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