At the base of the Santa Ynez mountains, on Montecito’s San Ysidro Road, a very ambitious and beneficial thing is happening. Microbes are thriving, goats are grazing, and children are climbing. Welcome to Nature Lab.
Located immediately south of Montecito Union School , Nature Lab is a three-acre parcel that has been slowly converted from a compacted dirt lot with a condemned house to a thriving landscape of native plants with grazing animals and hands-on learning spaces. Something has grown from nothing.
On the day I visited in October, armfuls of marigolds were being harvested for a school celebration of Día de los Muertos by Nature Lab’s bright and energetic naturalist, Sammy Simon. Laden with flowers, Simon explained, “The Spanish teacher requested them; I’m going to put them all over the school.”