set!

Perfect! Hulk has cleared the end of the hole and can be flipped in.

It’s a flawless half turn nose dive! Notice how much more hole there is surrounding Hulk. Hulk will be pulled to the closer shore, toward the red strap. Doing so will allow Hulk to rest parallel with the hydration cans.

Supporting logs floated in Oak Lake to provide more organic material AND to preserve precious backfill soil. More wood in the hole means less soil needed to fill it.

Persuader (sledge hammer) sinks another supporting log next to Hulk. Note that Hulk has twisted on its side. Each flip of Hulk produces a different rainwater collecting surface. Might not sound like much but every drop of rainwater is a big deal to the fungi, flora and fauna that will call Hulk home.

Hulk lays almost parallel to the can line. Half of the adobe mound in the background will line the bottom of the canyon wedge, ensuring that Hulk will absorb water/moisture during rain/fog.

Mudworks. Downhill side of Hulk filled in with Oak Bog (puddle) created to capture rainwater.

Our old friend, Culvert. A great place to collect straw.

Straw is used to cover the wet mud and to help the habitat blend into local terrain.

Finished! North view. Acorn Launch Pad wildlife habitat installation is in.

Closer view of finished habitat. Acorn will be planted at the blue flag, between Hulk and Rock.

West view of soil mound awaiting Acorn.

South view. Note that the hydration cans are hidden from road traffic.

East view. Note that the hydration cans are usable (the lids can be accessed) yet blend into the habitat’s features. The cans will be more hidden in high grass as the habitat fills in with Life.

See you in the fall to plant (Blast off!!!) Acorn.

Thank you, as always, to Sunny Galbraith, teacher at Orchard View School, Sebastopol, and her students. Also, much thanks to the Staff and Board of the Laguna Foundation, particularly the Restoration and Conservation Science Department: Wendy Trowbridge, Director; Brent Reed, Ecological Program Manager; Sarah Gordon, Conservation Science Program Manager; Paul Weber, Restoration Field Supervisor; Asa Voight, Restoration Technician II; Hannah Werdmuller, Restoration Technician; and Julie Skopal, Nursery Manager.

Enjoy your habitat installations. Habitat it!

Tony

Dark Soil Light Wood Saddleback — an Outdoor Classroom wildlife habitat installation

1- Residential Habitats -- Critters and Their Homes, 3- Habitat It And They Will Come -- Tony's book, 6-Outdoor Classroom, Blog No Responses »

Apr 212017

Dark Soil Light Wood Saddleback is an Outdoor Classroom wildlife habitat installation at the Laguna Foundation‘s Laguna Environmental Center, or LEC, located at 900 Sanford Road, Santa Rosa, California, 95401. Date: February 23, 2017. School: Orchard View School, Sebastopol, California. Teacher: Sunny Galbraith. Me: Tony McGuigan, from Spore Lore.

Dark Soil Light Wood Saddleback (now that’s a name!) hereinafter “Saddleback” installation.

The Plan, from 2 months before the project. Name change was inevitable; the students had not been consulted. Plan is North View. Our project, Saddleback, is under East Log and the mounding of soil/rock/plants between the two logs.

In a nutshell, Saddleback is a wildlife habitat installation using a large trunk section to shelter an underground tunnel that leads to a rock outcropping and the surface.

Dark Soil Light Wood Saddleback — The Before. North east view. February in Sonoma County means mustard! Note the swath of vibrant yellow mustard in the lush grass-happy cow pasture beyond the Laguna Environmental Center’s fenceline. The line of trees on the pasture’s north border is Irwin Creek.

Prep — 3 Months Before Installation

Saddleback is a sister habitat to a previous outdoor classroom wildlife habitat installation: Twisted North Mound. In foreground, a student removes clay soil from under East Log to build the soil mound behind him. The trench was then filled with woodchips for easy removal when East Log’s habitat is created (beats digging out clay soil!).

Prep — Installation Day — Before Students Arrive

Turkey tail fungus on the oak trunk of West Log.

Turkey Tail fungus.

Meadow barley (Hordeum brachyantherum) plugs that will be used for the project. These plugs are leftovers in the Nursery; their survival rate will be poor. But, some may live to thrive in the habitat.

A plug of meadow barley. Note the moss “weed”.

Scraping away woodchips from under the East Log. See “Prep — 3 Months Before Installation“, above. Note the earthworm at my fingertips.

Soil critters thriving in the moist decaying woodchips under (shaded from sun) in the previously made trench.

Scraping away woodchips to preserve their integrity. We want to keep the soil we move from mixing with the woodchips.

Shading the woodchip pile with landscape cloth to minimize soil microbe/fungus fatality. The partially broken down woodchips are richly impregnated with decomposers, that is, microbes and fungus and arthropods and gastropods that want to eat the woodchips, thrive in them. Would be a shame to kill off such biota while installing a habitat. The opaque landscape cloth will keep harsh sunlight from the woodchip dwellers.

Taking shape. The trench under East Log is deepened. Soil in the tub, from the trench, will be added to Saddleback when the meadow barley is planted.

Shopping for something organic, something ALIVE! at the Habitat Resource Pile (an old woodchip pile with buried treasures). Note the middle stump, adjacent to the eaten out stump in the foreground — it has lived inside a large woodchip for over 3 years, always covered by chips. Now it is ripe to pick and place in a wildlife habitat. The stump itself is alive — it is impregnated with Life.

Prying Middle Stump (think Middle Earth) from the Habitat Garden’s woodchip pile. Note the dark richness of its bed — Are these woodchips are is this soil?!

Habitat it and they will come! Lots of Life, critters seen and unseen, fungi, stored water and its biome.

Stored in a tub, the precious stump is shaded in a plastic barrel. The stump’s transfer to the habitat will be in a few hours.

Harvesting compost from Compost Cricket Corral, as mentioned in my last post, Centipede Tunnel Perch.

Prep. Clockwise from foreground: 4-15 gallon pots filled with Nursery-discarded potting soil (free!), West Log, Cold Water Canyon rock slabs (standing and on garden cart), Middle Stump in white plastic shaded bin, plants (behind East Log in shade), black plastic bin of topsoil from East Log trench, tunnel of corrugated perforated habitated (holes cut in for critter entrance/exit) 6″ ABS, palm fronds, black landscape cloth covered mound of woodchips, wheelbarrow (rusty) of compost with an algae covered log, wheelbarrow (blue) of compost.

A bonus gift! We have 5 juncus Juncus patens to plant. Juncus, a reed, loves water; their presence indicates year-round water.

Installation — Dark Soil Light Wood Saddleback

Students have arrived and gather woodchips that will be used to finish the project.

In goes the tunnel, a custom designed critter tunnel, “Each Exit/Entrance is about 6-8″ long and 2″ wide (2 corrugation trenches).”, as described in Centipede Tunnel Perch.

Decisions, decisions — it is a school day after all.

Critter tunnel in place. Note the spaced cut-outs. Are you [critter] in or are you out?

Old palm fronds, salvaged/harvested from the Habitat Garden Resource Pile, are used to line the tunnel. Accomplishes: 1) keeps tunnel in place, 2) installs Life-alive! biome to project, 3) provides critters with a moisture laden maze of cavities, and 4) empties the palm frond pile. Turn trash to treasure!

Middle Stump has a new home. Saddleback gets an infussion of life.

Adding more wood for the habitat’s cavern-filled mound. Also, scraping soil to cover tunnel/palm fronds.

Backfilling to plant up against East Log.

Moving a rock slab into Saddleback.

And another rock.

The goal here is to create a planting mound joined with the plants in the foreground, those meadow barley of Twisted North Mound.

Soil for the mound.

In comes a cavity maker.

Saddleback’s north side is about to get a rock slab that will create cavities.

North end of Saddleback sealed off with a rock slab. Middle Stump is really now in Middle Earth!

Mounding soil.

And the bin of topsoil.

Woodchips.

Time to reclaim the woodchips from the start of the project.

Planting meadow barley.

Each meadow barley plug is planted top flush with soil surface. Then the grasses are lightly surrounded with woodchips, enough to support the grasses but not so much to block sunlight.

Planting meadow barley and juncus.

Dark Soil Light Wood Saddleback — The After.

1 Month After Installation

A western fence lizard surfaces from within Saddleback.

Same lizard back inside and out another exit. Fun in the sun.

Enjoy your habitat installations. Habitat it!

Tony

Centipede Tunnel Perch — An Outdoor Classroom Wildlife Habitat Installation

1- Residential Habitats -- Critters and Their Homes, 6-Outdoor Classroom, Blog No Responses »

Feb 142017

Centipede Tunnel Perch — The Before. Northwest view. Previous installations in the Habitat Garden (nearest to farthest): Cookie Monster Perch, Garter Snake Ravine, Log Pile Apartments, Compost Cricket Corral, Big Splash Hotel and Spa, and Salamander French Drain, the last of which is nearly under the willow to the left.

Centipede Tunnel Perch is a wildlife habitat installed near the Habitat Landscaping Resource Center (otherwise known as the “compost” and “log pile”) at the Laguna Foundation‘s Laguna Environmental Center, or LEC, located at 900 Sanford Road, Santa Rosa, California, 95401. The installation was an outdoor classroom activity. Date: January 19, 2017. School: Orchard View School, Sebastopol, California. Teacher: Sunny Galbraith. Me: Tony McGuigan, from Spore Lore.

In a nutshell, this wildlife habitat installation is 3 tasks at the Habitat Garden. The Habitat Garden can be considered the collective of wildlife habitat installations, some of which are listed under the photo, above, and all the natural (organic) materials on hand. Most of those on-hand materials are the compost and branch/log pile.

1st Task — To get a large mass of wood buried deep into the soil so it will provide moisture to critters months after the rains have gone.

2nd Task — To use the soil dug from the wood’s hole to direct water to the wood.

3rd Task — To plant native sedge to hold the soil bank downstream from Centipede Tunnel Perch.

Prep — 3 Days Before Installation

Northeast corner of concrete slab behind the Nursery. Right: Garter Snake Ravine habitat with “weeds”, mostly the alien (non-native) Italian rye grass, an annual (per the local farmer, Stuart). Left: Log Pile Apartments and Compost Critter Corral habitats and Santa Barbara sedge (Carex barbarae). The students will be sheet mulching over the weeds and planting Santa Barbara sedge to cover both sides of the slab’s corner.

A pile of old straw is moved away to dig the deep hole for the habitat. Ultimately, a perch-like long piece of tree trunk will stand upright in the hole. The deeper the hole, the more stable the vertical post/pole will be. Also, the deeper the hole, the shorter (off the ground) the pole becomes. Grandiose towering structure VERSUS safety — always a hard weighing between the two! Note the old straw was left there to break down AND to keep the adobe clay soil moist, for digging such a hole. Wet/moisturize the dry, hard adobe clay soil one day and dig into soft, pliable adobe the next day.

A further note about digging here. The digging is horrendous at this site — all the more reason to be digging here. We will be unearthing the nearby road crew’s dumping of asphalt road grading, circa 1950’s, including many book-sized slabs of asphalt. That “worthless” soil will be our new treasure in creating a berm of soil to direct rainfall to the habitat.

A shovel head deep into the center of the Earth. Note the straw bale far right and the little berm of hole soil between the straw and the hole. That berm will help keep rainwater (we are expecting rain on installation day) away from the area. The installation area will be slippery enough without a running creek!

Prep — 2 Days Before Installation

Centipede Tunnel Perch’s perch has arrived, complete with safety cone hat.

Late morning rain. Perfect time to start work. Tomorrow, this new wildlife habitat will be installed by Orchard View students. Note this microcosm canyon. Our intention here is to capture as much water as possible and store it for as long as possible, so that amphibians would thrive here. (If amphibians can thrive, most other critter groups will have a fair chance of survival, too.) So, the adobe canyon, once a road crew dump, has become an adobe-lined, wood-filled water basin with outlet.

Regarding the habitat’s water outlet (mentioned in last paragraph), it is the height of the Santa Barbara sedge thicket, downstream from Centipede Tunnel Perch, that determines how far and wide Habitat Garden Pond becomes. Alas, a lake is born, on each good rain. As rainwater sits in the Lake, submerged wood will saturate that rainwater and store it. (Habitat Garden Adobe Canyon if you must have a name.)

Water! Precious stuff. So, rather than allow this road runoff rainwater to escape into the field downstream, through the double gate, a small soil berm will direct the rainwater to the Habitat Garden, to then be drained behind the Nursery and flow into the field. Either way, berm or not, the downhill field will get the water. With berm keeps the gate area dryer and brings water to the Habitat Garden.

Prep — Installation Day — Before Students

Installation Day. The soil is saturated with very little water in the hole. Perfect! I like easier digging. Note the black ABS tape on the posthole digger’s handles at 3-feet and 6-feet. The hole will be dug to the 6-feet mark.

Preparing to dig. Note that the wheelbarrow is lined with straw to cleanly dump the wet adobe soil harvested from the hole. The metal digging bar will straddle across the sides of the wheelbarrow and provide a knock-off edge for clearing out the posthole digger clams. Posthole digger in foreground (clams are at collecting end).

Muck removal on a bright shiny day. Note that the wood, blue-painted metal trench shovel (top) has its curve parallel with the curve of the posthole digger clam (below). The shovel will be flipped to clean the posthole digger’s right side, maintaining curve-curve parallel position. Note digging bar for banging the mud loose.

Dry Run photo op. Sizing the ABS 6″ corrugated perforated drainpipe Tunnel in the habitat.

Using a Milwaukee HACKZALL® to cut the plastic corrugated perforated pipe to install Exit/Entrance’s in the tunnel. Centipede Tunnel Perch includes tenancy options for critters using it. Eat, stay, have a family here, at least take a drink of water (meets the 4 elements of Habitat), then you can enter or leave through the many Exit/Entrance’s. Each Exit/Entrance is about 6-8″ long and 2″ wide (2 corrugation trenches). Note my boots are pinning the drainpipe up against the table’s leg posts.

Halfway done installing Exit/Entrance’s on this side of the pipe. The pipe will then be flipped over so that Exit/Entrance’s can be cut into that side, position alternating with the first side’s Exit/Entrance’s. Note the sawblade’s angle to ensure that both long sawcuts will meet.

The Tunnel is ready for installation. Exit/Entrance’s cut-outs collected in center.

View THROUGH the Tunnel to the concrete slab below.

Installation Day — The Students Are Here!

Removal of the adobe berm inside the installation zone. This soil will be the foundation for the road runoff berm.

Weeding the soil bank before sheet mulching. Weeds are dropped in place to keep the topsoil nutrients/microbes on site.

Thriving on a damp winter day. This outdoor classroom rocks! Takes a Village to support outdoor classrooms.

Progress of the hole. A lower platform has been stomped around the perch’s hole. That’s adobe! Note the rain workgear: mud boots and work-friendly rainsuit.

Your job (Yellow Slicker) is to stand here. And teacher Sunny did it so well while students pried Santa Barbara sedge plants from their pots. The sedge clumps were evenly spaced on the cardboard sheet mulching. Loose soil fill over the cardboard and between the plants will secure the plants in place on the bank.

Perch has been dropped into its hole. Note the ropes hanging on Perch. A triad of ropes was used to upright the tall, heavy tree trunk. One more rope was used to spin Perch after it vertically rested in the hole.

Students secure/stuff/wedge one end of Centipede Tunnel alongside Perch in the hole.

Inspection. And good news — Centipede Tunnel Perch passes. Note that the left end of Tunnel goes into the hole for Perch, toward moisture. The other end of Tunnel opens to ground level, under a log pile (or wood causeways if you are a cricket) where food (smaller critters) are plentiful.

Student stands on Tunnel while it is buried with old straw.

Foreground: Finishing touches for sedge transplanting — loose soil to fill in thin spots.

Background: Entire old straw pile is thrown at the base of Perch.

Trimming the sedge = twist and cut with pruning shears. The sedge leaves are used for mulch between the newly transplanted sedge bundles. Do plants have a feedback system such that dead leaves in the soil trigger growth? Always questions!

Students installing a temporary soil bank retaining wall. Short branches horizontal, saved-from-the-wood-bin stakes vertical. By the time these flimsy materials rot, like next year, the sedge bank will be glad to eat it up, glad to be nourished by the decaying wood. AND, most of that decay process will be from our Decomposer friends. Habitat it!

Sedge Corners. Note the tempory retaining wall of mulch material (little sticks, stakes, woodchips, soil). Perch is the blonde piece of wood on the far right of the tower of perches.

Centipede Tunnel Perch — The After. Note far right, the pooled water stopped from going to the gate by the new berm.

Hop, hop, and a few more. Wonder if my froggy friends will be at Habitat Garden Lake tonight?

Farmer Stuart moving hay for Stone Farm‘s plow horses.

Sedge Corners lookin’ good!

Centipede Tunnel Perch lookin’ good!

Time to call it an Outdoor Classroom Wildlife Habitat Installation Day! Time to give up the habitat to the critters. Time to go home, watch the receding Laguna de Santa Rosa leave the oak meadows along its banks.

Thank you, as always, to Sunny Galbraith, teacher at Orchard View School, Sebastopol, and her students. Also, much thanks to the Staff and Board of the Laguna Foundation, particularly the Restoration and Conservation Science Department: Wendy Trowbridge, Director; Brent Reed, Ecological Program Manager; and Paul Weber, Restoration Field Supervisor, and Julie Skopal, Nursery Manager.

Thank you to Aaron Nunez, the then Ecological Project Manager. Aaron has left the Laguna Foundation’s employment and is currently working elsewhere. Yay for Aaron! We teachers, students, and critters all appreciated his work while at the Laguna Foundation.

Enjoy your habitat installations. Habitat it!

Tony

Twisted North Mound — An Outdoor Classroom Wildlife Habitat Installation

1- Residential Habitats -- Critters and Their Homes, 6-Outdoor Classroom No Responses »

Nov 172016

Twisted North Mound is a wildlife habitat installed behind Heron Hall at the Laguna Foundation‘s Laguna Environmental Center, or LEC, located at 900 Sanford Road, Santa Rosa, California, 95401. The installation was an outdoor classroom activity. Date: November 10, 2016. School: Orchard View School, Sebastopol, California. Teacher: Sunny Galbraith. Me: Tony McGuigan, from Spore Lore.

In a nutshell, this wildlife habitat installation is a wad of clay, organic material, topsoil, and new meadow barley plants shoved up against a very large trunk section of a downed oak tree. A large rock slab, hovering off the ground, snugs up to the tree trunk and earthen, cavity-filled mound.

October 2013 (three 3 years ago) Stuart Schroeder, of Stone Horse Farm, uses an “implement carrier” pulled/pushed by a tractor to move West Heron Hall Log into place.

The BEFORE. Heron Hall Logs East (L) and West (R). One goal of Twisted North Mound is to have these large hulks of wood look more naturally placed in the terrain, for instance, as if the tree had fallen on site.

Habitat Installation Day — Prep before students arrive

Habitat Resource Depot (fancy name!) at the Laguna Foundation’s compost (left) and woodchip pile (right). Pulled from the depot for this installation: tree logs and small rootballs, rock slab (center), old surface compost with fresh grass weeds, and under-the-pile compost soil.

Lifting a rock slab for use in the habitat installation, a millipede is disturbed. Note the wisp of spider cob web lower left — a busy underside of the rock that has rested here only a month.

East view of East Heron Hall Log (there are two; the other is West Log), which is next to the habitat installation site. Note the sun-protected trays of meadow barley starts that will be planted. The south face of the log is thick with woodchip mulch to suppress weeds. Lush green grass and weeds in the background — now is the time to plant in Northern California. We can plant native plant starts now and the coming rains will water them, increasing plant survival despite no irrigation used.

Clear the table! Top layer woodchip mulch is scraped away from the work site for 4 reasons: 1) to harvest/collect woodchips that will be under Twisted North Mound (AKA “TNM”), mostly between the 2 large oak tree sections, 2) to access soil from under East Log (foreground), to harvest a thin layer of decayed woodchip-rich topsoil from under the scraped away woodchips, and 4) to keep the woodchips clean and usable as mulch (no soil!) while the habitat site is built.

A western fence lizard (Sceloporus occidentalis) is well camouflaged on West Log (center, far edge).

Close-up of wary lizard. Throughout set-up, lizards darted in and out of the Logs’ thick bark layer that has sagged from the harder cambium wood. Perfect habitat for these small creatures.

Gathering organic material to create a planted mound, here includes shovel skimming ALIVE topsoil and fresh weeds from a dormant Compost Cricket Corral bin.

A garter snake escapes from one side of East Log (where I was removing woodchips) to the back side of the log.

Ouch! Now I know these Jerusalem crickets can bite. Allowing this critter to crawl over onto my hand turned out to be a bad idea; luckily the skin of my finger was not broken by the insect’s jaws. Note that topsoil from under East Log is being harvested for use, and thrown on a tarp, for the West Log habitat mound.

Topsoil on a tarp (foreground) has been harvested from under East Log.

Mushroom layer has been exposed as the oak-tree-to-woodchip-mulch interface is exposed (at tip of shovel).

Bucket Man collects fresh compost soil from under compost; note shovel under compost pile in background.

Prep for Twisted North Mound wildlife habitat installation. Starting from west face of West Log, in foreground, moving clockwise: rakes to return woodchip mulch after installation is in, shovels, logs and root pieces (mostly river wood — not salt-cured driftwood), large pond-liner bin of avocado and bamboo leaves, buckets of compost soil, wheelbarrow of old compost and weed surface soil, wheelbarrow of heavy clay soil from under East Log, berm of woodchip mulch, tarp with pile of topsoil from under woodchips, Cold Water Canyon rock slab on rolling cart.

Site scraped and ready for the students to create Twisted North Mound. Note the berm of woodchips on the north side — it will be pushed onto the mound when mulch is called for.

Close-up view of meadow barley plants in waiting. Note the shelf fungus‘ thriving on East Log’s shady side.

Students Arrive

The students have arrived. Their first assignment is to figure which pieces of riverwood/driftwood will create the habitat between East and West Logs. Lots of physics to move the wood around AND not get hurt.

Students deliberate while a great blue heron flies by. Outdoor classrooms rock!

Getting somewhere — this “T-bone” triangular piece of wood will be the habitat’s foundation.

Instructing that we want to snug T-bone up to West Log and to fill it with soil and to be able to plant meadow barley in the crevice. Note that these pieces of wood between East and West Logs will be completely buried, slated to decompose and ultimately leave organic material in the surrounding soil and to leave cavities for critters to someday take advantage of. Are we talking about next year, 2 years from now, or ten years from now? The answer is yes. Habitat It And They Will Come!

Flipping up T-bone (left) to allow a small piece of old (ready for insects to eat!) wood to snuggle under T-bone.

Back down goes T-bone, over other hulks of wood. Different pieces of wood mean different resources for habitat critters — different food, different water saturation, different decay schedules and by-products. Our aim here is to invite DIFFERENT critters.

Orchard View students and teacher Sunny Galbraith at work. (Foreground) Digging out clay soil from under East Log. East Log is unashamedly laying with its cut end in full view (a problem). Following the permaculture principle “the problem is the solution”, we use clay soil from under East Log to cover West Log’s exposed corner and Twisted North Mound. Stay tuned for what happens to West Log. (Center) Working the clay soil from under East Log in the crevices of TNM. We want to pack in the soil so the plants will have maximum soil, no air pockets that would kill the meadow barley starts roots. (Background) Weeding Torrent Critter Crag, giving the torrent sedge plugs a better chance to survive, thrive.

Twisted North Mound gets avocado tree and bamboo leaves over its clay soil base. The organic layer will break down, while it is eaten by soil microbes and crawly critters, and leave a loose, cavity-filled layer under the barley meadow root canopy.

Covering the leaves with the soil scraped under the woodchips that were pushed back from the habitat site. Buckets of compost soil at the ready; that layer will be the top layer that the meadow barley starts are planted in.

The rock slab is moved into position.

And down, with the tip of the rock resting on a short length of rootwood (hard, long-to-decay wood) and the rest of the rock resting on the pile of small rocks that we collected while digging under East Log. The rocks found while digging, a problem, became a solution when wanting to create a space under the rock slab.

Another organic layer — the old compost and fresh grasses/weeds, complete with thriving soil microbes and crawly critters, will make a rich layer under the compost soil. The goal is to have the compost soil and woodchip mulch kill down any of the grasses/weeds.

Compost soil is sculpted to create a planting mound.

Meadow barley starts are planted. Note the rectangular root form to the plant in the foreground — these start plants were touseled, squeezed, massaged, and even roots ripped free to allow the plant a non-rectangular root spread. Free the roots!

Meadow barley starts planted among woodchip mulch.

And a little water for the meadow barley,

and for rock slab.

Twisted North Mound wildlife habitat installation is in! East view of back side.

North view of habitat’s “front”, that is, the view from behind Heron Hall.Students deliberate, time to talk amongst themselves after a successful work session.

Brent Reed, of the Laguna Foundation, inspects Twisted North Mound on installation day. Good thing this habitat was built to meet or surpass the latest Habitat Building Code.

Thank you, as always, to Sunny Galbraith, teacher at Orchard View School, Sebastopol, and her students. Also, much thanks to the staff and board of the Laguna Foundation, particularly the Restoration and Conservation Science Department: Wendy Trowbridge, Director; Brent Reed, Ecological Program Manager; Aaron Nunez, Ecological Project Manager; and Paul Weber, Restoration Field Supervisor.

Enjoy your wildlife habitat installations. Habitat it!

Tony

Torrent Critter Crag — an Outdoor Classroom Wildlife Habitat Installation

1- Residential Habitats -- Critters and Their Homes, 6-Outdoor Classroom No Responses »

Oct 162016

Torrent Critter Crag is a wildlife habitat installed next to Amphibian Amphitheatre at the Laguna Foundation’s headwater Irwin Creek property, the Laguna Environmental Center, or LEC, at 900 Sanford Road, Santa Rosa, California, 95401. The installation was an outdoor classroom activity. Date: October 13, 2016. School: Orchard View School, Sebastopol, California. Teacher: Sunny Galbraith. Me: Tony McGuigan, from Spore Lore.

In a nutshell, this wildlife habitat installation is a deep clay-lined hole with a large hulk of redwood tree crown/trunk partially buried in it. A large rock slab at ground surface snugs up to the tree crown/trunk. Torrent sedge starts blanket the swale of the habitat.

1 Week Before Habitat Installation

In the pic above, Amphibian Amphitheatre BEFORE Torrent Critter Crag habitat installed. The field behind Amphibian Amphitheatre Ravine‘s berm is lush with tall weeds. Two months have gone by since the area has been weeded. Today, I weed the area to restore dignity to the habitat installations AND to gather organic material for next week’s installation.

Note the collected water — our berm (created during the Ravine installation) works! Downside: the water is most likely the result of an irrigation line leak. Upside: critters and plants have a swimhole. The next three photos are close-ups from this area on that day of weeding. The dragonfly was at the water’s edge on the tree limb surfacing from the water (far right of the pooled water). The lizard was under the figwort plant in the foreground. The California mantis, Stagmomantis californica, was discovered while weeding golden dry grasses — note how well the mantis is camouflaged.

A dragonfly rests alongside the pooled water below Amphibian Amphitheatre Ravine’s berm. Perhaps this is a female Meadowhawk (and there are many species). Can you ID it? Try Kathy Bigg’s, our local Sonoma County dragonfly expert, pages on dragonflies.

A western fence lizard (Sceloporus occidentalis) is well camoflouged in the woodchips below this California figwort, or Scrophularia californica.

Yikes! Almost weeded this California mantid Stagmomantis californica in Amphibian Amphitheatre. Nice color match on the camo outfit.

Close-up of California mantid, which are typically 50-60 mm (about 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 inches) long.

2 Days Before Habitat Installation

Shopping for rock. These rock slabs make good critter homes. The stack here is Cold Water Canyon rock, local to northern California.

Rock slab being “walked” to the habitat site on the other side of Heron Hall Logs. View is north to Lower Stone Farm and Irwin Creek (line of trees beyond field in background).

A pile of weeds, in right foreground, has been processing all week. The weeds were pulled from inside Amphibian Amphitheatre and from the downslope meadow. Soil clumps were not shaken from the weeds — many weed clumps had a good sized clump of fresh, healthy, alive topsoil attached to their roots. Weeds (organic matter) and topsoil (soil) were used to make a compost pile (right foreground) that would have only one week to sit before being planted on as a berm. The weeds were thickly covered with layers of woodchips and a scattering of compost. Normally, woodchip mulch does not include compost soil, but this wildlife habitat installation is on the cheap. Materials on hand are ALL the materials we will ever need! The woodchips used were collected from the remnants of two piles — one woodchip pile and one compost/planting mix pile. So, the woodchips have a high component of compost mixed in — perhaps the berm we create for the installation will be a perfect mix to propagate the wild spreading rye already thriving in Amphibian Amphitheatre.

The compost pile is pretty much sitting on top of where Torrent Critter Crag habitat will be installed. The heavier soil and woodchips are pulled to the back of the pile, creating a berm that extends Amphibian Amphitheatre’s berm — more water will be trapped in Amphibian Amphitheatre when the rains come. The lighter decaying weed pile is pulled to away/uphill from the berm; the weeds are moved uphill from the hole to be dug for the habitat. After the habitat hole is dug and the habitat’s wood feature is installed, the weeds will be tucked into the remaining hole to create a cache of underground organic matter, AKA buried treasure!

The redwood tree crown-trunk is brought on site. Note the two distinct piles sorted from the compost pile — soil and woodchips right (which will become a planted berm) and one-week-old dead weeds left (which will be buried alongside the crown-trunk).

Digging produces heavy clay mud quickly. Note how some of the mud was used to build up the berm in right foreground. Note the black plastic landscaping tarp used to keep the hole’s mud separate (and movable) from the ground below the pile.

Stakes, string, and flags used to safely leave the hole overnight (left) and protect the rye grass that was planted last year (right).

Installation Day

Water in the hole! Lucky me, there won’t be any more digging today. The water has seeped in through the surrounding clay basin — note the pooled water in the background, which is water held uphill by Amphibian Amphitheatre’s berm. Note the materials layout: left = organics (weeds) pile and redwood crown-trunk for burying; foreground = mud pile for surounding buried organics and crown-trunk; right = berm to receive torrent sedge planting; background left (out of view) = woodchip pile to mulch the new planting and suppress weeds over the habitat. Time for the students to take over.

Torrent sedge Carex nudata plants for this habitat have been grown at the Laguna Foundation’s Native Plant Nursery. Torrent sedge grows in mounds below the high-water mark in marshes and on river banks — perfect for this swale area that is expected to gather and hold water.

A thriving clump of torrent sedge in the Pond swale at the LEC.

Torrent sedge prepped for the students to plant. The plants were cut out of their 4X4 pots and stored under a Heron Hall log for easy, quick access.

The Students Have Arrived

Two hours to wrap up this project! Students prepare the torrent sedge transplants by giving them a “haircut” — trimming the sedge stalks will ensure that the roots will not become overwhelmed and will increase the transplanting survival rate.

Deciding how to place crown-trunk in the habitat is a collaborative student decision.

All hands on deck, working together to find the wood hulk’s center of gravity, which will help us know how to move it into position in the hole.

Flipping the crown-trunk into position — sure beats lifting it.

The crown-trunk is headed to the digging bars straddling the hole. The digging bars will suspend the wood over the hole in case we want to make any last minute position changes.

Almost there!

There! A student presses crown-trunk into the muddy hole. Note how the students have decided to bury crown-trunk’s thin end, leaving the bulk to breach (yes, like a whale!) out of the soil. Also, the west facing slope of the wood is designed to attract sunning reptiles that might live under the habitat’s rock slab (in background, waiting to be installed).

Opps! The log is flipped to the side of the hole to move the heavy clay mud pile from underneath it. We moved the mud to the planting berm for temporary keeping.

The crown-trunk log is secured in place with clay mud. The cardboard “dropcloth” used to keep the site natural looking is removed.

Clay mud is worked around the base of the wood to secure it in place and to create a base for the torrent sedge planting.Students hold the rock slab vertical while design elements are discussed.

Moving some of the weed pile into the hole so that the rock slab can rest up against the log.

Time to fill the hole, grade the habitat soil. We are skimming the clay mud off the top of the berm, stopping at the layer of woodchips that will become the planting surface.

Final grading of the planting mix. Note how little of the log is visible above ground.

Planting plugs of torrent sedge with 18″ spacing. Some day, these sedge bunches will spread together, hiding the rock slab (right of log). Plenty of critter homes to be had!

Woodchip mulch to surround the sedge plugs.

And more woodchips. This is the fun part — our mud hole is beginning to look like something pretty.

Okay Class, put your paper and pencils away and take out your digging bars. Outdoor classrooms rock!

Teacher Sunny Galbraith calls in the cleanup.

Torrent Critter Crag wildlife habitat installation is in! Northeast view.

Torrent Critter Crag, southwest view. Teacher Sunny and her students, in background by the Laguna Foundation’s office, visit habitats installed by previous students.

2 Days After Installation

Torrent Critter Crag enjoys its first rain. Northwest view.

And more rain will come this winter season, perhaps pooling at the base of crown-trunk log and flooding the torrent sedge. Rain on!

Thank you, as always, to Sunny Galbraith, teacher at Orchard View School, Sebastopol, and her students. Also, much thanks to the staff and board of the Laguna Foundation, particularly the Restoration and Conservation Science Department: Wendy Trowbridge, Director; Brent Reed, Manager, Aaron Nunez, Tech II, and Paul Weber, Tech I.

Enjoy your wildlife habitat installations. Habitat it!

Tony