We would like to thank the following community

businesses for their generous support:

Grey Pine Sponsors:

Baker, Manock & Jensen, Attorneys at Law

Dellavale Laboratories Inc.

Heberger & Merritt Inc.

Regency Investment Advisors

Foothill Friend Sponsors:

Dellavalle Laboratory Inc.

H.T. Harvey & Associates

Live Oak Associates

Mariposa Wine Company

Premier Valley Bank

Terry Tuell Concrete Inc.

Vulcan Materials Company

Wellington Ranch Resort, Ben Ewell President

We are also grateful to:

Quady Winery—Madera &

Canandaigua Winery—Madera

For their generous wine donations!

Down Home - Celebrating the Local Harvest

SFC's 8th Annual Dinner - May 2008

See Photos of the Down Home Celebration Here

SFC Anemone Raffle -

Take a chance on winning a work of art!

Bev Karau, a highly regarded fabric artist living in the Prather area, is showing her passion for preserving the beauty of the foothills by donating this hand made quilted wall hanging to SFC.  This beautiful appliquéd and beaded sea anemone is a little over 3 feet by 3 feet in size. If you click on the photo on the right you can see a larger image. Tickets for the raffle will be sold at the McKenzie Table Mountain open house on March 15th & 16th and at other SFC venues. Check back here for future dates.

Dr. Gerald Pieroni will debut his international nature photography exhibit in Tamsen Munger Fine Gifts at the Villaggio Shopping Center, 7909 N. Blackstone Ave, Fresno on Sat., Oct. 13. 

The event will be held from 10 am to 4 pm.  More that 55 prints featuring African wildlife including lions, leopards, cheetah, zebra, elephants and birds will be displayed. The collection also includes breathtaking scenics
and wildlife images from Alaska, Yellowstone, Utah and California. 

A percentage of all exhibit sales will be donated to the Sierra Foothill Conservancy, a land preservation organization that works to protect habitat locally.
For information, call Tamsen Munger at 559-439-8935 or 1-800-626-1157.

Meet Bill Esmay, SFC’s Newest Staff Member 

            Bill and his wife Kellie moved to their home in the foothills near the McKenzie Preserve in 1993. He was working with the Highway Patrol as the supervisor in charge of MAIT – the Multi-disciplinary Accident Investigation Team. One fall day in 2004 when he was jogging along Auberry Road he stopped at the Preserve gate and picked up one of our brochures. He liked what he read and sent in his membership application with the volunteer box checked. He worked as a volunteer with Preserve Manager Bill Dennison for about a year, mostly helping build fences and very much enjoying this outdoor work. In the summer of 2006 SFC decided to hire someone to help with the seemingly endless list of preserve projects. Because he was such a great and reliable volunteer and because he had recently retired, Bill Esmay was the first person Bill Dennison thought of for the job, and Bill Esmay said “yes” with no hesitation. Both Bills prefer to work part time so that they can travel and spend time with their grandchildren (Bill Esmay has 3 kids and 8 grandkids). The rest of the SFC staff greatly appreciates the good humor and resourcefulness of our newest ally in protecting and caring for our beautiful foothill lands.

See photos taken by Gary Woods
on the McKenzie Preserve.

We are also very pleased to announce the
arrival of our newest and youngest member,
Amaelia Leone Tuitele-Lewis,
born July 17th, to Jeannette and Jamie Tuitele-Lewis.
Jeannette is SFC's Director of Education and Outreach. 


 

Meet SFC's newest staff member

She received a BA in botany from the University of Hawai'i and an MS in Forest Science from Oregon State University. Jeannette has worked in agoroforestry in American Samoa and as an ecological research coordinator, biological technician, and a graduate teaching assistant in Oregon. Additional outreach and education experience include coordinating Americorps volunteers and working with Native American and Native Hawaiian high school students in science education. Jeannette currently lives with her husband Jamie in North Fork, where Jamie is the assistant botanist for the Sierra National Forest.

Some of our volunteers have already met Jeannette as she worked on mailing and organizing volunteer help for the 2006 fundraising dinner. If you are interested in volunteering or would like to talk with Jeannette concerning education and outreach please contact her at the Black Mountain office.

Join us at Ann & Nat Dellavalle’s beautiful

country home, east of Fresno on Fancher Creek,

under lovely old sheltering Oak trees.

 Savor a Mediterranean feast with exquisite

flavors from Greece, Turkey & Morocco.

Entertainment will include original live music by

Full Circle and traditional belly dancing by Leah.

 A  silent auction will feature works by local artists &
craftspeople, trips to scenic locales, and much more.

$75 per person or  $525  for a table of 8

Bobcats on Black Mountain

It was a sunny morning at the end of October at our home on Black Mountain. I glanced out the dining room window and was pleased to see a bobcat standing in the driveway. Pleased but not astonished. We see bobcats regularly here on the Miller Preserve on Black Mountain. This particular cat was a good-looking specimen, lean but not skinny, athletic-looking, and with plenty of the reddish coloration that is the basis for its Latin species name, rufus.

A few seconds later, however, I truly was astonished when a second bobcat came into view. The second cat was about the same size as the first but its fur looked fuzzy and rumpled and it lacked the reddish color of the first. It had some black markings on the grayish ground and it moved in a way that struck me as awkward and kittenish. Its face looked lynx-like with long fur along its jowls. This second cat ran up to the first cat and immediately received a vigorous swat that sent it in full retreat down the hill. The first cat remained standing as before. 

But soon Cat #2 was back. It approached Cat #1 cautiously and lowered its head. Soon its head and shoulders were all the way down to the ground and its hind end was high in the air. Mewling-growling sounds came from the pair but I couldn’t tell which one was vocalizing. They stared intently at one another. I stood there fascinated, wondering what was going to happen next. What happened next was a third cat walked up! Cat #3 looked much like Cat #1, lean, red, and somehow “adult” looking. There followed a very quick scuffle (perhaps 3 or 4 seconds) that seemed to involve all three cats and then Cat #1 and Cat #3 exited to the left while Cat #2 ran off to the right and climbed a small oak tree.

About ten minutes later, Cat #1 and Cat #3 returned to the scene looking quite peaceable. Both took long drinks at our small pond and then they wondered off, not exactly together but more or less in the same direction. I never saw Cat #2 again.

All the books say that bobcats (Lynx rufus) are solitary beasts, and indeed I had never before seen more than one at a time. Seeing two together was amazing and then seeing a third was almost beyond belief. My interpretation of these happenings is that Cats #1 and #2 were a female with her almost-fully grown kitten. The kitten is in the process of being kicked out of the house because its mother has a new boyfriend and has no further interest in this troublesome child. Cat #3 is of course the boyfriend. A Field Guide to the Mammals (of the Peterson Field Guide Series) says that bobcats are usually born in the spring and that the young leave the mother that same autumn or in the following year. If I understood this little drama correctly, young #2 received a not-so-gentle push. If you have a different theory, I’d love to hear about it from you. You can e-mail me at pratherpeg@yahoo.com.

Winter is coming on, and I’m afraid that young Cat #2 is going to have a hungry and lonely time for the next few months. I wish him luck! 

- Peg Smith

Meet our new
associate director

Sallie Mook                       
 

SFC's 2005 Fundraising Feast will be
May 14th
at the home of Andy & Laurel Quady.
Make your reservation now for this fun event!
The festivities will include great food, live music, 
a silent auction and a tour of the winery.

For the third year in a row, quilter Glenda Butterfield has created a gorgeous handmade quilt and donated it to Sierra Foothill Conservancy to use as a fund-raiser. The pattern for this year's quilt is "Homespun Hill." It is approximately 80"x93" in size and can be used on a double or queen-size bed. Featuring a cluster of old-fashioned houses on the "uphill" end that goes over the pillows and a complicated criss-cross pattern on the "downhill" end, the quilt glows in shades of gold, rust, blue green, and deep dark reds.

We have opened a new office in Mariposa.

About four years ago, the Sierra Foothill Conservancy Board of Directors decided to expand SFC's programs into Mariposa County. To a large extent, this was due to requests from residents of the county who wanted to participate in our activities and conservation efforts. In the past two years we have completed 5 conservation easements totaling more than 5,164 acres and have researched and written a conservation plan document for critical areas of the county. As more and more landowners in the Mariposa area began to show an interest in conserving their land, it became apparent that it was going to be difficult to manage this program effectively from our main office in Fresno County.

SFC is extremely happy to announce that with financial help from the Resources Legacy Fund Foundation's Preserving Wild California program, we were able to open a local office in Mariposa County, staffed initially with one half-time employee. Generous financial support for this office has also been received from local Mariposa County residents Jerry and Edith Kemp.

We are also happy to be able to report that SFC's Program Manager in Mariposa will be Joe Coho, a long time employee of the National Park Service and supporter of environmental conservation. Starting in 1971, Joe worked in Yosemite in resource management and as a naturalist, forestry worker and Youth Conservation Corps leader. In 1992 he became the Geographic Information Systems Coordinator for the western region of NPS, managing the GIS program for over 40 parks. In 2002 he and his wife returned to Mariposa County, where they live in the historic town of Mt. Bullion.

The address for the Mariposa office is PO Box 691, Mariposa, CA  95336.
The phone number is (209)742-5556 and the email address is sfc-mariposa@sierrafoothill.org.

December 2004:

Bill Dennison is SFC's new Preserve Manager

In 1969 Bill Dennison moved to the foothills to take a job as an ag teacher at Sierra High School in Tollhouse. Bill developed the Forestry program at Sierra and taught until his retirement in 2000. During his 30 years at Sierra High, Bill not only taught students in class but worked with students on outside projects ranging from trail work for the Sierra National Forest to restoring a back-country cabin in Yosemite National Park. Bill also worked with students to develop a nature trail on the high school campus. Bill lives with his wife, Rae Ellen, on sixty acres just behind the high school campus. Rae Ellen is retired from teaching at Sierra Elementary School.

We are fortunate to have Bill. He brings a wealth of experience in working with people and great knowledge of the foothills and management of foothill lands. He will be the volunteer coordinator for all work projects on the preserves. If you have signed up as a volunteer you can expect to hear from him soon. And he could use some more volunteers!