Meet Paul Murphy, a FOSC volunteer who has been an integral “regular” at weekly Bridgeview Trailhead workdays for 5 years!
Now he’s taking on leadership of the adjacent Monterey Redwoods site every Sunday afternoon from 2-5 p.m. We’re grateful for Paul’s dedication, and excited to support him in the stewardship of this beautiful redwood grove.
FOSC: What is your connection to the Sausal Creek Watershed?
Paul: I moved to Oakland in 2017 and after spending a couple years removing the weeds from my own garden I started looking around for ways to be involved with nature locally. I live just outside the watershed and that might have held me back from volunteering at first, but at some point I got drawn into the detailed reports on FOSC's website. I was inspired by the care and vision in these documents and their thoroughness in inventorying the watershed's ecological assets, challenges and opportunities.
Five years later, having spent many Sunday mornings volunteering at Bridgeview, my connection is more personal. I've learned about what grows where and how things change with the seasons and I take joy when I see something doing well or something that I haven't noticed before. I've had the opportunity to meet and get to know some lovely people and always look forward to seeing them. While on one level this connection is pretty casual, it is also strong enough that when I've at times considered moving back to San Francisco, losing this weekly routine is one thing that has made me pause. I want to see what we can do with a couple more decades.
FOSC: When and how did you first get involved with FOSC?
Paul: I started volunteering Sunday mornings at Bridgeview Trailhead sometime in 2019. Site leader Kathleen Harris brings a joy, fun, and organization that has everything to do with why this site has been so successful and why I became a regular. I have also, on occasion, taken advantage of other FOSC offerings: community event hikes, trail maintenance, annual plant sales, State of the Watershed symposiums, the volunteer appreciation picnic, and work parties at Wood Park, Dimond Park and Joaquin Miller Park. They have all been excellent but there is only so much time in the week and I think there is value in attaching yourself to one project and becoming a regular.
FOSC: Tell us a bit about Monterey Redwoods and what motivated you to take on stewardship of that site?
Paul: Monterey Redwoods is a lovely little grove at the end of Bridgeview Trail next to Highway 13 and the Montclair Golf Course. It is about eight acres, and like much of the Sausal Creek Watershed has both a wealth of legacy native plants holding on despite everything and a mass of invasive plants trying their hardest to smother those natives. In April I toured Glen Schneider's Skyline Gardens and got to see what he has achieved through a mixture of expertise, persistence and vision. The tour got me started daydreaming and for a variety of reasons the Monterey Redwood Grove came into focus as an ideal project. The site has well defined boundaries and is a manageable size, and the tree cover makes the work more enjoyable and means that fewer weeds are likely to cause us trouble. What's more, Ella [FOSC’s restoration and nursery manager] and other volunteers have established a kernal of restored habitat in the center from which to grow.
FOSC: What are some of the ideas/visions that you hope for the site?
Paul: In simplest terms, I want to remove the weeds and help the native plants return. What FOSC has done at Fern Ravine provides a good template. The practicalities of getting there are somewhat less clear and we'll have to figure out as we go along. Given the size of the site it is important to be thoughtful about the order in which areas are restored and how we consolidate and protect restored areas before expanding in new areas. Ideally, I would like to add some split rail fencing to discourage off trail activities that cause erosion or damage to plants. And as I recently discovered taking my parents to the site, there is work to be done to make the site more accessible — some parts of the trail have a steepness and slipperiness that make them unwelcoming to older visitors.
FOSC: How can others get involved with the project?