Google serve

One of the in­i­ti­a­tives of Google is Google Serve, where em­ploy­ees can donate half a day’s work for some public good initiative. Those two weeks, Goo­glers have been helping on various pro­jects in the bay area. On Thurs­day, with other Goo­glersI went to the Alma­den Quick­silver Coun­ty Park, we did some trail main­te­nance, cut­ting back tree branches from the trails, but most­ly we re­moved invading weed species. The most com­mon in­vasive plant is the Yellow star thistle Cen­tau­rea sol­stitia­lis, which is spread­ing wildly (and is toxic for horses), but given the ex­tent of its popu­lation, weeding out that plant is basically hope­less. Instead, we con­cen­trated on weeding out the Cut-leaved Teasel Dipsacus laciniatus, which is still not to commonly spread.

California has really beautiful parks, where I did quite a few nice hikes, the weather was sunny and warm, so it was really nice to work outside for one morning and contribute in a limited fashion to those parks.

Here are some photographs. and some other photographs.