Before you read the next blurb, in which I enlist your help to find FOSC a new nursery manager, I must share a little about the forthcoming changes in our FOSC family.

--Kimra McAfee, Executive Director

At FOSC we talk a lot about native plants in our watershed, but what about native people? Scant evidence remains of their local presence, but I came across two intriguing items recently.

On Vista Street, on the hill above Dimond Park, live the Swindermans, who have been there for the last 40 years. In their bathroom is a plaque that says ISHI BATHED HERE. Ishi was the last California native to survive in his aboriginal state. His tribe was killed off, and he came into contact with white civilization in 1911, finding his way into the care of Dr. Alfred Kroeber at UC Berkeley's Department of Anthropology. The house on Vista Street was built in 1923. Ishi died in 1926, so it is possible that Ishi travelled to this house, bathed there, and even may have visited the creek. Efforts to confirm this are thwarted by the necessity to manually go through every year of house ownership to see who the original owner was, since the records are not in a computer database. 

Then recently on eBay, FOSC found for sale "Indian artifacts from Fruit Vale." They consisted of a stone bowl, an ax, and spear heads. We contacted experts and determined that the ax and spear were not of typical California provenance, but the stone bowl, reportedly found in a cherry orchard in the Fruit Vale (original spelling) seems authentic. So FOSC purchased it and retains it for posterity. The six-inch bowl of igneous rock is stained with red ochre in the center, perhaps from ceremonial use. 

--Mark Rauzon

Invaders are all around us--if you know where to look. When we remove plants from the region in which they evolved and transport them across continents, they are freed from their natural predators and can flourish beyond what the ecosystem can handle. By crowding out native plants, invasive species destroy valuable habitat for our local animals.