Latest / Arroe Collins Like It's Live / Forest Stories Episode One Hundred Twenty One A Mid Winter Drought Sets In
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Hey, when it comes to podcasts listening, are you like me?
- 0:02Speaker 1: I mean, it's like television surfing. You're like all over
- 0:05Speaker 1: the place looking for that one thing that you can
- 0:07Speaker 1: add to your moment of now. Be it fest stories,
- 0:10Speaker 1: be it rockstar stories, talking with a chef, whatever you're
- 0:13Speaker 1: looking for. That's what ero dot net is all about.
- 0:17Speaker 1: Arrooe dot net. The searching is over. It's all in
- 0:20Speaker 1: one place. Enjoy the exploration. Hey, thanks for being a
- 0:25Speaker 1: part of the conversation. Welcome to foest Stories, a series
- 0:28Speaker 1: of short winded adventures within a collection of skyscraping trees,
- 0:32Speaker 1: stuck feet First and Georgia Clay right here in Carolina.
- 0:35Speaker 1: It's been a huge part of my daily journey for
- 0:37Speaker 1: over thirty three years. I Am the Poet in the Forest,
- 0:40Speaker 1: a children's series written and recorded in the nineteen nineties.
- 0:44Speaker 2: It's grown into multiple podcasts that now reach around the world,
- 0:47Speaker 2: and none of it would be possible without this forest
- 0:49Speaker 2: right here in South Charlotte, North Carolina, at the base
- 0:52Speaker 2: of Heartbreak Hills. It's a sign that reads Rainbow Forest. Well,
- 0:56Speaker 2: it's time you get to meet what's inspired several generations
- 1:00Speaker 2: long before the paved paths decorated with colorful homes colonized
- 1:03Speaker 2: around this beautiful lake, slow moving stream, flatland swamps and
- 1:07Speaker 2: array of natural animals. There were families and business owners
- 1:11Speaker 2: who are said to have raced into this area for
- 1:13Speaker 2: the beauty of the land, wild roses, migratory birds, and
- 1:16Speaker 2: wild grapevines. Those before me either forgot to write about
- 1:20Speaker 2: it or it's buried somewhere inside their family tree. Hey,
- 1:24Speaker 2: thanks for being a part of the conversation.
- 1:28Speaker 3: Welcome back to the forest. It is a cold, rainy
- 1:33Speaker 3: day inside this forest today. It's one of those where
- 1:37Speaker 3: you can't help but wonder what Mother nature is up to.
- 1:40Speaker 3: She can't decide if it's a spring day or if
- 1:42Speaker 3: it's a winter day. Oh, by the way, let me
- 1:44Speaker 3: just kind of cloud things up a bit, put some
- 1:46Speaker 3: rain in there, and then you'll forget what kind of
- 1:48Speaker 3: day it really is. No, you can't, especially for me,
- 1:52Speaker 3: because I just spent three days in a different forest.
- 1:55Speaker 3: It was the Lake Norman State Forest. And you know,
- 1:58Speaker 3: it's one of those things where you learned a long, long,
- 2:01Speaker 3: long time ago. If you're a tree hugger like me,
- 2:03Speaker 3: there's no such thing as two forests the same. I
- 2:07Speaker 3: cannot compare this force to Lake Norman, the Yori forest,
- 2:11Speaker 3: or a forest in the Cascades out there in Washington State.
- 2:14Speaker 3: He can't compare them. They all have their own personality.
- 2:17Speaker 3: But what you can do with your force in life
- 2:21Speaker 3: is that you can observe the nature around them and
- 2:24Speaker 3: accept all living things. That includes the weeds. Oh my god,
- 2:29Speaker 3: I wish more people would fall in love with the
- 2:32Speaker 3: weeds on their forest floor like I do. I mean,
- 2:34Speaker 3: it's like the tiniest little creations, and I will be
- 2:38Speaker 3: inspired like a three year old kid discovering his first
- 2:41Speaker 3: Tonka truck just by a weed, especially when it's raining
- 2:45Speaker 3: like this, because that weed is doing one thing. It's
- 2:48Speaker 3: got a job to do, collect water for the roots. WHOA, Well,
- 2:53Speaker 3: that seems like a simple job, and then you go,
- 2:56Speaker 3: is it? Especially since the state of North Carolina declared
- 2:58Speaker 3: today that this is the first time since the eighties
- 3:01Speaker 3: that we are in a drought, a hardcore drought. So
- 3:06Speaker 3: what does that mean for this forest? Well, you got
- 3:09Speaker 3: to keep an eye on it, and you got to
- 3:11Speaker 3: be out here on days such as this where it
- 3:13Speaker 3: is raining, and you study the path, you study the
- 3:16Speaker 3: pattern of what's going on with the erosion. As a
- 3:19Speaker 3: human being, you can do everything you can to help
- 3:21Speaker 3: try to kind of like circumvent what's going on with
- 3:24Speaker 3: the erosion, but you're not ever You're never gonna stop it.
- 3:28Speaker 3: You just got to figure out how to create different
- 3:30Speaker 3: paths and go in different directions. And really the true
- 3:33Speaker 3: question is is that how deep do you want to
- 3:34Speaker 3: go with your shovel? I tried to do that man
- 3:37Speaker 3: at the bottom of the hill out there by the
- 3:39Speaker 3: slow moving stream. We had such such erosion that I thought, Okay,
- 3:43Speaker 3: I'm going to create a little diversion here, a little
- 3:47Speaker 3: canal of sorts, and I'm going to take the water
- 3:50Speaker 3: that's moving down that ninety five foot drop, and I'm
- 3:53Speaker 3: gonna put it here. Are you kidding me? Do you
- 3:57Speaker 3: really think that, in all the research that I did
- 4:00Speaker 3: and the people that I talked to, that I could
- 4:02Speaker 3: move that water? Nope, Moses is still the only one
- 4:06Speaker 3: that can move water. And because I couldn't, And it's
- 4:10Speaker 3: just one of those things where you just kind of
- 4:11Speaker 3: raise your arms and you go, you know what, I
- 4:13Speaker 3: did the best that I could. This is the best
- 4:15Speaker 3: I'm going to do, and I can only only hope
- 4:20Speaker 3: that the water damage can find different patterns to move through,
- 4:25Speaker 3: and it doesn't happen that way. So as you allow
- 4:28Speaker 3: the forests that you live within to do their natural thing.
- 4:32Speaker 3: You realize when you walk into a home depot or
- 4:34Speaker 3: a Low's you go, hmm, there's that magazine cover for
- 4:38Speaker 3: you right there. Hey, on your next magazine cover, mister Lowe's, man,
- 4:42Speaker 3: why don't you put a picture of a forest in there,
- 4:45Speaker 3: a city forest, something that has been tattered and torn
- 4:48Speaker 3: by the winds and the rain and the acid that's
- 4:52Speaker 3: in that rain and the drought. That's right, the drought
- 4:55Speaker 3: for the entire state. Because a forest, no matter what,
- 5:00Speaker 3: will survive beyond the humans' intentions. And if the drought
- 5:05Speaker 3: gets just as bad as it is up in Utah,
- 5:07Speaker 3: Montana and Wyoming, then plant wisely. Go and find out
- 5:13Speaker 3: what is natural in your community. Hell, your force could
- 5:16Speaker 3: be your backyard. I'm okay with that. Just have your
- 5:20Speaker 3: place of solitude, peace and an area where you can
- 5:24Speaker 3: just receive, receive what whatever you want. That's the thing
- 5:29Speaker 3: about it. It's like your mom and dad saying, where
- 5:32Speaker 3: do you guys want to go out to eat tonight?
- 5:33Speaker 3: And all of a sudden, it's a free form fall
- 5:35Speaker 3: for wherever we're going to go, and if you end
- 5:37Speaker 3: up at six or seven different restaurants like we used
- 5:39Speaker 3: to do because we had eight kids, then it's like, Okay,
- 5:43Speaker 3: that was an event, that was the adventure. The same
- 5:46Speaker 3: is true about a forest, whether I'm at Lake Norman,
- 5:50Speaker 3: whether I'm here in this forest. There are no two
- 5:53Speaker 3: forests the same, and this one ooh, it's got a
- 5:57Speaker 3: life and song all its own. Thanks to being a
- 6:00Speaker 3: part of the conversation,