In 1988, a California couple began restoring their 136-acre family farm; decades later, it has become a thriving habitat for birds, quail and even cougars

• Representative imagePeter Hunter kneels beside a clump of young willows clinging to the edge of Dry Creek.
• The slender shoots are leafless but supple, a faint tinge of red promising spring growth.
• On the bank above him, Hunter eyes hundreds of seedlings, cottonwoods, redbud, and other shrubs pushing up through protective plastic tubes into the pale winter sun.