Dia de los Muertos • Day of the Dead Cemetery Tour

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Filed under Events, Fall, Fundraising, History, Mountain Cemetery, Stewardship

Tour Sonoma History through Mountain Cemetery

Saturday November 4th, 2023
10 am OR 12:30pm
$40 Suggested Donation
REGISTER

The Sonoma Overlook Trail Stewards invite you to take a lively, informative walk through our historic cemetery with our own amateur historian Fred Allebach.

Meet ranchers and ranch hands, real estate tycoons, farmers and farriers, carpenters and stone masons, quarry-men, grocers, butchers, bakers, maybe a candlestick maker, and many more! This fundraising event is limited to 25 participants per hike. We sell out every year, so register early to be sure you get a spot!

We’ll have a hike at 10am and another at 12:30. Your $40 donation includes the walking tour, cookies and cider. All proceeds go toward improvements on the Overlook Trail. The Trail is solely supported by private donations.

Crafting the Overlook for the Years Ahead

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Filed under Fundraising, Stewardship, Trail Maintenance

Sonoma Overlook LoopWe’re rolling into autumn. As always, we continue our work to keep the trails healthy, safe and accessible. If you’ve visited lately, you’ve seen many freshly graded sections, thanks to our intrepid Maintenance Team.

Yes, we carry out much of the labor ourselves, with pleasure. However, the Overlook lies on a mountain of rock, so when we can, we bring in specialized crews, with specialized equipment, to carry out some of the heavier work. If you’ve been an Overlook devotee for long, you’ll have seen the glorious results of these projects, improvements that are likely to last well beyond our lifetimes.

We are now raising the funds needed to complete the third and final phase of this process and we need your help!

Please consider becoming a part of it all as a supporter of the Overlook Trail, or renewing your support, with a tax-deductible donation to the cause.  What finer purpose than the betterment of a local sanctuary that serves 60,000 visitors a year?

Donate via credit card HERE.

To contribute by check, make it payable to:
“Sonoma Ecology Center”, include “For Sonoma Overlook Trail” in the memo, and send it to:

Sonoma Overlook Trail
c/o Sonoma Ecology Center
PO Box 1486
Eldridge, CA 95431

All donations are tax deductible.

A Salute to John Donnelly

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Filed under Acts of Service, Stewardship

There is a gravitas, and a deep reward, that comes only after one dedicates oneself to acts of service with passion and perseverance over time. Among those that have quietly made the Overlook Trail a part of their life’s work is our John Donnelly, who recently departed the Stewards in order to redirect his expertise towards what may serve us on an even greater level: the Parks, Recreation and Open Space Commission for the City of Sonoma.

But the loss is real. John has been a true leader, advocate and ever diplomatic guide to our group. In the words of some of our longest serving Stewards:

John Donnelly has been a stalwart (aka loyal, reliable and hardworking), intelligent and guiding member of the Sonoma Overlook Trail Stewards for more than 20 years.

John served as Chairperson of the Stewards for 10 of those years. Of his many contributions,  we can thank John for the kiosk that now graces the trail entrance. The kiosk educates walkers about the trail, its ecology and inhabitants.  It was John’s vision: he guided the process through design, approval, funding, execution, and completion.

Joanna Kemper

John is a great mentor and leader. I always said John was the Secretary of State of the SOT, for his tremendous authenticity, grace, humility, and clear compass to always do good and be on the right side of things. When there was ever any trouble and tension, John could finesse it, and say things always in just the right way. I’ve imagined a statue of John at the top of the Overlook…a monument to a great Sonoma citizen and great human being.

After the fires and after a bulldozer went all over the hillside by the trail, John, in his late 70s, came up to help do the heavy, dirty work of re-grading the trail. Sophisticated as he is, John never got too high and we had fun moving that dirt together. Here’s to you John, and the simple service of moving dirt that we shared.

Fred Allebach

John joined the first Sonoma Overlook Trail (SOT) docent training class in the spring of 2002. After attending eight weeks of training to learn about the plants, animals and geologic and human history of the area, he became a docent. He excelled in this role and enjoyed it so much that the following year, he became a docent trainer. In those early days, he was out on the trail so often, and working so hard, that he appeared in a few newspaper photographs. He was known as the “poster child” of the SOT.

John’s attention to detail has been invaluable during many aspects of caring for the SOT. From 2008 until 2011, John assumed sole responsibility for chairing the Task Force. He has been an active member of the SOT Steward’s Maintenance Team for many years. His love of and knowledge about the SOT are exceeded by none! 

Jackie Steuer

John, we wish you all the best in your future endeavors. May the trail rise to meet you.

The Season of the Child Soldiers

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Filed under Trail Maintenance, Yellow Star Thistle

IMG-2860When I started this effort to remove invasive thistle from the Sonoma Overlook Trail, and then also the Montini Preserve, I thought, in my ignorance, that it was a battle. Over time I realized it was a war. And not only a war, but a war of attrition. That is, who could last longer? Us or them? In the end I know it’s them, but I will take a bite out of them. A serious bite.

Where I’m taking the most serious bite is on the Yellow starthistle, which has been battled down to a few meadows on the roughly 200 acres of the contiguous Montini Preserve and Sonoma Overlook Trail.

For example, today I went out and removed all of the Yellow starthistle from one of the remaining Overlook Trail meadows where it appears. And I’m here to tell you that they are sending in their child soldiers (see picture). These are the plants that are the equivalent of the invasive species “hail mary,” which pop up at the end of the season and only have a single flower/seed pod to try to propagate.

Frankly, when you are mostly pulling these “child soldiers” you know you have it on the run. That’s when you double-down and seriously eff them up. Count on me for that.

Yesterday’s Monthly Trail Workday

Posted
Filed under Invasive Species, Italian Thistle, Plant Life, Stewardship, Yellow Star Thistle

ThistleWorkday

Priscilla, Tom, Roy, Elizabeth, and Kurt. Jamie took the picture.

Yesterday a crew of six stewards, including me, headed out to clear the upper Sonoma Overlook Trail meadow of invasive Italian thistle. We made one complete sweep of the upper meadow and emerged with ten contractor debris bags full of the nasty weed, as well as some remaining invasive Yellow starthistle, which unfortunately was a surprise.

Elizabeth Garsonnin, Priscilla Miles, Jamie Nelson, Tom Sours, and Kurt Teuber came out to help with this important battle. If we hit Italian thistle hard now on the upper meadow, before it completely drops its seed, we have a chance of eventually eradicating it instead of allowing it take over completely.

Although we’ve been largely successful in pushing it away from the trail, we are still challenged in large areas where Italian thistle is gaining the upper hand. On the Montini Preserve, my focus has been simply to get it off the trail, as that is the only reasonable goal for that property at the moment. But on the Sonoma Overlook Trail property, we have an opportunity to eradicate it further back from the trail. Eventually, some years from now, my goal will to be to not even see it from the trail, but that is clearly some years out still, and may never be achieved on the Montini Preserve, where it’s fairly rampant.