Chapter 1 – Introduction to the Pepperwood Podcast 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,680
This is the Pepperwood podcast, a production of Pepperwood, a non-profit conservation organization based at a 3,200 acre nature reserve near Santa Rosa, California, in the heart of the traditional homeland of the Wappo People.
At Pepperwood, we aim to inspire conservation through science, and on this show we talk to scientists, stewards, and environmental educators about what they do and how they do it. We hope to give you a glimpse into the real experiences of folks who devote their lives to taking care of local ecosystems and sharing them with others.

Chapter 2 – Welcome to the Pilot/About the Host 00:00:36,800 --> 00:00:44,360
Welcome to our first episode. I am your host, Julianne Bradbury. Today for our inaugural episode, I'm going to start by telling you a little bit about my from me than will be typical. The primary focus of most of our episodes will be our guests. Each episode will feature a conversation with one of my colleagues, either a Pepperwood staff member or a member of the extended conservation community here in the North Bay. Today we do have a guest, a very illustrious guest in my opinion, and we will hear from him in just a few minutes, but first, who am I and what are our plans for this podcast? I, Julianne Bradbury, was lucky enough to join the Pepperwood staff as an Environmental Educator in September of 2023, and it was a great personal victory for me. I really feel that I have come home to Pepperwood, and I'm expecting to spend as long a time here as they will let me. Prior to being hired, I have been active in the Pepperwood community as a volunteer starting in 2014 and then as a guest researcher starting in 2016. I completed both of my bachelor's and my master's degrees in the biology department at Sonoma State University, and in both cases I had Dr. Derek Girman as my advisor. As part of Dr. Girman's lab, my undergraduate and graduate research was housed at Pepperwood. I collected and analyzed data for a long-term study of reptiles and amphibians near two of Pepperwood's ponds, and that study continues to this day. I'm still a part of it, and no doubt I will be providing updates on our findings in future episodes. You can check out my 2021 webinar if you are burning with curiosity about that project's preliminary findings, or if you just want to see some truly delightful photos of salamanders and lizards. It's called Impacts of Fire on amphibians and reptiles, and you can either find it on the Pepperwood Foundation YouTube channel, specifically under the Pepperwood webinars playlist, or you can follow the link in our show notes to view that webinar. These days, as an environmental educator, most of my time has spent shepherding students of various ages around the reserve in our many education programs, but I do manage to shoehorn a little data collection and stewardship in there to keep my life interesting when my calendar allows for it. All right, that's more than enough about me for now. 

Chapter 3 – Goals for the Pod 00:03:15,840 --> 00:03:21,080
Let's discuss our goals for the podcast. We're hoping to give the whole community a chance to hear the voices of the folks who are actively practicing stewardship, conservation science, and environmental education out there in the world today. As your host, I will ask each guest to share some details about a program, a project, or a practice that they're engaged in and excited about. I'll ask each of them a version of the following three questions. Who, how, and what? Let me tell you a little bit more about each question. The first question is who. Who are you working with? Now let's establish right off the bat that I have a pretty flexible understanding of the word who. Unlike a lot of trained scientists, I'm not too squeamish about anthropomorphizing our fellow members of the natural world, so when I use the word "who," I often expand it to include the idea of which species or what group of organisms. So that "who" might be grade school students or research scientists, or it might be Douglas fir trees or native bunch grasses or pollinating insects or one specific species of native bee, right? I expect we'll find out just how far the concept of who can be stretched as the podcast goes on. The point is to understand who or what, if you prefer, the guest interacts with directly in the course of their work, and I expect that that's going to lead to hearing about what that interaction is like and what its purpose might be. So that's where we're starting with our who. Second question is how. How might your work impact the future? Depending on the project, we might be discussing the future of a habitat or ecosystem or maybe the future of work that's going to be done here at Pepperwood or in a different reserve, or maybe it'll be the future of a person's life following a visit to one of these places, right? There's no guarantees, of course, about how any project or practice will turn out or how it will impact the people around us, but I'm curious about the goals that my guests have in mind, and I imagine that you, dear listeners, are curious about that as well. So that's the how. How might your work impact the future? Last question is what. What makes your work possible? And I expect this will often give us a chance to celebrate the people or social structures or government programs that support stewardship science and education. I hope it will also give us some insight into how we can help support the work through our own actions, whether that be through financial support or by directing our personal choices or actions in a certain direction, voting for certain policies, discussing the topic with our friends and families to spread the word about certain ideas, whatever our guest has in mind and can draw upon to think about what supports their work. The bottom line is I think it's important to understand some of what it takes to engage in conservation work, right? Stewardship science and education programs definitely don't run themselves for free, and understanding their work should also include some concept of how that work is supported. So there they are. That is the who, the how, and the what that I'll be asking our guests about. That's our plan for this podcast project, and I'm pretty excited about it. We welcome your thoughts and feedback as we build our list of guests, so if you have any questions, suggestions, thoughts, feelings, anything, please reach out to us by email at podcast@pepperwoodpreserve.org. If there are folks whose work you are particularly interested in hearing more about, I will do what I can to get them on this podcast and ask them who, how, and what their work is all about. 

Chapter 4 – Introduction to Gary Morgret & the Pepperwood Stewards Program 00:07:29,520 --> 00:07:35,200
Alright, speaking of people you want to hear from, with very little further ado, let's get to our first guest and the conversation I had with him just a few days ago at the time of this episode's release. Today we're going to hear from Gary Morgret, one of our many dedicated volunteer Stewards at Pepperwood. Now in case you're not familiar with our Stewards program, the Stewards are a group of volunteers who have formally committed to contributing their time and talents to Pepperwood's programs. There are two requirements to officially join our community of Stewards, educational and practical. On the educational side, all of our stewards have been trained in conservation and natural history. We offer two certification courses at Pepperwood to fulfill the requirement, and you can hear Gary and I in the conversation refer back to the fact that some years ago one of those courses used to be taught in partnership with the Santa Rosa Junior College. Currently, Pepperwood is pleased to offer the two certification courses of the University of California Environmental Stewards program, which you can read about in detail at calnat.ucanr.edu. We'll include that link in the show notes. Both certification courses are offered at Pepperwood and at many other organizations. They can all fulfill the education requirement to become a Pepperwood Steward. Now frankly, whether or not becoming a steward is a goal of yours, the UC Environmental Stewards courses are excellent experiences. I finally got to take the California Naturalist course this past winter and I loved it. Again, that website is calnat.ucanr.edu and we'll put the link in the show notes. Alternatively, the education box might be checked by having earned a degree related to Pepperwood's mission elsewhere. For example, my bachelor's degree in biology from SSU originally fulfilled the steward education requirement for me. Now on the practical side, the requirement is quite simple. All of our stewards contribute a substantial number of volunteer hours every year, often in a variety of roles in different Pepperwood programs to demonstrate their consistent commitment to supporting our organization. There are a number of perks to becoming a steward and that includes the opportunity to join certain specialized projects at Pepperwood like the one that Gary and I discuss in the following conversation. Now as a steward, Gary has been instrumental in keeping one of our long-term monitoring programs alive. The same monitoring program that originally drew me to Pepperwood and sparked my love of fieldwork in a way that legitimately changed the course of my career in conservation. So you can imagine this conversations very close to my heart. Okay, having set the scene, let's hear it. My conversation with volunteer steward Gary Morgret, which took place in October of 2024. 

Chapter 5 – Interview Begins 00:10:29,760 --> 00:10:33,960
Gary, thank you so much for joining me today. It's really nice to just be sitting across from you and see you. As you say, just before we started recording, you mentioned like we only see each other and passing it feels like. So nice to have an excuse to sit down together. 

Absolutely. 

Before we kind of get into talking about the phenology project itself, I wanted to just pick your brain. How long have you been volunteering with Pepperwood? 

I started volunteering before I even moved up here in the city. So I had friends who lived over on Mark West and I would come up weekends to visit and I saw that they needed people on Saturday morning. So I started volunteering. 

Ah, so it was really the workdays that brought you in.

That's what started it. 

The hot lunches with the workdays possibly. Maybe, maybe the beer. 

Oh, all of the above. 

Excellent. Yes, our workdays treat our volunteers well. So that's good. And then when did you start? Like how long was it before you started trying out other projects? 

Well, the steward thing happened because of Wendy Herniman. She was a longtime volunteer as well and doing an oak study and she talked me into doing the classes at the JC and becoming a steward. 

Excellent. 

So that was, I think that was around 2014. 

Okay, that's just about the same time that I started here. That's great. Yeah, yeah.

So that, yeah, we have that in common. Wonderful. And so then, you know, it took you back then, it was a two class series, if I remember correctly. And so then probably around 2015 or 16 was when you became a steward officially. Does that sound right? 

That's right. 

Was phenology one of the first projects that you started? 

It was one of the first official projects. 

Right. 

I started that and I think it was 2000, before the Tubbs Fire, which was 2017. We started in 16. 

Right. 

Michelle Halbur trained us. Natasha, Granoff and I, just the two of us. And so I've been doing it ever since. 

Oh my goodness. And I mean, people like me have come and gone since then from the project itself and you're still there. I'm so, you're a really... Phineasious. 

Yes, right. 

Well, you're a shining star in that because it really speaks to the sort of heart of a long-term monitoring project is that it's long-term and it's consistent. So that's so wonderful. So let's get into the project itself. To begin with, you know, it's a monitoring project. Who are you monitoring out there on that trail? 

Which plants? 

Yeah, which plants. I consider who to include, you know, species. Very broad definition. 

Pretty much. It's all chaparral. It's on serpentine soils. So everything's very stunted back in there. 

Yeah, everything has to fight to live. 

That's right. It's a tough place to grow and live. So I do leather oak and bay, California bay. 

Great.

Chamise, another chaparral plant. Toyon. And mimulus... Well, it's not mimulus anymore. Monkey flower? 

Yes, sticky monkey flower. 

Which, yes. I think it's deplacus, something like that. 

Yeah, they changed it. We can pronounce it however we want because those are dead languages and I say that's fine. 

Yeah, I have no idea. So that's a good handful. That's a good handful there of different species. 

Do you have a favorite by chance? 

Let's see. I'd say probably the ones that are the least difficult. Chamise is hard because leaves sometimes look like new leaves and they are not new leaves. But I think the monkey flowers are my favorite. They're so friendly looking. 

Yeah, that's a beautiful flower. That's fun. 

Yeah, I remember back when there was pre-fire, so during the Tubbs Fire, the project had some big impacts, right? Some of the plants that we'd been monitoring had burned. So we had some big shifts on the project before the Tubbs Fire. We were there were a few other species that I don't think are being monitored anymore, including some poison oaks. And then it was coyote brush and I grew to have a love-hate relationship with coyote brush. 

That's the same with me. Yes, okay. 

I don't necessarily miss those, although I do still love coyote brush. So maybe my relationship has improved. 

So speaking of the process and like what makes something your favorite and not, tell me about the process. Like how often do you go out and what are you looking for when you look at these plants? What are you monitoring? 

Well, the phenophases of a plant are what phenology is about. So what we're looking for is the plant budding or are there leaves in a canopy? Is it flowering? Is it seeds or the seeds ripening? All those things are what you look for. I'm here every Monday, every Monday morning checking and technically when things are really happening right now they're not. In the middle of this hot summer everything's just kind of stopped. But when it is, it should be two people. So now there are two of us. 

Oh good. So that's better. For a while it was just you, I'm sure. 

Yeah, it was just me for quite a while. But it's good to be out on the trail with a buddy. 

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you kept it going. And with, I mean, especially when it's down to one person, that means the project really depends on you. So we're so grateful. 

Yeah, it's still going. 

Yeah, all right. So I mean, so that's great. So you're going out every Monday with, hopefully with a buddy, maybe not. And you're looking for these phenophases, anything that the plant is sort of doing. And that means that some seasons are more interesting than others. 

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that really, what I always loved about the process is that it puts you in touch with this landscape in a way that I had never been before. 

Right? Yeah, like, you know, for a fact that this, you know, the end of summer right now, we're in early October, although it feels like the middle of July. But this is really a season of sleep for a lot of our plants. And even our animals, everything is kind of quiet and can't do much. Because it's waiting for water. 

So that is interesting. Yeah. You can tell plants are very thirsty right now. The bay leaves are starting to curl, which is I think a strategy to save water. The mod is on the bottom of the leaf and it's keeping that cool right underneath. 

Just like, uh, live oaks do. 

Right. Right. That's true. Live oaks look that way almost all the time. And so yeah, the bay leaf is almost borrowing a page. 

Yeah, that's interesting. Alrighty. So you've got, you've got the relationship with these plants. And I believe these are the same like literal individual plants that you're visiting. Right? They're all marked. 

Yeah. And there's a sheet that goes into nature's notebook, which is the National Phenology Network. And all the data goes into them. 

So it's just citizen science that's happening all over the country. 

Yeah. And they're collecting all the data and finding things like spring is happening earlier in some places. And like the research is really interesting. 

That is, and that, that almost leads us directly. I don't want to leave our experience. We can talk more about what it's like to do it. But my second question is how might this data that you're collecting impacts, you know, our future scientific understanding or even some of the work that gets done here? 

It's basically really about the change in climate and how plants are adapting to that change. And it has an impact. If something blooms or seeds early, there are things that rely on those seeds. And if they're coming later and the seeds are gone or whatever, there's everything that are connected. So it has a big impact when things change. 

Right. So by kind of tracking one part of this network of living things, you know, there are questions we can ask about the organisms that depend on that living thing. And what their timing is. 

Yeah. 

All right. So yeah. So understanding sort of how things are interacting or not being able to interact out there. What makes it possible, would you say? And I'd like to start on a personal level for you. You've been at it for, you know, a decade or more. So what has made it possible for you to continue this work? What do you think keeps bringing you back? 

What keeps bringing me back? Well, I love the place. It's amazing. I have a little tiny patio where I live with plants, but just a little patio. So I kind of see this as my yard, my, it's part of my, I just love being here. So it's very easy for me to come every Monday. I just, and sometimes I hike when I'm here. 

Right. Right. You get a little mini hike with the actual project, which is very stopping. 

That's a little walk. You walk a little, you're right. You know, clipboard. It's a clipboard thing. 

Classic biologist hike. 

Right. 

Yeah. 10 feet at a time, maybe. 

Exactly. 

Right. All right. 

What's interesting is when I go other places, I notice all the plants are in and where they are compared to the ones that I'm studying. 

Yeah. 

Like plants on the coast, as opposed to up here, about a thousand feet right here. So it's really different. 

Absolutely.

Yeah. 

No. And you can start to notice any plants around you anywhere. You're, oh, it's in that phenophase. Oh, that one's fruiting. 

Oh, yeah. 

So it really opens up the world to you. 

Totally. That's, that's super fun. Well, good. I hope that energy is also part of what keeps you, maybe the curiosity of like, what's going to happen this year? You know, is it going to come earlier? Wow. That's fun. What do you think about for the project as a whole? Do you think, I mean, what do you think is the most important thing to keep it going other than yourself? 

Oh, which is a big important one, right? 

Well, they are talking about doing another training. So just trying to get people interested in doing it because we have a little steady stream of volunteers. 

We sure do. So I think their training is probably coming up, which we can open another trail that's being neglected right now. 

Ah. Which we did, but since it came down to just me, Michelle, who is in charge of the project, thought that the serpentine trail was more important. 

Ah, so we had to do some prioritization, right? 

Something about the chamise and fire. 

Okay. 

So yeah, not real clear on why. 

Oh, that's fun. That sounds like a future conversation for me to have with Michelle. 

Yeah, fun. So this is actually a project where, I mean, I know that our volunteer work days, like we're just, we're rocking them. There's always at least 20 people there and we get really consistent. But this is a maybe a project that could use some consistent volunteer help. 

That's the thing, consistency. 

Right. And that might be a challenging part of it. 

Right. 

For somebody has to be able to come up at least every two weeks, would you say? 

At least. Yeah. 

And so that can be, that's a pretty good ask to have of a person. So if you're interested, I love what you were saying earlier about how you sort of feel like Pepperwood's your extended backyard. I just listened to a great song by Molly Tuttle called My Big Backyard or Big Backyard. That's all about how our whole world is our shared backyard. If you think about it. So that's a lovely, that's a lovely sentiment to have with you. 

They would keep you interested and make you really feel like this is a part of your home. And I think that's accurate. 

Right. It is. 

You know, it's a shared, a shared backyard we all have. That's so great. What do you find challenging about being part of it other than like maybe the consistency? But do you find it physically challenging at all? Is it, is it a tough project in that way? 

It's not physically challenging. For me, but there was someone doing it earlier who had trouble with some of the loose stones. She was afraid to go down some of the hills. Some of the plants are off trail. So it could be a little dicey, but not really a problem for me. 

Right. So if you're like really, you know, flat and gentle, that is not usually a description that people use of Pepperwood. Flat and gentle. We are a hilly place. So as long as you're up for some hills and some, you know, a little rough terrain, it's a pretty good match. And weather, I'd say, if it's, you know, storming for a week and you want to get out here and put on rain gear and get out. Do you have, you've done it in the rain before? 

We have paper that's waterproof. 

Ah, excellent. All right. Very good. And on a hot day, probably, as well. 

Oh yeah. Like today. 

Like today, exactly. So making sure you're hydrated and maybe going out a little early. 

Do you, is it flexible by time of day or does it matter? Okay. So it doesn't seem like the plants, 

the things you're looking for don't change no dramatically from afternoon to morning. 

I think that open and close or, you know, bloop once like a cactus. Right. 

Nothing like that. All right. So people are able, if you're a morning person or you're not a morning person that it's flexible. 

You can do it anytime. 

That's, that's a nice thing for it. All right. Well, it's a great project. We're so grateful that you have maintained it. And then it sounds like there's some space in this one to, to even re-expand the program and keep it going. So that's, that's of interest. It's good to hear that that, that's a training might be coming up where that opportunity is there. Gary, what do you like the best just about being a part of the Pepperwood community? 

Oh, the people, the place, wonderful supportive group. I love to do photography here too as well. So I photograph events for them and I just, I, everybody's just so wonderful. 

Well, that's wonderful. 

Welcoming and it's just very easy here. 

Well, that's nice to hear. We, we, we strive to, to be welcoming. 

Right. For sure. 

And like minded, you know, concerned. 

Yeah. 

Yeah. Aware of sort of like bigger concerns like climate. 

Absolutely. Climate, fire, all those things. 

Yes. 

Good. So it's nice to, yeah, meet people who have some similar interests as well. 

Right. There's nothing like getting into a, like a 10 minute debate over just, just how many flowers you see on a single bush, right? You know, you can really focus in with people and have a healthy debate over things like that. So that, I feel like having a similar goals, having shared goals is a great way to really interact with each other. 

Yeah. That's great.

It's a wonderful connection. 

Well, I'm glad to hear that. Yeah. Well, Gary, thank you so much for joining us. This was a wonderful little chat about the phenology project. And I look forward to hearing more about it as maybe it expands again. 

Yeah. Thank you. Thanks. 

Chapter 6 – Gratitude + Pathways for Feedback on the Pod 00:26:39,960 --> 00:26:45,760
Thank you again to Gary Morgret for joining us and representing Pepperwood on our first episode of the Pepperwood Podcast. Please email us at podcast@pepperwoodpreserve.org with your thoughts and questions and opinions and requests, whatever feedback occurs to you. Our goal is to provide you with insights and information that you crave. So don't be shy in telling us what you want. Big thanks to Stephanie Antinoro, our Communication Coordinator and Holland Gistelli, our Education Program Manager, for their help with this podcast. 

Chapter 7 – The Nature Sound "Guess Who?" Game 00:27:06,480 --> 00:27:12,160
But before you go, allow me to introduce our final feature that will end every episode of the Pepperwood Podcast, the nature sound guess who game. All right, podcast listeners, here's how the game works. Every episode I will introduce an audio clip, a recorded sound made by a local animal, vegetable or mineral. And you will have until the next episode of the podcast to guess who made that sound. If you want to send in your guesses, you can email them to podcast at pepperwoodpreserve.org. Or if you go to our Facebook, where we are simply Pepperwood, or our Instagram, where we are Pepperwood Preserve CA, Pepperwood Preserve California, all one word, there will be an associated post made near the time of each episode's release, where you can add your guests in the comments. Those are all great ways to become famous for your excellent identification skills. But of course, you can also just hold your guests in your heart and wait for the next episode to celebrate your own genius. Okay, do you feel ready? Are you set to hear the first challenge in our nature sound guess who game saga? Turn up your ears. Here it comes in three, two, one. And let's hear that one more time in three, two, one. Who could it be? The only way to be sure is to listen in to episode two of the Pepperwood podcast. Don't forget to email your guesses to podcast at pepperwoodpreserve.org or go on Facebook or Instagram if you're interested in eternal glory. Thank you for listening. And until next time, keep your ears tuned into nature.