This is the 43rd annual Earth Day we’ve celebrated in the US. And it goes without saying, this is Golden Hour’s favorite holiday. The engagement of people with the earth and all things green and dirty is always good.  And in the end, as I sit long and hard and think about this day, there’s a wonderfully curious thing about it… that it took so many years to call something by such a name. Did we just take it for granted?  Continue reading →

Now that we’ve completed two successful restoration workshops in Garber Park (hosted with Garber Park Stewards and financial support coming from Claremont Canyon Conservancy for the first day), we’ve decided to celebrate a bit. So turn-up your speakers and dive into a little classic Louis Armstrong as he serenades the Restoration 3 project through 2 workdays. This is a timelapse video that compresses some 72 person-hours into 80 seconds. Click below to see the movie through Youtube. Continue reading →

We will be offering a very unique workshop, sponsored by the Garber Park Stewards, which isn’t available anywhere else.  Golden Hour Restoration Institute uses restoration techniques that reuse resources found on-site.  In the case of this project site in Oakland, California, many native plants are well established and thriving in large colonies.  We will talk about how to decide if transplanting is appropriate, how its done, and how to monitor success.

Our workshop will take place at Garber Park where we are supporting the work of the City of Oakland.  Measure DD money has been allocated to help restore portions of Harwood Creek and our goal is to make that effort more successful.

Please RSVP at garberparkstewards@gmail.com and join us on January 19th in Oakland (Space is limited to reduce impact on the site).  Come prepared to learn and work.  Bring gloves, water, and any personal hand tools you may own.

More information in the flyer here.  (Click to make the flyer larger)

Dear friends,

2012 has been truly amazing.  We’ve been overwhelmed with the partnerships we’ve formed and the new friends we’ve met along the way.  We helped conduct surveys, contribute data, created informational brochures, and train professionals about threats of Sudden Oak Death. We have helped understand rare butterfly habitat from Pleasanton to Otay Mesa.  We’ve accepted an intern who helped realize a number of research projects and participate in collecting field data on a federally endangered plant, Dudleya.  We helped collect invaluable plant distribution data (through a citizen science workshop) on a federally endangered plant in Livermore’s Alkali Sink.  We also helped continue to restore an oak woodland slope that was once covered in garbage in Claremont Canyon.

Most significant to these workshops, outings and projects is the inspiration that we get to share with our participants.  Over and over again, we hear lots of thanks from people 12 to 90 who have gotten their hands dirty and learned about the ecology of the place they call home.  We’re simply facilitating a safe, informative and exciting experience that does “real” good for the environment. We’re hopeful that we’ve shared some tools with budding restoration volunteers and professionals alike so that we can perfect our craft of stewarding the land and restoring native flora and fauna.

We’ve come a long way since initiating this idea of Golden Hour Restoration Institute in 2007.  We’re now making things happen!  2013 is set up to be our most inspired year yet, we hope to work in San Francisco with Mission Blue butterfly habitat, survey for monarchs, restore creek segments in Oakland, train people on the newest restoration techniques, provide basic botanical/plant ID training, and continue to inspire people who want to be knowledgeable agents of ecological stewardship.

So I, the Executive Director, along with our fantastic board of directors is reaching out to you for your financial help.  Please consider an end-of-the-year donation to our unique educational institute.  Our annual budget of around $10,000 benefits from every little bit people are willing to donate.  (We also take checks so we don’t have to incur Paypal fees!)  We are a 501(c)3 organization and your donation is tax deductible.

We hope to expand our budget, our reach, and our positive impact in our natural home.  Please find the following video as another little tour through Golden Hour.

Thank you and happy holidays.

Sincerely,

Lech Naumovich

Golden Hour Restoration Institute – 1822 Nason St. – Alameda CA 94501

This is an outstanding workshop sponsored by a number of monarch groups including Monarch Watch and Xerces Society.

If you have the chance, we highly recommend this training for estimating monarch over-wintering colonies. It is located in gorgeous Natural Bridges in Santa Cruz! Here’s the flyer:MonarchsNaturalBridges 12-8-12 FLYER

The workshop date is December 8th – Saturday. It’s free – and limited to 30 persons.

Here’s a brief look back into our monarch citizen science workday in the East Bay.

We hope to be out in January collecting more data, by bike – carbon free!

We are so happy to be continuing our work with Garber Park Stewards.  They have graciously offered to host three more plantings with some important financial support from the Claremont Canyon Conservancy.  GPS is a dedicated group of volunteers in Oakland has worked to create a more user-friendly, weed free, flourishing habitat for both the forest denizens (like the woodpeckers and the ensatinas) as well as the local community who has taken to action towards restoring native habitat.

It’s been a blast discovering new rarities (like coralroot and mahonia) and planting appropriate plugs that eventually grow into healthy mature plants.  Please join us.  We think you’ll love it.

Click here to see the flyer for the workshop created by Shelagh Broderson of Garber Park Stewards.

Golden Hour Restoration Institute teamed up with Garber Park Stewards and many enthusiastic volunteers working to help push the vegetation of Harwood Creek (Claremont Canyon) towards a higher percent cover of native plants while reducing the impact of erosion and soil movement downstream.  The creek side site is already right with some native over-story, but the understory vegetation, up until about a year ago, was covered in non-native Himalayan berry.  But thanks to GPS volunteer efforts, the stream bank is being recolonized by natives while providing a great location for birds to access flowing water.

Continue reading →