With the sun shining and the creek trickling by, myself and 11 other SPAWN volunteers worked shoulder to shoulder along Roy’s Pools to clear out an area of invasive blackberry that had smothered our native plantings from previous years, overgrown into the old SPAWN Nursery area, and completely covered decorative boulders put in place at the time of the Roy’s Pools construction in 1999. This site is great because we were able to speak with and promote our activities to several groups of interested golfers that played nearby. It was clear to all that the creek levels are much lower than a typical winter, and our discussions on native plants, coho salmon, and watershed health kept coming back to the serious drought that our state is facing now and into the new year of 2009. The corner site with its decorative boulders and easy access promised to be a focal point for lots of great SPAWN restoration efforts in 2009. We will return here next weekend, on Saturday January 24th, to plant native plants, monitor our birdhouses, and remove more of the blackberry that is choking out other riparian plantings. See you at the creek!
