Fort Ord - by R

We went and collected native seeds today. Before that we stopped at ACME. I ordered an Aztec hot chocolate and my brother got a Mexican hot chocolate. Mom and Dad got coffee, I think. My brother and I added lots of cinnamon to ours. I like mine with a bit of spice in it. Then we went to Fort Ord.

We were collecting seeds so we can them the Bureau of Land Management the seeds. They will plant them around Fort Ord. We were led in a large group to the sticky monkey plant. We picked the pods that were at a 90-degree angle. The rest were leaves.

Next we came to a patch of mock heather. They had fluffy seeds that were yellowish-white. They had leaves that look funny and come off the stalk. They look like a fan. I accidentally picked seeds from the coyote bush. I thought it was mock heather. It has fluffy seeds that are completely white and it has small broad leaves.

After the mock heather, we came to a Toro manzanita. Manzanita means 'little apple' and it does have little berries that look like small apples. You can even make an apple cider with them.

Then we came to a California sage bush. It smelled good. We just pulled the seeds off and threw them over the bush. A bigger bush will grow.

Chemise is a plant whose seeds you can pull off really easily. D and I threw them in the air like confetti. The last plant we came to was black sage. I thought it smelled better than the other sage. This on you had to break-up the pods to get to the seeds.

We went back to the beginning for a barbeque lunch that they had made for all of the volunteers. We hiked two and a half miles!

With the seeds that we collected they will plant them somewhere else. It will help to make barren areas into a forest.

Fort Ord Seed Picking - by D

Today I went to Fort Ord to pick seeds from native plants.

In the morning, my mom said, "We are going to do a forest work-out!" When we got to Fort Ord my mom was surprised how many cars there were.

Our docent was named Shawn. He handed us a bag for picking seeds and we started walking up the road. The first native plant we picked was the sticky monkey flower.

Shawn showed us how many pods we should pick. He said everybody should only pick two percent of the pods.

We walked up a hill and he showed us how to pick mock heather. We learned about five other plant species, too - manzanita, black sage, coyote bush, California sage, and chemise. I learned that you have to plant the manzanita within one kilometer of where you take the seeds. California sage is not a true sage, but black sage is. And Shawn will plant all of the native seeds that we collected.