Wyatt Cline
Capay Valley Rancher
Historically Cache Creek was important to the agricultural community and to the community who fished and trapped in the 1800s as my family did.
Historically Cache Creek was important to the agricultural community and to the community who fished and trapped in the 1800s as my family did.
There's a conflict between the activities of the creek and the activities of other people. What we need to do is deal intelligently with the conflict.
We've got to take care of the groundwater, and this is one of the cool places to learn about groundwater.
I really appreciate being able to come here and have my choice of materials to gather.
It's about Nature, but it's also about human contact with Nature.
As an industry person, I think it's important to show the public what can be done with reclamation after a site has been mined.
We were finding pieces of property where there had been these big gravel pits and planting trees.
The gravel people were providing a basic resource but you don't want to just trash the landscape either.
Working here has helped me become more aware of my surroundings. I want to do more things outdoors in Nature.
I think other schools should come here. Thank you for all the wonderful years.
This place is important to me because I've had many good experiences here.
The Preserve is really important to our local community and our region because people need a place to connect with Nature.
Then the wind came up whispering: "Listen to your breathing; in each breath resides all answers."
They have seen destinies crumble, mountains to pebbles, permanent to ephemeral. The like and the unline somehow bonded, each asking me: "what will I break into, or hold to, when I am blasted apart?"
I cared very much about the creek and what was happening around here. I was very pleased with the resource management plan that was finally developed that we work under now.
It's helped me appreciate the beauty of Cache Creek and how lucky we were to grow up on its banks.
Do you have to come to a Preserve to come to Nature, or is Nature something that envelops us all?
It's a place for peace, where you can get some time alone and some quietness.
I think it's really important to protect places like this because there are not a lot of them around.
Our goal was to find a way to allow reasonable aggregate extraction without destruction to the creek. Part of the the deal was the Cache Creek Conservancy.
I believe water needs to be balanced between the environment and the economy.
We looked at the area 15 years ago and knew that it could become something amazing and that if we could pull it off then we would have fought the good fight.
The first project I was involved with was to create an educational display for grade school children that shows each of the habitats on the Preserve.
Bringing kids out here to the Cache Creek Nature Preserve is safe, but it's also different and that thrill of discovery is important.
I am involved with the actual soil and plant and creation of habitat for animals.
The Tending and Gathering Garden is especially important to me because it is an outdoor teaching gallery.
This is an area where we can bring kids. A lot of inner-city kids have no place to go like this to see what natural habitats are like.
My grand-dad bought the place up the slough here in 1896 and that's where I was born and raised.
We were making a place where basket-weaving teachers and elders could bring students.
Whether they realize it or not, everybody needs the Cache Creek Nature Preserve. It's an oasis of native riparian habitat in the midst of farming and urban land.
The old oaks have hollows that provide nesting for birds that had become rare, but are now coming back.
The darn thing about mercury is that it's virtually the only thing about wetlands restoration that's a problem. I'm excited about the Preserve because it's one of the places where we've started to come up with a solution.
It's important to educate people about how you eat. Wheat is the basic staple of bread, and then you have to grind it into flour. Most children and a lot of adults don't even know what that process is.
This was an active mining site for sand and gravel and we obtained a grant from the department of Water Resources for about a million dollars that helped do this wetland project.
I've always felt that it's important for people to know a little bit about the place where they live. I think it gives them a sense of belonging.
We held my twin boys' baptism here when they were barely walking and that was quite an event.
We're trying to maintain this complicated system-there's mining, there's agriculture, there's issues with flooding. We can't undo 100 years of European influence.
The Cache Creek Preserve is a paradise for birds. A lot of good restoration efforts have helped them, and the birds are making a comeback.
The Cache Creek Nature Preserve is a place close to a populated area where people can look out across the landscape and see the hills and think about how they might have formed.
You come out here and feel like you're out in the wild, even though you're just a few miles from our county seat of Woodland.
The Tending and Gathering Garden was conceived as a place to collect materials for basket weaving and other textile creations. It was a significant move forward in creating a bond between our Tribe and the community.
The Gravel Wars were about what was being done to Cache Creek, the environs and the water supply of the creek.
I just hope that when students are brought to the Preserve they realize this place came at a cost, and that cost had to do with changing the natural environment of Cache Creek.
The Cache Creek Preserve combines the best of Yolo County; it has wetlands, riparian corridors, views of adjacent agricultural lands, historical heritage, restoration, and industry.