December 5 volunteers are needed to harvest dogbane for use in cordage-making activities. If you are in or near the greater San Francisco Bay Area this will be a good, free opportunitiy to help out, make some like-minded contacts, and to learn about cordage-making. Several of us from the Central Valey will be joining in.

Go to the EBRPD website, create a free account, and sign up to get details.

"Hi Don: Just an FYI, you had signed up for a program that was by mistake set to register on line. Below is the information on contacting Bev Ortiz about the program


TO BE ANNOUNCED: Help us gather dogbane, an Ohlone string-making plant, for use in cultural programs at Coyote Hills. Participate in a thousands-of-years-old relationship between people and the landscape by pruning the dogbane plants, so they proliferate, and grow back even healthier. Ages 16+yrs. Parking fees apply where charged. Contact Beverly Ortiz at (510) 544-3216. Meet at Coyote Hills to carpool to gathering location."

Dogbane harvest 12-13-09

Sacramento Tracker Club members Richard, Kat, and I traveled to Coyote Hills Regional Park to meet Beverly Ortiz of the East Bay Regional Park District in response to her request for volunteers to harvest dogbane for us in park programs. For those unfamiliar, dogbane is a small bush whose stems yield superior, water resistant natural fibers long used for thread, cordage, rope, netting, etcetera. It is prized by those doing so-called “primitive” skills.

Ms. Ortiz is a naturalist with the East Bay Regional Park District http://www.ebparks.org/ and frequent author who works with Native Americans to share and preserve their culture and techniques. I suspect if you run an internet search on her name there will be lots of hits.

We expected to be led to the back of an EBRPD park for the harvest. Instead, we had a big surprise: we left the East Bay and followed Bev west on the Dumbarton Bridge across South San Franciso Bay to the lower San Francisco Peninsula. We ended up going into the private areas of Filoli, a place about which I had only read great things in magazines like Sunset and numerous regional newspapers.

http://www.filoli.org/

We were met there by Marianne Schonfisch, whose exact title escapes me but who, .among other things, directs educational and cultural activities at Filoli. Marianne met us at Reds Barn, which has been converted into a meeting and classroom.

I will restrain myself to this one paragraph in describing some of the charms of this part of Filoli. The eye is taken by the sight of moss draped oaks, towering redwood and pine trees, abundant and varied mushrooms, deer, turkeys, squirrels, birds of all descriptions, banana slugs, streams, lakes, near coastal rain forest vegetation, and relatively little development since the property was home to Native Americans in Pre-European times. Adjacent to the original and intact watershed that still supplies water to the San Francisco area, and owned originally as a huge private estate, Filoli preserves a look into the past with nearly intact plant and animal communities whose lineages go back to pre-history. Wow,

In a light but nearly continuous rain, Bev instructed us on sound dogbane cultural practices, including those of Native Americans, to who we showed respect. Marianne shared some of the relevant history of Filoli and particularly the cultural history of the patch of dogbane we were going to harvest. Bev and Marianne are working together on an article on dogbane and listening to them discuss the topic was an educational delight.

We harvested for a while, then broke for lunch and to let Bev help us grade the dogbane harvest so we could fine-tune our practices. We had a lot to learn. There was time for Marianne to lead us on a mini-tour up one of the nearby trails, identifying trees and bushes, seeing mushrooms, harvesting some yerba buena for tea, etcetera.

Bev went over with us her grading and sorting of the morning's effort, keeping most of it, briefly showed us some of how she has learned to process dogbane for cordage, and again shared more cultural attitudes and practices she has learned from Native Americans. Refreshed and with our tutoring reinforced we returned to work, gave the morning's trimmings and rejects back to the Earth as those who lived before us would have, and cut-cut-cut until the allotted hour. I think we were more selective and did a better job of getting the better dogbane material in the afternoon.

Bev got dogbane to use in various cultural and educational programs, we got to take home a nice bunch, too. We briefly discussed with Marianne returning with more volunteers to work on improving and harvesting dogbane at Filoli. If you contact the Sacramento Tracker Club, we can put you in contact with Marianne or Beverly, I assume you can also contact them through Filoli or the East Bay Regional Park District, respectively.

Richard, Kat, and I found the experience fun, educational, and a great connection with the past and with the amazing resource known as Filoli. Please contact the Sacramento Tracker Club through its Yahoo Group site if you want to play!

We then collectively cleaned up Reds Barn, and headed our separate ways. I say again: wow!

Working to set up another session.