This week on a levee bounding the north shore of San Francisco Bay... on one side, marshland recovering from abuses suffered over the course of 150 years... on the other -- below sea level -- plowed agricultural land and beyond that rolling green hills of Sonoma County.
In the foreground, 70 children from two quite different elementary schools... to the west, from San Anselmo, fourth-graders from Brandeis Hillel... to the east, from Richmond, sixth-graders from Perez School which they pronounde peer-ease.
All digging and planting and packing and shouting out in unison "plant inspection" and smiling at their own successes and hauling buckets and mulching and going to another flagged location in this restoration design. From California sage and monkeyflower bushes, to yarrow and even saltgrass at the base of the levee, these were Students and Teachers Restoring a Watershed.
Nearby, dozens of long-billed curlews foraged on the low-tide mud, occasionally churring and piping excitedly. Harriers and kites over the grasslands, gangs of sparrows ripping around the mature shrub patches. Rain clouds building, welcome.
In the foreground, 70 children from two quite different elementary schools... to the west, from San Anselmo, fourth-graders from Brandeis Hillel... to the east, from Richmond, sixth-graders from Perez School which they pronounde peer-ease.
All digging and planting and packing and shouting out in unison "plant inspection" and smiling at their own successes and hauling buckets and mulching and going to another flagged location in this restoration design. From California sage and monkeyflower bushes, to yarrow and even saltgrass at the base of the levee, these were Students and Teachers Restoring a Watershed.
Nearby, dozens of long-billed curlews foraged on the low-tide mud, occasionally churring and piping excitedly. Harriers and kites over the grasslands, gangs of sparrows ripping around the mature shrub patches. Rain clouds building, welcome.