Dorian describes what Poway, California, USA looked like when she moved there 23 years ago in 1996. Poway was a small town with horse trails and avocado groves covering the land, abundant with wildlife such as coyotes, bobcats, mountain lions, rattlesnakes, gophers, butterflies, hawks, and much more, about 45 minutes outside of downtown San Diego. When Dorian first began developing her property, she was the only house on the street, moving to Poway to enjoy to enjoy the beautiful landscape and peaceful environment.
Dorian tells us that over time, the nature landscape around her property disappeared, with every plot of land around her two-acre house now developed. The avocado trees were chopped down, the farms and horse ranches have disappeared, the animals are nearly non-existent, and due to erosion from over-development, a number of the horse trails she loved to hike on are now closed.
Dorian loved hiking on the horse trails back in the day. She also enjoyed observing the native wildlife of Poway, sitting outside, taking in the peaceful scenery.
Given many of the horse trails are now gone, Dorian now walks on the paved streets with her dog. After many of the trees, plants, and animals began disappearing, Dorian has made an effort to provide a home and refuge for a number of these native species. She has left the original tall oak and Eucalyptus trees untouched in her yard so Hawks have a place to nest, the only lot in the neighborhood to have not chopped down these massive hundreds of year old beauties hat grew copiously when she moved to Poway. She has also planted trees and plants to encourage wildlife to return, as well as bird feeders to encourage the native birds to return. Lastly, she cares for an organic garden and fruit grove, taking pride in growing food responsibly and providing a habitat for pollinators to repopulate.
Interviewer: Thank you so much again for speaking with me today. We’re just gonna have a short quick conversation on land changes, historic appearance, and kinda your experiences in your…I believe now 21 years living in Poway, California.
Dorian: Okay.
Interviewer: Great. So, if you could first kind of describe how Poway looked when you first moved to Poway, which is a subsection of San Diego, California. And just kinda describe how it used to look in its historic appearance.
Dorian: Well, we moved to Poway in 1991. At that time, there were approximately 10 to 15, 2 acre parcels. We were the only house on our street or building the only house on our street on a two-acre parcel. So, it was a wide open land. Lots of coyotes, lots of native plants, avocado trees, lots of rattlesnakes, bobcats, mountain lions, gophers, lots of animals.
Since that time, all the lots are developed. There is no open space. All the avocado trees are gone. Much of the trees have been taken down due to development, the tennis courts, swimming pools, beautiful landscaping. The hawks, and the coyotes, and the rattlesnakes, and many of the wild animals have disappeared. Still have a few coyotes, not as many as there used to be. It’s much drier and warmer climate now. We used to get more rain. Now, we have a drought condition.
Like I said, the hawks have been displaced because people have cut down the trees. There are no avocado trees, so, the land is no longer used for farming. It used to be an avocado farm and there’s not one avocado tree left in the whole development. There are a lot of non-native trees, eucalyptus trees that populate. There’s invasive grasses that have come in. Soil erosion from when we do get rain, it runs off all the streets now with the pavement. It’s no longer trapped by the native plants and brush that used to be within the development. So, there’s a lot of soil erosion and a lot of non-native plants growing now within the area.
Interviewer: Great. You know, those are great observations. So, could you talk a little bit about what are some of the activities you used to do when first moving to Poway in 1991?
Dorian: Used to like to hike on the horse trails. Poway is known as a horse community. There’s a lot of horse and hiking trails. A lot of open land at the time. Now, the trails have been…some of them have been closed, I guess due to erosion from overpopulation and mismanagement of water runoff from the streets. Still, there’s some limited hiking mainly just walking through the development because it’s not as beautiful and serene and peaceful now that it’s been overpopulated by development.
Interviewer: Okay, do you, again, just continuing on any other now current activities that have kind of taken the place of your enjoyment of nature and since it now sounds like it’s a lot more difficult to either hike on the trails, a lot of the trails have been closed in order to develop properties or have been closed due to erosion. Is there activities now that have taken that place? And describe how that feels.
Dorian: Well, I currently like to do gardening, have since put in an organic garden and greenhouse. Have tried to continue to plant trees within our two-acre parcel, to help the hawks, and native birds find refuge. There’s a lot of crows now that are coming and attacking the hawks and the native birds. So, we try to plant trees and keep our trees in good condition so that there’s nesting areas for the native birds. I’ve also put out birdfeeders with natural bird seed to try to attract more native birds.
I’ve noticed that the bee population seems to be dying. You could see the bees lying on the ground on their backs struggling, that’s alarming. We don’t see as many butterflies anymore that we used to. So, I’m outside a lot gardening organic…I believe in organic gardening and trying to help plant more trees to combat the effects of global warming, and the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Interviewer: Great, yeah. I mean, there’s a lot of factors likely at play with the bee and pollinator populations dying off or migrating to different areas, but I think definitely planting as many flowers, and plants, and fruits, and trees, like you’re talking about, definitely encourages the populations to at least have some form of food to continue to attempt to survive. It’s concerning what you have talked about, but also it gives me hope that there’s other people who are noticing these changes as well and are looking to make a difference and try to continue to keep places like Poway beautiful like it once was.
It still is quite beautiful, but there’s definitely a lot more people there which takes away from some of the beauty. So, thank you again, Dorian, for speaking with me today, and I hope we can have another conversation about this and continue the conversations through Land Talk about what’s going on in our communities across the country. So, thank you very much.
Dorian: Thank you.