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Speaker 1: Hey, when it comes to podcasts listening, are you like me?

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I mean, it's like television surfing. You're like all over

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the place looking for that one thing that you can

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add to your moment of now. Be it forest stories,

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be it rockstar stories, talking with a chef, whatever you're

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looking for. That's what ero dot net is all about.

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Arrooe dot net. The searching is over. It's all in

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one place. Enjoy the exploration. Hey, thanks for being a

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part of the conversation. Welcome to Forest Stories, a series

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of short winded adventures within a collection of skyscraping trees,

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stuck feet first and Georgia Clay right here in Carolina.

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It's been a huge part of my daily journey for

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over thirty three years. I Am the Poet in the Forest,

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a children's series written and recorded in the nineteen nineties.

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It's grown into multiple podcasts that now reach around the world,

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and none of it would be possible without this forest

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right here in South Charlotte, North Carolina, at the base

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of Heartbreak Hills. It's a sign that reads Rainbow Forest. Well,

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it's time you get to meet what's inspired several generations

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long before the paved paths decorated with colorful homes colonized

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around this beautiful lake, slow moving stream, flatland, swamps and

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array of natural animals. There were families and business owners

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who are said to have raised into this area for

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the beauty of the land, wild roses, migratory birds, and

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wild grapevines. Those before me either forgot to write about

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it or it's buried somewhere inside their family tree. Hey,

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thanks for being a part of the conversation.

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Speaker 2: Welcome back to the forest. A forest floor, there's no

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guarantee that it's going to look like a lows or

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a home depot. A forest floor is always going to

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come with its shapes and surprises. The leaves changed the

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forest floor as well as the branches, as so often

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you don't see what's beneath those leaves and branches because

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a hole has developed from the rainstorms that came along

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while you weren't looking, and now there's holes there and

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it will trip you up in a bad way. But

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the part of the forest floor that Jazzy and I

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laugh about a lot, and we do, is when you're

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walking and something It could have been a deer, it

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could have been a hawk, it could have been any

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living creature happened to pick the path that you walk

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on on a daily basis to puke, yeah, to vomit,

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to put on the planet something that was making their

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stomach feel just torn up or ripped apart, And so

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Jazzy and I will come up upon it and all

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of a sudden, it's like we look at each other, going,

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what is it? I don't know, what do you think

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it is? And you look inside this vomit or puke

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and you look for things that what it could be.

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Was it something that irritated their stomaching like with a dog,

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it could be grass? What was in there? Did the

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did the owl or the crow? Did it eat something

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that they should not have? Even though the warning on

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the bottle said you're probably going to get sick, But

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what is it on a forest floor, especially when you

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come up with vomit from other living creatures that you

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just sit there and you're fascinated by it. You don't

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want the smell to get in your nose, but it does.

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You don't want the image of something that would probably

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make you sick in your own stomach take over your mind, body,

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and soul, but it does. But you kind of feel

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like the old Cheechen Shong joke. Look at that? What

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is it? Looks like dog shit to me? Smell it?

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What smell it? What's it smell like? Ooh yeah, smell

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like dog shit? Have you heard that joke before? It's

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the truth. It's like you sit there and you see

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the vomit on the forest floor from another living creature,

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and you go, Jasey, you're down there with your nose,

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baby girl, what's it smell like? And you want to

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you want to smell it? Am I going to taste it?

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I don't know. I don't know. But there could come

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that day where we're inside this forest and it's like,

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you know, we have not ever tasted that, and would

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that be a bad decision if we just became wiser

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in the moment. You know, there's a lot of people

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right now saying that's the most stupid, idiotic thing I've

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ever heard in my life. And yet, when you live

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in a forest and you've tasted so many things inside

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this forest that are not part of recipe books, what

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do you do when you come across fresh vomit? Yeah,

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you laugh about it, but in reality, what are we

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learning from it? And why on my forest? Floor where

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we walk. Did you have to plant your presentation. It's

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not my business. I'm just a visitor. Thanks for being

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a part of the conversation.