Speaker 1: Hey, thanks for being a part of the conversation. This
is Forest Stories. I am the Poet in the Forest,
a children's series that I pinned out in the nineteen nineties. Now,
none of it would be possible if it wasn't for
this forest right here in South Charlotte, North Carolina. I
talk about it so much that I thought maybe it's
time that you get to know what has inspired me
for thirty years. Thanks for being a part of the conversation.
Welcome back to the forest. A big change is probably
coming to this forest. I've been a part of it
for thirty two years. It's a cozy, little cuddly place,
a dot on the map that's really Nobody knows it
exists unless you take the time to create a discovery.
But it's scheduled to change, or at least for the moment,
because there are rezoning meetings that are taking place, and
the community of this forest is doing all they can
to get petitions signed to protect this force. They want
to build a new community. It's where the community will
be that has my attention. Here in the South, we
are blessed to have these things called flat land swamps,
not your normal swamps that you see creatures in and movies,
but a flat land swamp a place where water gathers
from rainstorms. It just doesn't sink into the ground as
quickly as you would think. But there are creatures that
live inside these land swamps. And the thing about it is, though,
is that the whole entire environment around this forest, this
tiny little cuddly forest in the middle of nowhere that
people don't know about, things are going to change, not
only for the human being but the wildlife. The petitions
are out to help protect them, the deer, the hawk,
the owls, because once they get into this flat land
area and they start ripping down the trees, that affects
everything everything, which is one of the reasons why back
in nineteen ninety seven I planted seventeen hundred trees in
my section of the forest. There was so much human
selfishness going on that they removed all of these trees,
which put other animals in other areas. So it became
my goal to create a refuge, a place where they
could go to rest. And this land swamp, which they're
going to put a bridge over it into this community,
which I have nothing against, but they're not thinking about
the animals it's the human ego. I understand it. We
all need homes, but what about the homes of nature.
This story's going to grow, and we're going to talk
about this a lot. I will get into the area,
I will walk into the unfiltered areas, and I probably
will get yelled at for being in areas that I
don't need to be in. But I want a document
this change in this forest that has been a part
of my life for thirty two years. This is where
I come to write. This is where I receive. And
if you think I'm the only one, I'm not sure
that's true. We just don't sit around in circles and
talk about how this energy moves the reach and every
one of us him Eryl. Thanks for being a part
of the conversation.