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Speaker 1: Welcome to Four Stories.
Speaker 2: A series of short-winded adventures within a collection of skyscraping
Speaker 2: trees stuck feet first in Georgia clay right here in Carolina.
Speaker 2: It's been a huge part of my daily journey for
Speaker 2: over 33 years. I am the poet in the forest,
Speaker 2: a children's series written and recorded in the 1990s. It's
Speaker 2: grown into multiple podcasts that now reach around the world,
Speaker 2: and none of it would be possible without this forest
Speaker 2: right here in South Charlotte, North Carolina. At the base
Speaker 2: of Heartbreak Hill sits a sign that reads, RAINBOW FOREST. Well,
Speaker 2: it's time you get to meet what's inspired several generations.
Speaker 2: Long before the paved paths decorated with colorful homes colonized
Speaker 2: around this beautiful lake, slow-moving stream, flatland swamps, and array
Speaker 2: of natural animals, there were families and business owners who
Speaker 2: are said to have raced into this area for the
Speaker 2: beauty of the land, wild roses, migratory birds, and wild grapevines.
Speaker 2: Those before me either forgot to write about it or
Speaker 2: it's buried somewhere inside their family tree. Hey, thanks for
Speaker 2: being a part of the conversation. Welcome back to the forest.
Speaker 1: The heating index today is said to be 109 degrees,
Speaker 1: which is so different compared to 109 when I grew
Speaker 1: up in the state of Montana because it's a dry
Speaker 1: heat area. You still get burned. You still don't do
Speaker 1: your alcohol as heavy as you think you should because
Speaker 1: that 109 degrees, no matter where you are, is going
Speaker 1: to be scalding to the touch. But 109 degrees as
Speaker 1: a heating index in this forest, the first thing I'm
Speaker 1: worried about are the roots of the trees. It's already
Speaker 1: the worst drought that we've had since 2008. And now
Speaker 1: this is really going to be sucking up whatever moisture
Speaker 1: is in that soil. Now, one of the things that
Speaker 1: I ran into yesterday while doing an episode of a
Speaker 1: podcast that I call The Resurrection, I went into the
Speaker 1: soil to bring something to the sunlight. And the one
Speaker 1: thing that I quickly took note of was how hard
Speaker 1: the ground really is. In fact, in all of my
Speaker 1: writing and on that podcast, I compared it to the
Speaker 1: sandstone of the Palisades of the Yellowstone in Billings, Montana,
Speaker 1: which are the rims. It's so hard, the soil, a
Speaker 1: temperature at 109 degrees for a heating index, you can't
Speaker 1: help but wonder, what's really going on down under? What
Speaker 1: is happening to the roots of these trees? And shall
Speaker 1: we expect to have more fall to the floor? That's
Speaker 1: what happens. And when it comes to nature, she's got
Speaker 1: a way. of coming in and vacuuming the floor. Is
Speaker 1: it going to stay 109 degrees just one day? The
Speaker 1: summer has just started. This is the new normal. High temperatures,
Speaker 1: very little rain. And it does scare me just a
Speaker 1: tight bit. Before the days of being called back home,
Speaker 1: the transition, do you find yourself wondering how many of
Speaker 1: these trees will still exist. Because I've been to those
Speaker 1: Montana mountaintops where it's a different season and a different
Speaker 1: tundra all the way around the mountain. Not everybody gets
Speaker 1: the moisture. Not everybody gets the sunshine. What you've got
Speaker 1: is bare ground. 109 today, the heating index. What is
Speaker 1: this the start of? Welcome to our new normal. Thanks
Speaker 1: for being a part of the conversation.