We recontoured the new water channel and planted the eroded area to native grasses once more. Just in time for the impresssive storms of Feb. 2-4, Louise Jackson, her husband Pat Mcquire, and their son Rowan moved into the Bell House. Louise is conducting a study of microbial biomass in soil occupied by grasses, as affected by tillage. We are having fun visiting relict prairies on similar soils from here to Carmel Ranch Company. Louise is comparing these old fields to actively farmed land in the Salinas Valley.
Louse expects to be here, on and off, or to have a graduate student here for the next three years.
Louise, Paul, and I have responded to a request for proposals from EPA and UC-Davis's program in sustainable agriculture. We proposed more detailed study of the use of native perennial grasses in small, specialty agricultural systems at the wildland-urban interface. The first weekend in March, Hastings was jammed. They shared the Ranch House for a night with Stanback's class. And down the road at the same time, Bev Ortiz lead an Ethnobotany class from the Jepson Herbarium.