What a terrible week. I took these videos before election day, and so much has happened since then. Because of that, I need to keep working on restoring and healing this little piece of land. It’s not the only action I’m taking to fight back against the horrible path our country is on, but it’s one I can work on right now.

In the videos, I walk you through the next section of the yard I’m trying to address. Please forgive the stupid vertical video (why can I never get that right?) and my sniffing and wheezing. (I have a ton of allergies, plus I’m recovering from a bad cold and cough.)

I talk a lot about needing to remove plants–non-natives, cultivars, and natives that aren’t from my area. I’m trying to get this land back to what it was as closely as possible. Natives that are from different places in California wouldn’t have been here originally. If you introduce a native that’s from another area, it can become invasive if the conditions are “better” than what it’s used to, and it won’t necessarily provide food for local pollinators and birds. But, I didn’t realize that when I started this process. I figured that if my local native nursery or native plant group was selling native plants, they would actually be native to right here.

I feel terrible taking out plants just to toss them in the compost. They’re still living things, and in some cases, it’s my fault they’re in the ground in the first place. So I have to work up to the actual digging part.

And, I do a lot of apologizing to the plants.