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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 fest 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 aro 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 foest 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 raced 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. What I would like to

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capture today is Chassy walking through all of these leaves.

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This is her love in life, all of these trees,

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and the beauty of those trees are the leaves they've done,

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the color changing oranges, browns, yellows. I've seen some blues

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and some grains. And then when they're all right up

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and there on the ground and around this forest floor

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she's walking through, it's music to me. It's like when

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somebody is typing, or there used to be a teletype

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machine in radio stations to just go and listen to

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the pity patter, pity patter, pity patter, pity patter. There's

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just something about that that really soothes the soul, and

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that's what this forest does. It's like coming out of

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the home today, to step out of this path. Somebody

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made mention of all the crows being noisy. I don't

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hear noisy crows. I hear music. It may not be

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Taylor Swift or justin Timberlake, but it's a crow. And

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the crow has their own way of bringing sounds to

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this forest, that of being in warning form, or for

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them just to make a lot of noise, because my god,

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it's a beautiful day in a forest. We're gonna make

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some noise because somebody has thrown out some old bird seed,

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and my god, get as many birds over there so

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they can pack up some fun there. Often wondered about

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that when people throw their bird seed outside, or when

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people are putting out bird food, and we all know

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what happens there. The squirrels get it. Those squirrels. Are

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they the luckiest people or the luckiest animals on the planet,

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or do those squirrels in making their own noise in

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sight as well as sound. Do those squirrels they're basically

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attractions to adventure. They like to go where nobody else will.

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Because I have seen the squirrels we've got black squirrels

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in this forest. In South Charlotte, North Carolina, people go

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black squirrels. I've seen a white squirrel in western North Carolina,

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but not a black squirrel. I've done the research. I

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don't know how it got here because black squirrels are

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usually found in England. Maybe somebody brought one back home,

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set it free in the forest, and all of a

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sudden we've got this taking place, which is very beautiful

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because I love it when these black squirrels have no

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problem going up to a hawk or an owl that's

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perched inside a white pine and they look at them, going,

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what do you want to do about it? I know

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I'm the squirrel, but if this were a Western movie

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on grit TV, I'm the person in the black cowboy hat.

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What do you want to do about it? Do you

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want to fight me now? Or do we just want

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to just look at the world and say can we

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just get along? See? It's all part of the leaves

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being on the ground. Everything is a leaf on the ground.

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It is the melody that is presented by a forest

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that is so willing to speak. So and why are

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so many people walking through this forest on a day

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like this because there's beauty, because there's melody. These are

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the people that understand that ugly torn down trees on

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the ground can add feed to a soil that you

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will need in twenty twenty five years, because that's what

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builds tomorrow in a forest. And if you're a passer

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by of this forest, imagine what it does inside your

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structured world. Hey, thanks for me the part of the

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conversation