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Speaker 1: Okay, welcome to the crime pace of Botany Doesen Podcasts.

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I'm so excited for this conversation. It's been three years

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since we spoke. I'm here with Alexis Nicole, the notorious

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Black Forager account on Instagram and TikTok And are you

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in a Facebook doing all that stuff or what?

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Speaker 2: I'm also on Facebook. I'm also on YouTube. I'm in

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too many places.

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Speaker 1: I'm happy because you're you're getting so many people. I

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don't know, I mean, I every time your videos pop up,

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they just they just make me feel so good. They

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really do. It's you know, it's it's uh, that's.

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Speaker 2: How I feel about your content. It makes me so

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happy and also full of righteous anger, which is my

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second favorite way to feel.

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Speaker 1: I'm just this spiny little cactus, you know, I'm like ad,

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It's so funny.

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Speaker 2: You remind us those spiny little cactuses are just as

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important as every other part of the DODA.

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Speaker 1: Well, I'm yeah, I'm excited to have this conversation. Man.

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So I just you know, I don't have any questions

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written down. I just wanted to just I mean, I'd

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like the conversations just sound like two friends talking and yeah,

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and I mean some of your What really inspired me

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to hit you up again was some of the posts

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you've been putting up lately that are just all about

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engagement with the living world. I saw another one from

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Robin wall Kimer that she had like, uh, I don't know,

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I saw like two weeks ago. It was kind of

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the same thing. It was like she was talking about

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having like a garden where it's like she was talking

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about being in a garden somewhere and seeing, you know,

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some kid get chastised for picking berries, and she was like,

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I want a garden where kids are told to pick

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berries and told to like get in and you know,

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take like the you know, find all the dry the

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hiss and fruits of some of these plants, or smell

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the leaves or whatever, you know.

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Speaker 2: Exactly shake some mountain mint seeds into their hands. Like

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Because she made such a beautiful point, and her video

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was part of the reason why I felt inspired to

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make the one that I did, was she she puts

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it so plainly, how are you supposed to fall in

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love with the world if you can't eat berries? Like,

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if you've never eaten a sun warmed black raspberry fresh

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off the cane. There is like a level of love

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and connection and just pure elation with the world around you,

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but you haven't experienced yet.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, I know, and that's that's what makes

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me so sad for people. And it's you know, and

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we should talk, we should mention to it's not just

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about picking berries, but also taking for instance, the dry

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stalks of you know, dead annual heli anthis species and

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beating your friends with them and oh yeah, everything everything.

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Speaker 2: Growing and a fallen oastage orange that is half rotten

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at your younger sister. It's great. And then guirls will

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have an easier time getting the seeds to eat them.

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We're all connected.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the and it's the human plant mutualism. So

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go out there and fuck up your dryer lint trap

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with the seeds you forgot were in the back pocket

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of your pants, you know, do it.

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Speaker 2: I hope that its uh, some beautiful plants will take

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off wherever your dryer ends up.

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Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. Or like the vacuum, I empty my vacuum

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into the yard. Now, I know there's stuff that's you know,

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you never know. The soil seed bank in one zone

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yard can be extensive, but so what do you butut

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up to lately? How's it we haven't spoken of like

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three years and like Instagram.

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Speaker 2: But no, I feel like I you're one of the

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people who I feel like I know what you're up to,

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but exclusively through what you are posting on social media.

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So when you reached out, I was like, ah, yes, perfect,

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we can actually catch up in the way that humans

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are supposed to grow.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I like, I like obsessively put stuff in Instagram stories,

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like it's my frickin' journal, you know, like it's their

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diary over here. It's I just I don't know why.

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I just I figure if I put stuff out there,

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maybe somebody will get something from it or get an idea.

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Speaker 2: I mean, you're one of the people lately I have

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been on telling people maybe this belongs in the journal

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kick But for you, it's the opposite. You go ahead

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and post whatever you want.

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Speaker 1: To, Just put it out there. You know, I always

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been shitcum posting. Now I didn't need to know that,

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but you know, okay, whatever.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, but if it inspires somebody else to, if that's

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like someone's foot in the door to becoming integrated into

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their local environ, then I think a win.

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Speaker 2: Is a win. I think a double is a w.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. If I you know, if I make it to be,

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you know that old I'm gonna be such a great

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wing not old Italian man. I can't win it, but

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but oh.

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Speaker 2: My god, you're gonna be the coolest, funniest old man.

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I feel like I'm either going to be like the

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really sweet old lady who always has weird cookies, or

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I'm gonna be like the scary hag at the end

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of the lane. And I'm equally as excited for either of.

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Speaker 1: Those scary hag. With the overgrown yard exactly surrounded by

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all the lawns, surrounded.

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Speaker 2: By all of the lawns, which is all who I

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am in my city neighborhood here in Columbus.

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Speaker 1: I bet you got a nice I beout you got

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a nice yard, though, man.

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Speaker 2: We we really love it. It's been a joy.

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Speaker 1: Uh.

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Speaker 2: There is a local landscaper who deals exclusively in local

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eco type native plants named Michael Keeler, and he and

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I have been having a lot of fun building out

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plans uh and involving in a whole lot of fun

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edible species. So we we followed your advice. We killed

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my lawn in the front yard. We are getting ready

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to transform the backyard into like a mini multi layer

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food forest.

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Speaker 1: That sounds am and I'm really.

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Speaker 2: Excited about it. It's weird to have gotten to a

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point in my life where I even and like lucky

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enough to have some space our little like one fifth

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acre parcel in the middle of downtown.

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Speaker 1: Oh god, it's so important though. Yeah, I get distracted

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just being in my yard man, and I get It's

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funny though. I've done this for because I've done it

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for other friends around my neighborhood. Because at this point

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I'm like just curating my own botanic garden in my neighborhood.

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Now it's like I've ran out of a full sun space,

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so I need to start you know who else who

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wants it done? And uh And the response.

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Speaker 2: For everyone listening if someone in your neighborhood is like,

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oh my god, here take these seats, it's because they

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ran out of space in their yard and are spreading

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their landscaping into your space. And I think you said that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's it's nice too, because I will like

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go hang out in these yards like without saying hi

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to the people are asking. I mean if they're home,

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I'll go say hi. But you know, but it's you know,

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and that's the way it should be. It's I get

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a benefit from it too. And but when I've done it,

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like I did it to this guy, my friend Hector,

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who's an immigration attorney. He had no interest in plants

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before whatsoever. And then now I get him texting me

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randomly being like, Oh, You'll never believe what I saw

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in my yard. Oh my god, look at this thing.

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It's like some crazy auth or something or what you know.

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Speaker 2: Yes, so it's the best feeling.

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Speaker 1: It's spiritually healing, and it heals others as well, which

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is yes, it feels great to see. So what is

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what's around Columbus? Is it prairie in woodland or a

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mixture of both them.

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Speaker 2: We are, we are in this beautiful zone that I love.

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Breaheading about to people where the eastern woodlands meets the

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beginning of the prairie. You head literally twenty minutes east

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of where I'm sitting right now, and you're in the

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foothills of the Apple Atans. You head twenty minutes west

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of where I am right now, and it's very it's

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starting to look very flat. You're seeing a lot of

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really fun your prairie dots, your different Helianthus species. It's

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a really special place being right smacked out in the

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middle of Ohio. So we kind of get the best

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of both worlds. It's I'm I have fun with it

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in a way that very few people, unless they all

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spend an inordinate amount of time in the outdoors here,

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they don't normally notice.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, there's nothing like the prairie man, because it's I mean,

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you know those those regions. Yeah, like being in Chicago,

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you get those brutal winter months where you're just kind

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of losing your mind and then you know, but then

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you get this eruption, Like the amount of biomass that's grown,

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that's produced in the prairie in the summer from all

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those underground roots is I mean they start in main

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and then you get this eruption to like eight feet

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sometimes of all those cool grasses and sylphiums and all that.

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You know, it's it's wild. You don't really get that

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in a lot of other ecosystems around North America. You know,

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the prairiees no that.

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Speaker 2: They're really special. And I think part of the reason

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why we don't even recognize that in the US is

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because we've lost so much of our prairie to farmland.

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You know, we don't people don't get to have hands

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on experiences with a lot of prairie biomes anymore, which

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is part of the reason why, at least in our

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front yard, since we do get a good amount of sun.

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And I was like, Oh, we're gonna skew prairie plants

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for this front yard, and I just I love it.

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The difference between first week of May to like second

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week of June insane.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy. It's nuts, like from the

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spring ofphemerals and then you know when they come out,

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when the leaves are off the trees in the woodlands.

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At least that's what he used to feel. It's like

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around Chicago and then and then the prairies. You just

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got these little things and you come back in like

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July and it's just this you can't see across it,

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and it smells so good and it sounds so good. Guy.

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I tell people being in the prairie and it's like

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being in psychedelics. It's like it's like sensory overloading.

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Speaker 2: It overwhelming. Well, it's sensory overload, smells and all of

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the different colors of the flower petals and reflecting the

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sunlight into your eyes.

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Speaker 1: It kind of likes like, yeah, and some stuff is

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blooming in May, and then some stuff is blooming in July,

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and different species are blooming and it's all packed. It's

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like all this diversity packed super tight, you know. And

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that's why I like, I've been I've been doing this presentation.

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I give where I shit on modern horticulture landscaping, you know,

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which is mostly which is the stuff that's rooted in

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like this weird aristocratic nineteenth century Europe and rich people.

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Everything's like uniformly spaced, evenly spaced in a line and hedged,

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and it just it's like the kind of landscaping that

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makes me die on the inside. Looks like Minecraft. You know,

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no no offense to's like Minecraft.

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Speaker 2: The planet is supposed to look.

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Speaker 1: Like yeah, and it's just and but again, that's what

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you would expect from when there's no place to look

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for inspiration in nature and reality. That's what you just do.

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What what you're giving and what's around.

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Speaker 2: You'll also put a boxwood that spells like cat piss

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when the sun shines on it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, why do they do? There must be some urbiguari.

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I don't know anything about that genus, you know. But again,

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the stuff we see in horticulture isn't even the stuff

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you'd see. And they're not the native boxwoods you would

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see wherever they're native. It's stuff that's been a greenhouse.

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That's what I try to tell people too. I'm like this,

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these plants aren't even they're not only not the ancestors

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aren't native, like they're from six thousand miles away where

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they're probably very important. But these plants don't even exist.

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They've been bread in a greenhouse over the last hundred

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years for very gated leaves. Are they flower all the time? Oh,

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they're just so you know, they can be hedged.

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Speaker 2: Real they don't produce any fruit because fruit is messy, messy,

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need to grow very evenly during the year. And yeah,

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you're right, it's not even what those plants look like.

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They wouldn't even serve a purpose. If you took your

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boxwood hedge out of the ground and put it where

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it's from.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's it's it's weird. But again, I've tried,

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I've trakened the stance where like it's fun to shit

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on it, but when I'm trying to convince people who

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are still into that, I try to be as kind

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as possible and as polite and informative, you know. And

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also if it's like city officials messing with me that

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I'm just very persistent to the point that they just

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get annoyed and eventually give up. You know.

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Speaker 2: I'm just like, oh, I mean, you were asking what

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I've been up to lately, and my entire spring was

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being the native plant thorn in our city council.

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Speaker 1: Oh no, here we go. What they do well?

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Speaker 2: So last year they wrote us a ticket for one thousand,

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two hundred dollars really because because we have a wild

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front yard, because it doesn't look like a lawn. And

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I was like, oh, well, you post the wrong sleeping there.

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This is going to become everybody's problem until I connected

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it with other people with these fantastic native yards that

256
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are doing so many great things for their communities and

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worked with my fiance who's an attorney, to like put

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forth some protection for native plant and pollinator gardens our city.

259
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You know, like a lot of blue lead cities loves

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to boast that we're trying to be good for the environment.

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Likes to boast that we're trying to increase archery, canopy,

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trying to help the pollinators. And I'm like, okay, it's

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time for you to put your money where your mouth is.

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Speaker 1: Then yeah, yeah, they just don't know. They're just no,

265
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they're just not aware. They don't know what's going on.

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They don't know what's going on. That's what that's the

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thing is, I think again, and I don't fall people for,

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but we've all been brought up and doctrinated and is

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strange from this stuff. And we've all brought up, been

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brought up to think that the landscaping in front of

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the wells Fargo is what plants should look like. You know,

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where everything's hedged and they're all the same clone and

273
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it's very neat and orderly. And then mulch has even

274
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died because mulch, you know, to use natural wood chips

275
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would be messy and you know that.

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Speaker 2: It would look like nature. That's crazy.

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Speaker 1: And I tell people too, like if you saw, if

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you this, this reminds me of like a dog that's

279
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got a nervous tick and like just keeps like neurotically

280
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scratching itself, you know, or which you see sometimes okaya,

281
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you know, if they get like separation anxiety, Like that's

282
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what this reminds me of in humans, is like who

283
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does this? Like that's psychologically it's not a good sign

284
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if you need everything to be it's obsessive, compulsive's surly, yes, yeah,

285
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and it and it's like, man, you are so you

286
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need to go outside and you need to like go

287
00:14:26,799 --> 00:14:28,759
get messy. You need to go walk through a prairie,

288
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you need to go hike up a mountain. Something like

289
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this is not normal to have everything hedged and evenly

290
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spaced in the diaed mult It's not normal. It's it's

291
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fucking weird, and we've normalized what's really really bizarre and

292
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very unhealthy for us.

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Speaker 2: Yes, and I mean not to get on like a

294
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soapbox precariously balanced on top of the beautiful.

295
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Speaker 1: Soak it on the soapbox, get on it, do it.

296
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Speaker 2: But it's also classes as hell because who has the

297
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money to be like hiring the landscapers to be keeping

298
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everything beautiful in pristine and keeping your grass too. Oh,

299
00:15:03,679 --> 00:15:05,960
the ruler says that your grass is a half inch

300
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too high bad news bears like and not even getting

301
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into the history. Like you mentioned before, the only reason

302
00:15:14,240 --> 00:15:19,080
lawns even proliferated was people who were so rich that

303
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not only did they have all this land for other

304
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people to work on for them, but they had land

305
00:15:25,039 --> 00:15:29,759
that served no purpose just to brag, Yeah, just to

306
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be like, oh yeah, the marquee down the street has

307
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just a big patch of flat grass in front of

308
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his house. Damn, he must have money for days.

309
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's a weird form of wealth worship. And

310
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to me it's it's not. You know, it's because you'll

311
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see comments sometimes from people, you know, bootlockers, being like, oh, no,

312
00:15:49,759 --> 00:15:52,000
you're just you're just jealous. You just wish you had

313
00:15:52,279 --> 00:15:54,799
money like that. No, I don't. I really don't like that.

314
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Seems like a depoperate existence to me. I have lived

315
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ten lives over I've seen all kinds of crazy shit.

316
00:16:00,159 --> 00:16:02,879
I'm like, I could croak tomorrow and I'd be happy. Like,

317
00:16:02,919 --> 00:16:04,679
I've done a lot of fun stuff in my life.

318
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Those experiences no one can take away from me. What

319
00:16:06,759 --> 00:16:08,879
do you have? You have like gold plated toilet seats

320
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and you know, all this shit like that's and everyone

321
00:16:12,320 --> 00:16:16,279
you speak to who knows extremely wealthy people, like I

322
00:16:16,279 --> 00:16:18,240
have a friend who used to watch these kids. That

323
00:16:18,440 --> 00:16:21,279
is some billionaire in Chicago. I don't know how he

324
00:16:21,360 --> 00:16:23,240
got that gig. He's real clean cut, he never got

325
00:16:23,279 --> 00:16:25,919
any tattoos. But and he tells me, he's like, you know,

326
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he doesn't work for them anymore, So I don't think

327
00:16:27,879 --> 00:16:29,799
there's any repercussions of me letting this cat out of

328
00:16:29,799 --> 00:16:32,279
the bag. But he's like, they're fucking miserable. They are like,

329
00:16:32,360 --> 00:16:34,399
and now the fun is getting a divorce. They fucking

330
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hate each other. They're like, the kids are have all

331
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kinds of like psychological disorders and are really and those

332
00:16:42,039 --> 00:16:44,759
are the people who end up elevated in positions of power.

333
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Speaker 2: But uh hey then want to reinforce the things that

334
00:16:50,120 --> 00:16:52,360
they think are beautiful in their lives, which is sometimes

335
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their area, and they don't even know how miserable it

336
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could be making them, how much it could be contributing

337
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to their new a state of mind.

338
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Speaker 1: Yeah it's yesterday.

339
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Speaker 2: I sat on a log near a creek picking wood

340
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metal stems and just like scraping fiber, saying hello to

341
00:17:10,240 --> 00:17:13,839
all of the daddy long legs walking by noticing the

342
00:17:13,920 --> 00:17:17,359
influx of box elder bugs like we always get this

343
00:17:17,480 --> 00:17:22,400
time of year before our first frost, and just noticing things,

344
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and I felt lighter than I have felt for months.

345
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Is that also because maybe I hadn't touched my phone

346
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in two hours?

347
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Speaker 1: I got it.

348
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Speaker 2: Yeah, that probably has something to do with it too.

349
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Speaker 1: But just going outside that's why I'm you know, outdoor

350
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education for kids has got to be the way, man.

351
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I think, like especially vital because I can't sit still

352
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as it is, and to I remember being like six

353
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and seven and just being like, oh my god, this

354
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is torture. I don't want to be in school. I

355
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don't care about this. I'm not excited. I'm getting no

356
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dopamine from any of this at all, you know. And yeah,

357
00:17:55,519 --> 00:17:58,000
letting kids go like running a patch of woods or

358
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a prairie for like two hours would be so and

359
00:18:01,000 --> 00:18:03,759
teaching them about what's there and encouraging them to lift

360
00:18:03,759 --> 00:18:06,440
their blogs and look for bugs and you know, take

361
00:18:06,480 --> 00:18:09,680
these grass and try these grass blades and try to

362
00:18:09,720 --> 00:18:12,039
make a a you know, a little bracelet out of

363
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it or something like that. Cat. That's so important, man,

364
00:18:14,359 --> 00:18:15,039
that's so important.

365
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Speaker 2: I mean, I was, I was really lucky and that

366
00:18:18,640 --> 00:18:23,000
there was a lovely, very hippy, dippy Montassori School that

367
00:18:23,039 --> 00:18:28,160
I attended from age three to age twelve, and every

368
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day regardless of whether it was rain or shine, unless

369
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there was like real inclement weather, because we do be

370
00:18:34,799 --> 00:18:39,400
getting tornadoes here in Ohio. You were outside, you know,

371
00:18:40,079 --> 00:18:43,400
rainy day, you dressed for a rainy day, and we

372
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had woods that we kind of just got free rain up.

373
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You know. Teachers would make sure no one jumped off

374
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the monkey bars and broke their arm, which like did

375
00:18:52,240 --> 00:18:59,400
happen sometimes, but kids are are malleable, they're strong. Everybody

376
00:18:59,400 --> 00:19:01,920
bounces back. I didn't know anyone who broke the arm

377
00:19:01,920 --> 00:19:03,720
on the monkey bars who did not do the monkey

378
00:19:03,759 --> 00:19:05,440
bars again after their art was.

379
00:19:05,480 --> 00:19:07,839
Speaker 1: Fel Oh, that's good, that's really good.

380
00:19:07,880 --> 00:19:11,920
Speaker 2: And we just build. We used to just build forts.

381
00:19:12,400 --> 00:19:14,960
And the crazy thing about being allowed to just build

382
00:19:15,000 --> 00:19:17,759
forts is you very quickly as a child, start learning

383
00:19:17,880 --> 00:19:20,160
what all of the different tree species are, because you

384
00:19:20,200 --> 00:19:22,960
start learning which ones are good for building you which

385
00:19:23,000 --> 00:19:27,680
ones aren't. Yeah, we were like stabbing o sage oranges

386
00:19:27,839 --> 00:19:33,920
for glue to glue like wood peel shingles from black

387
00:19:34,079 --> 00:19:37,880
cherries to put onto our little forts and huts. We

388
00:19:37,960 --> 00:19:41,160
knew that the bark on the outside of the non

389
00:19:41,240 --> 00:19:44,680
native honeysuckles was really flexible, so if you needed cordage

390
00:19:44,680 --> 00:19:48,680
to tie something, you could peel some of that off,

391
00:19:48,759 --> 00:19:52,559
like it was. I didn't realize how much of my

392
00:19:53,480 --> 00:19:58,880
botany education started so early, just because we were outside

393
00:19:58,920 --> 00:20:01,240
all the time and our tea. We're willing to answer

394
00:20:01,319 --> 00:20:02,960
questions for something we were curious.

395
00:20:03,079 --> 00:20:04,640
Speaker 1: I was going to say, were they showing you this

396
00:20:04,680 --> 00:20:06,880
stuff or were you I mean, oh, yeah, yeah.

397
00:20:06,920 --> 00:20:09,079
Speaker 2: And I mean also at the school, like you take

398
00:20:09,079 --> 00:20:12,000
your first intro to potany class in the third grade.

399
00:20:12,119 --> 00:20:15,319
Speaker 1: God damn it. What is it is? Is that that's

400
00:20:15,319 --> 00:20:16,680
a Monossory thing or what.

401
00:20:16,920 --> 00:20:21,920
Speaker 2: It's a Montessori thing to be really integrated into outdoor spaces.

402
00:20:22,319 --> 00:20:24,920
I just did a top at the Montsory School of

403
00:20:24,960 --> 00:20:28,680
Denver two weeks ago, and they also have these beautiful

404
00:20:28,680 --> 00:20:33,960
outdoor play spaces with like raised beds integrated into the

405
00:20:34,079 --> 00:20:38,079
play areas where kids are hanging out, filled with both

406
00:20:38,160 --> 00:20:42,519
like native and non native vegetable species. So kids are

407
00:20:42,559 --> 00:20:46,240
getting really hands on from the jump. And I do

408
00:20:46,279 --> 00:20:48,920
think that there's a reason why when I switched from

409
00:20:49,000 --> 00:20:55,359
monasory to my college prep, very regimented. You are outside

410
00:20:55,400 --> 00:20:58,640
for like fifteen minutes a day max. For your lunchtime.

411
00:20:59,160 --> 00:21:02,680
High school. I got really depressed, really fast.

412
00:21:03,039 --> 00:21:05,599
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you're trapped under the fluorescent lights, you know.

413
00:21:06,119 --> 00:21:11,160
Yeahs smells like floor cleaner. Yeah, okay, that's amazing. I

414
00:21:11,160 --> 00:21:14,359
always because I've always joked too, I mean only partially joking,

415
00:21:14,440 --> 00:21:17,960
Like geologic timeline. Teach that shit in second grade, you know,

416
00:21:18,160 --> 00:21:21,279
but intra plants are the foundation of life on earth?

417
00:21:21,319 --> 00:21:24,160
Why is it not taught how to identify them, like

418
00:21:24,319 --> 00:21:26,640
just basics and like some of that's what a plant

419
00:21:26,680 --> 00:21:29,440
family is, you know, and how like what they do

420
00:21:29,480 --> 00:21:32,160
they rolling plant ecology, that kind of thing, Like why

421
00:21:32,200 --> 00:21:34,359
is that not taught in grade school? It's kind of weird.

422
00:21:35,519 --> 00:21:38,279
Speaker 2: I only wish that we had done more geology because

423
00:21:38,319 --> 00:21:41,640
we did have a pit lovingly called the clay pit,

424
00:21:42,039 --> 00:21:44,279
and if you dug down deep enough, you would start

425
00:21:44,319 --> 00:21:49,680
finding like fossilized corals and trilobbes and the rocks and

426
00:21:49,799 --> 00:21:52,839
the consistency of the clay would change. And that's the

427
00:21:52,880 --> 00:21:55,319
thing you notice as a kid. But a lot of

428
00:21:55,319 --> 00:21:57,599
our teachers were like, we know plants, we do not

429
00:21:57,720 --> 00:22:01,680
necessarily know the theological.

430
00:22:01,000 --> 00:22:04,119
Speaker 1: History of the grounds of your yeah, because I was Yeah,

431
00:22:04,119 --> 00:22:07,240
because most of the Midwest is limestone underneath or sandstone.

432
00:22:07,319 --> 00:22:10,279
I remember. I remember seeing the limestone pits like on

433
00:22:10,359 --> 00:22:13,599
the side of Interstate fifty five in Chicago, and I

434
00:22:13,640 --> 00:22:15,039
was a kid. I mean, like, you know, my mom

435
00:22:15,039 --> 00:22:17,319
would be like, that's all former ocean floor, and I

436
00:22:17,400 --> 00:22:20,079
just I couldn't wrap my head around that. That was too.

437
00:22:20,240 --> 00:22:21,599
It would have been nice for someone to.

438
00:22:21,559 --> 00:22:24,640
Speaker 2: Explain that well, that your mom knew that and told

439
00:22:24,720 --> 00:22:27,319
you that though at like a good young age when

440
00:22:27,319 --> 00:22:29,160
you're really curious about these.

441
00:22:29,039 --> 00:22:31,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean she was a public school teacher, so

442
00:22:31,680 --> 00:22:33,599
I mean, yeah, it was you know, that stuff is

443
00:22:33,640 --> 00:22:36,119
so important some context for that, because I can't. I

444
00:22:36,160 --> 00:22:38,279
just can't. I can't imagine what it's got to be

445
00:22:38,440 --> 00:22:42,279
like growing up alienated from any of that, from going outside,

446
00:22:42,279 --> 00:22:44,039
from plants, from you know. And that's kind of what

447
00:22:44,680 --> 00:22:47,920
I am always ranting about too. It's like you look

448
00:22:47,960 --> 00:22:51,039
at some of these you know, quote communities because they're anything,

449
00:22:51,079 --> 00:22:53,480
but you know, like from when you're flying over them,

450
00:22:53,519 --> 00:22:55,440
like the suburbs of Houston or something, and you're like,

451
00:22:55,480 --> 00:22:58,039
oh my god, it's there's like there's nothing around there.

452
00:22:58,079 --> 00:23:01,000
It's just cul de sacs from like a couple miles

453
00:23:01,039 --> 00:23:02,920
and then it leads to like a shopping center with

454
00:23:02,960 --> 00:23:05,279
a big parking lot, and that's got to be such

455
00:23:05,279 --> 00:23:07,200
a hard place to grow up in because there's nothing

456
00:23:07,240 --> 00:23:10,279
real around there. There's nothing left of the native landscape.

457
00:23:10,319 --> 00:23:14,000
There's no there's you know, this this piece of this

458
00:23:14,160 --> 00:23:18,440
essential piece of the human experience for the last however many,

459
00:23:18,559 --> 00:23:20,880
you know, million years, three hundred thousand years as a species,

460
00:23:20,920 --> 00:23:25,960
but we were, you know, running around naked hominids before that. Yeah,

461
00:23:26,000 --> 00:23:28,119
it's just missing. Now it's missing, and now you just

462
00:23:28,200 --> 00:23:31,519
grow up and you know, it's just video games.

463
00:23:30,599 --> 00:23:33,000
Speaker 2: I think so stressed out.

464
00:23:32,920 --> 00:23:35,359
Speaker 1: Now, Yeah, yeah, of.

465
00:23:35,319 --> 00:23:39,400
Speaker 2: Course feels like nothing makes me feel aged more than

466
00:23:39,519 --> 00:23:42,599
suddenly realizing that I am the adult being like, I'm

467
00:23:42,799 --> 00:23:48,720
worried about the children I am. I'm worried about all

468
00:23:49,400 --> 00:23:52,880
they're all on screens. And I mean part of it

469
00:23:52,960 --> 00:23:56,720
is there was kind of a degree of freedom and

470
00:23:56,759 --> 00:24:00,079
the outdoors that I think was already on its way

471
00:24:00,119 --> 00:24:02,960
out when me and my younger sister were kids in

472
00:24:03,160 --> 00:24:07,279
the nineties and the early aunts where you could tell

473
00:24:07,319 --> 00:24:10,480
your parents, I'm like riding my scooter to my friend's

474
00:24:10,519 --> 00:24:12,680
house down the street and we're going to go play

475
00:24:13,039 --> 00:24:16,759
flashlight tag in the woods, like I'll be back before

476
00:24:16,759 --> 00:24:19,519
dinner time, Like let's think our watches. I'll be back

477
00:24:19,519 --> 00:24:24,359
before before dinner. And kids don't really get to do

478
00:24:24,440 --> 00:24:26,279
that as much anymore. Not a lot of them are

479
00:24:26,440 --> 00:24:30,200
in living in spaces where they have access to cool,

480
00:24:30,319 --> 00:24:34,319
wild green spaces to play, and the world is terrifying. Now.

481
00:24:34,400 --> 00:24:38,359
I understand parents not wanting to let their kids be

482
00:24:38,599 --> 00:24:41,759
outside by themselves and have that independence, but I also

483
00:24:41,839 --> 00:24:45,039
think that it's really vital, and so I don't even

484
00:24:45,079 --> 00:24:47,559
know how to reconcile that, which is why I do

485
00:24:47,680 --> 00:24:50,799
not have children, because I think I would be way

486
00:24:50,799 --> 00:24:53,440
too stressed out every single day about being like I

487
00:24:53,480 --> 00:24:55,759
need to keep you safe because I built you from

488
00:24:55,799 --> 00:24:58,599
cells in my body, but also I want you to

489
00:24:58,640 --> 00:25:02,400
be happy and feel like an independent human being. And

490
00:25:02,440 --> 00:25:05,359
I'm having a lot of trouble reconciling those feelings, which

491
00:25:05,359 --> 00:25:08,000
and I know for you, I'm preaching to the choir.

492
00:25:08,319 --> 00:25:10,720
And but that's like a really big reason why me

493
00:25:10,759 --> 00:25:12,839
and my fiance are worried about having kids.

494
00:25:12,960 --> 00:25:14,440
Speaker 1: I mean, it's you know, on one hand, you don't

495
00:25:14,480 --> 00:25:16,640
have to worry about polio anymore, at least for the

496
00:25:16,680 --> 00:25:17,200
time being.

497
00:25:17,359 --> 00:25:20,920
Speaker 2: But true love that. I love that my child will

498
00:25:20,960 --> 00:25:24,640
not get the consumption and die at age six.

499
00:25:24,799 --> 00:25:26,960
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, the world is I mean, yeah,

500
00:25:26,960 --> 00:25:29,960
you know you hear. Especially it's the development in the

501
00:25:30,240 --> 00:25:33,039
last twenty years in this country. Depending on where you live,

502
00:25:33,079 --> 00:25:35,480
it's been so bad, man. I mean even in Texas,

503
00:25:35,759 --> 00:25:38,640
in Florida, there's nothing left. I talked to old, older

504
00:25:38,640 --> 00:25:40,920
people that are older than me or my age all

505
00:25:40,920 --> 00:25:42,720
the time that say that, yeah, the woods we used

506
00:25:42,720 --> 00:25:44,359
to play in behind my house are gone now and

507
00:25:44,400 --> 00:25:46,720
there it's like a strip mall or you know, there's

508
00:25:46,799 --> 00:25:49,359
no But that's again, that's what you that's what that's

509
00:25:49,400 --> 00:25:52,079
what you expect from a society where the dominant culture

510
00:25:52,119 --> 00:25:54,240
has no reverence for these things. And that's kind of

511
00:25:54,240 --> 00:25:56,359
what I've been talking about lately too. It's like, you know,

512
00:25:56,400 --> 00:26:00,640
the EO. Wilson idea that you know, the laid biologists,

513
00:26:00,680 --> 00:26:03,480
it's like half earth like leave set half of it aside.

514
00:26:03,640 --> 00:26:06,720
It's a living machine. You know, you may not. You

515
00:26:06,720 --> 00:26:09,599
don't need to turn everything into you know, a single

516
00:26:09,759 --> 00:26:14,240
use for humans strip of land like it's a living machine,

517
00:26:14,240 --> 00:26:17,960
it's a functioning ecosystem. Manage it, but just don't develop it,

518
00:26:18,079 --> 00:26:18,359
you know.

519
00:26:19,240 --> 00:26:22,599
Speaker 2: Exactly, And we're allowed to see value in something that

520
00:26:22,680 --> 00:26:26,079
hasn't been developed. That is the thing that it is

521
00:26:26,160 --> 00:26:28,759
so hard to get people to wrap their heads around,

522
00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:33,799
is there is inherent value not just for other members

523
00:26:33,839 --> 00:26:37,200
of the ecosystem, but also for us in those quote

524
00:26:37,319 --> 00:26:42,480
unquote undeveloped spaces, which you know, even saying that, you

525
00:26:42,519 --> 00:26:45,240
can get into a whole other conversation about how these

526
00:26:45,279 --> 00:26:49,400
spaces are descended from spaces that were being cultivated nine

527
00:26:49,400 --> 00:26:52,400
times out of ten exactly by the indigenous groups that

528
00:26:52,440 --> 00:26:56,240
were here before us. In fact, a book that I

529
00:26:56,440 --> 00:27:01,160
just finished reading, feed Us with Trees by what is

530
00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:07,319
it Elsbeth Hayes talks a lot about these maintained, functional,

531
00:27:07,880 --> 00:27:13,839
but also very like calorie giving ecosystems that had been

532
00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:18,680
specifically built to exist in for us to get things from,

533
00:27:18,759 --> 00:27:23,440
while also not disrupting the general flow of the ecosystem

534
00:27:23,519 --> 00:27:27,960
for other animals, for fungi, for insects, and how people

535
00:27:28,000 --> 00:27:30,519
got here and we're just like, nah, that don't look

536
00:27:30,640 --> 00:27:32,200
like farm raise it.

537
00:27:32,839 --> 00:27:38,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just complete shortsightedness and oblivious obliviousness and a

538
00:27:38,039 --> 00:27:39,240
little bit of arrogance too.

539
00:27:40,119 --> 00:27:41,039
Speaker 2: Oh. Absolutely.

540
00:27:41,279 --> 00:27:41,640
Speaker 1: I mean.

541
00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:46,039
Speaker 2: When you look at some of the journals of especially

542
00:27:46,079 --> 00:27:50,400
some of the Spanish conquistadors when they first were making

543
00:27:50,440 --> 00:27:54,240
their way to like the southeastern United States, they would

544
00:27:54,319 --> 00:27:57,920
write in their journals about how insane it was, how

545
00:27:58,279 --> 00:28:02,319
productive these spaces were in terms of food. They'd comment about, oh,

546
00:28:02,599 --> 00:28:06,640
the mulberries, the per simmons, the grapevines, the nuts everywhere,

547
00:28:06,799 --> 00:28:11,279
And then after these beautiful, flowery descriptions would be like, yeah,

548
00:28:11,319 --> 00:28:13,480
so what obviously means that God wants us to be

549
00:28:13,599 --> 00:28:18,680
here and inflict all of our practices onto this layout.

550
00:28:18,759 --> 00:28:23,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's I look at that, and I look

551
00:28:23,240 --> 00:28:26,200
at some of the behaviors of the the quote leaders

552
00:28:26,200 --> 00:28:28,039
of the dominant society we live in. I'm like, where

553
00:28:28,039 --> 00:28:30,279
does this? Where? How did this? How do we get here?

554
00:28:30,319 --> 00:28:30,400
Speaker 2: Like?

555
00:28:30,480 --> 00:28:33,839
Speaker 1: Is this lead poisoning that happened a few hundred years?

556
00:28:34,039 --> 00:28:35,960
Speaker 2: Is it the micro is it.

557
00:28:35,920 --> 00:28:38,920
Speaker 1: Like inbreeding by like the monarchies or something like? How

558
00:28:38,960 --> 00:28:41,279
did we? How did this happen? Like how do you.

559
00:28:41,359 --> 00:28:43,160
Speaker 2: I'd love to blame the habsburg for this.

560
00:28:43,599 --> 00:28:49,000
Speaker 1: I love like how do you see this this? I mean, God,

561
00:28:49,039 --> 00:28:51,039
what I would what I would, what I would give

562
00:28:51,119 --> 00:28:52,599
to be able to go back in time and just

563
00:28:52,680 --> 00:28:55,599
see some of the places in this country and see

564
00:28:55,640 --> 00:28:58,079
what they look like, you know, God, But that's that's

565
00:28:58,119 --> 00:28:59,559
the thing is. You know, you live on a place,

566
00:28:59,599 --> 00:29:01,160
you live at the land, and you work with it

567
00:29:01,200 --> 00:29:03,400
instead of against it, instead of trying to you know,

568
00:29:03,799 --> 00:29:06,799
subdue it and control it. You're going to figure things out.

569
00:29:07,160 --> 00:29:10,839
You know, you're going to create these wonderful places. You're

570
00:29:10,839 --> 00:29:13,400
paying attention to things. You've got innate respect for them

571
00:29:13,440 --> 00:29:16,240
just on their own existence, not because you know they

572
00:29:16,279 --> 00:29:20,319
necessarily provide something for you. You just it's you're going to

573
00:29:20,400 --> 00:29:20,839
learn how.

574
00:29:21,039 --> 00:29:25,200
Speaker 2: Affect them and their own like right to exist, their

575
00:29:25,319 --> 00:29:29,480
own agency as another living thing. Yeah, instead of only

576
00:29:29,599 --> 00:29:34,079
viewing it through the lens of either a this has

577
00:29:34,119 --> 00:29:38,519
to be extremely productive for me and other humans or

578
00:29:38,680 --> 00:29:43,000
B this is like a nature museum and we can't

579
00:29:43,039 --> 00:29:46,039
touch it. And that's I mean, the other side of

580
00:29:46,039 --> 00:29:48,440
that is it makes me really deeply sad to see

581
00:29:48,480 --> 00:29:52,440
this general distrust of ourselves and our fellow humans when

582
00:29:52,480 --> 00:29:56,279
it comes to nature. Yeah, that was the main argument

583
00:29:57,039 --> 00:30:00,400
that a lot of really wonderful, very kind, very thoughtful

584
00:30:00,440 --> 00:30:03,839
people were making in the comments of that post, I

585
00:30:03,960 --> 00:30:09,240
made generally saying like, I hear you. I do agree

586
00:30:09,359 --> 00:30:13,640
we need to be interacting with nature more. But surely

587
00:30:13,720 --> 00:30:18,559
you must understand that if people were allowed to forage

588
00:30:18,599 --> 00:30:23,440
places that we would absolutely decimate them and absolutely wreck them.

589
00:30:23,759 --> 00:30:26,880
And I don't think that's our default setting.

590
00:30:27,319 --> 00:30:29,319
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think it is either, I think, but

591
00:30:29,480 --> 00:30:31,920
you know, and I understand why they think that. I

592
00:30:31,920 --> 00:30:35,119
think it's me again. It's that Murian view that like, oh,

593
00:30:35,160 --> 00:30:38,160
if just hands off, let it be, then'll touch it.

594
00:30:38,319 --> 00:30:41,039
Just hands off, and you know, it'll take care of itself.

595
00:30:41,079 --> 00:30:42,920
We can. It's like, no, man, that's not how it works.

596
00:30:42,960 --> 00:30:45,720
Not it's get in there, but pay attention and a

597
00:30:45,720 --> 00:30:47,759
little bit of humility and a little bit of respect

598
00:30:47,960 --> 00:30:50,160
will go a long way, and the living world will

599
00:30:50,200 --> 00:30:53,200
teach you. I know that sounds fucking woo, but I'm serious,

600
00:30:53,480 --> 00:30:56,200
it does. There's so much to gain just from paying

601
00:30:56,200 --> 00:30:59,799
attention to this stuff and getting that dopamine release that again,

602
00:31:00,039 --> 00:31:03,000
you've been getting for hundreds of thousands of years as

603
00:31:03,039 --> 00:31:08,400
a species from exactly And that's why I make no shit.

604
00:31:08,480 --> 00:31:10,599
I think that's Honestly, the reason so many people are

605
00:31:10,599 --> 00:31:14,279
fucking losing it today, from mass shootings to road rage

606
00:31:14,319 --> 00:31:18,319
to just whatever addictions they have. Uh, it's because of this.

607
00:31:18,400 --> 00:31:21,279
It's because we've were so estranged and alienated from this

608
00:31:21,359 --> 00:31:24,359
world where the dominant society we live in is killing it.

609
00:31:24,359 --> 00:31:26,599
This mentality we have is killing it. But it doesn't

610
00:31:26,640 --> 00:31:28,759
have to be that way, It really doesn't, you know,

611
00:31:28,920 --> 00:31:31,440
it's no, it's the least. The least you could do

612
00:31:31,519 --> 00:31:33,720
is kill your lawn plants of native plants, or just

613
00:31:33,720 --> 00:31:35,440
go if you don't have a lawn, go out there

614
00:31:35,440 --> 00:31:38,240
and just start collecting seeds. Fuck up your dryer, Fuck

615
00:31:38,319 --> 00:31:40,759
up your dryer lint trap, you know, I mean, if

616
00:31:40,880 --> 00:31:42,799
you want to remember to take them out before, but

617
00:31:42,960 --> 00:31:44,759
you're going to always forget a little bit, you know,

618
00:31:45,519 --> 00:31:47,920
take the seeds out before disperse them.

619
00:31:48,039 --> 00:31:52,319
Speaker 2: A moment for a moment of silence for everyone with

620
00:31:52,480 --> 00:31:55,440
a child under the age of tens lent traps, especially

621
00:31:55,480 --> 00:32:00,720
in the fall when I do my acorns, and all

622
00:32:00,799 --> 00:32:04,079
I get our parents being like, so, you're telling me

623
00:32:04,200 --> 00:32:07,759
my child's pockets this time for year are youthful.

624
00:32:07,920 --> 00:32:08,079
Speaker 4: Yes.

625
00:32:08,440 --> 00:32:10,640
Speaker 2: And the thing that I want to ask people is

626
00:32:11,039 --> 00:32:12,839
why is your child the only one who's filling their

627
00:32:12,839 --> 00:32:15,559
pockets up with it. Yeah, exactly, why are you not

628
00:32:15,680 --> 00:32:16,759
partaking in the limbs?

629
00:32:17,200 --> 00:32:20,440
Speaker 1: Man? I was. I was going through my daughter's backpack

630
00:32:21,039 --> 00:32:23,160
the other day, like putting putting her lunch in there,

631
00:32:23,160 --> 00:32:24,960
and like, she's got all these papers gen in there,

632
00:32:25,119 --> 00:32:27,519
and she had like a shit, you god, like forty

633
00:32:27,720 --> 00:32:31,240
hirt pebbles stashed in the back. She had like like

634
00:32:31,279 --> 00:32:32,960
a pound and a half of these. I was like,

635
00:32:33,480 --> 00:32:35,839
what are you doing? Like what I mean, this is great,

636
00:32:35,880 --> 00:32:37,839
but like, can we can I take these up? Can

637
00:32:37,839 --> 00:32:40,119
we put them in this in the garden over here?

638
00:32:40,119 --> 00:32:42,400
It's you know, oh yeah, sure, that's okay. You know,

639
00:32:42,480 --> 00:32:43,599
it's like you have.

640
00:32:43,720 --> 00:32:45,559
Speaker 2: To have felt pretty proud though.

641
00:32:45,720 --> 00:32:46,799
Speaker 1: I did. I did.

642
00:32:47,160 --> 00:32:48,359
Speaker 2: That's a beautiful moment.

643
00:32:48,480 --> 00:32:51,200
Speaker 1: I flew back from California two days ago with fifteen

644
00:32:51,240 --> 00:32:54,920
pounds of marble limestone and Mom's a night that I

645
00:32:55,039 --> 00:32:56,680
just picked up. I was like, I don't know why

646
00:32:56,680 --> 00:32:59,599
I'm doing. This is insane, it's hurting my back, but

647
00:32:59,640 --> 00:33:01,319
these are really cool. And then I'll you know, I'll

648
00:33:01,319 --> 00:33:02,960
write with a little sharpie on them where I got

649
00:33:02,960 --> 00:33:03,920
them and the date and everything.

650
00:33:04,000 --> 00:33:07,079
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean that is our way yesterday at

651
00:33:07,079 --> 00:33:09,279
one of the woods that I love going to this

652
00:33:09,359 --> 00:33:11,880
time of year, they're doing some maintenance and they cut

653
00:33:11,920 --> 00:33:15,839
back some oceage orange trees and one of the logs

654
00:33:16,000 --> 00:33:19,079
was just really calling to me, and their wood is beautiful,

655
00:33:19,279 --> 00:33:22,160
and so I was like, well, I'm carrying this log

656
00:33:22,240 --> 00:33:25,200
to my car. Now. I don't know what I'm gonna

657
00:33:25,240 --> 00:33:26,960
do with it, but it belongs to me.

658
00:33:27,519 --> 00:33:30,759
Speaker 1: That's well. It's good heart scaping too, because man, down here,

659
00:33:31,279 --> 00:33:33,960
I'll just put logs around, especially because we got this

660
00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:37,359
public garden. We started near this public golf course, and

661
00:33:37,400 --> 00:33:40,960
I always worry it wouldn't even be like malicious intent,

662
00:33:41,039 --> 00:33:43,119
but people just love to mow, and I always worry

663
00:33:43,119 --> 00:33:46,200
they're gonna like, yeah, come in one day. So you know,

664
00:33:46,200 --> 00:33:48,440
i'll set up little booby traps whatever, just the and

665
00:33:48,519 --> 00:33:50,400
so I'll put logs in there and make it a

666
00:33:50,400 --> 00:33:54,160
little harder for them. And so anyway, and I'll just

667
00:33:54,240 --> 00:33:56,680
use logs because they're good habitat. You know, you see

668
00:33:56,680 --> 00:33:59,519
the beatles killing in them and the little piles of sawdust.

669
00:33:59,599 --> 00:34:01,839
It's like, okay, something's using that. And so I lifted

670
00:34:01,839 --> 00:34:04,559
this big hackberry log up and they were like these

671
00:34:04,640 --> 00:34:09,119
giant like rhinoceros beetle larvae underneath the six of them. Yeah,

672
00:34:09,159 --> 00:34:11,880
like it probably weighed together. They would have weighed half

673
00:34:11,920 --> 00:34:13,880
a pound. They were juicy, man, you know.

674
00:34:15,039 --> 00:34:18,400
Speaker 2: But I love love lifting up a good log or

675
00:34:18,440 --> 00:34:22,079
a big fallen piece of bark and just seeing what's

676
00:34:22,159 --> 00:34:26,760
going on under there. It's life's little pleasure.

677
00:34:26,960 --> 00:34:28,800
Speaker 1: Your sequels, I bet where you are because you guys,

678
00:34:28,840 --> 00:34:31,400
get enough moisture. You probably see salamanders sometimes.

679
00:34:31,639 --> 00:34:37,480
Speaker 2: Yes, I was just talking to folks yesterday evening at

680
00:34:37,519 --> 00:34:42,360
a community knitting night because I am just leaning into

681
00:34:42,719 --> 00:34:46,360
being old, especially during the winter, and I was like, okay,

682
00:34:46,440 --> 00:34:49,920
we got to get a gang together in February to

683
00:34:50,000 --> 00:34:53,119
go out at night down in the southeast and help

684
00:34:53,360 --> 00:34:57,480
these like amphibians cross the roads so people don't run over.

685
00:34:59,119 --> 00:35:01,639
Who's with me? And weirdly a lot of people want

686
00:35:01,679 --> 00:35:04,079
to go guys are crossing about it.

687
00:35:04,159 --> 00:35:06,480
Speaker 1: Oh yeah for salamanders or what.

688
00:35:07,000 --> 00:35:10,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, when they're going to their vernal pools to get

689
00:35:10,840 --> 00:35:12,159
ready to do their business.

690
00:35:12,239 --> 00:35:14,639
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's really cool though. I mean, that's just

691
00:35:14,719 --> 00:35:16,760
cool to see that kind of thing, to see, you know,

692
00:35:16,840 --> 00:35:20,800
like a mass movement of all these you know, animals

693
00:35:20,800 --> 00:35:23,559
you don't normally encounter, Yeah.

694
00:35:23,400 --> 00:35:27,719
Speaker 2: Because they're usually so hidden, and I mean, and those

695
00:35:27,719 --> 00:35:31,199
are my favorite kind of animals. Like, I'm also obsessed

696
00:35:31,199 --> 00:35:33,800
with our Southern flying squirrels, who are our most populous

697
00:35:33,880 --> 00:35:36,000
squirrel in Ohio, but no one ever can sees them

698
00:35:36,039 --> 00:35:37,159
because they're noternal.

699
00:35:37,320 --> 00:35:39,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've never seen one. God, I forget those guys

700
00:35:39,880 --> 00:35:41,480
are even around. That's fucking dope.

701
00:35:42,079 --> 00:35:44,960
Speaker 2: Really, Oh my God, please come visit, especially if it's

702
00:35:45,000 --> 00:35:49,880
during the winter. I will go and lovingly hit a

703
00:35:50,079 --> 00:35:53,760
tree snag with a stick so we can see them.

704
00:35:54,159 --> 00:35:57,079
Speaker 1: So you will go, what, you spook them, and then

705
00:35:57,719 --> 00:35:59,280
you spook them and then they take off or what.

706
00:36:00,079 --> 00:36:02,639
Speaker 2: And then they go hi. And then sometimes they'll go

707
00:36:02,760 --> 00:36:06,880
and glide to another tree snag, or they'll just well,

708
00:36:06,960 --> 00:36:09,280
they'll go to another tree snag, realize it's just a

709
00:36:09,320 --> 00:36:11,199
person with a stick, and then go back to where

710
00:36:11,199 --> 00:36:11,440
they were.

711
00:36:11,599 --> 00:36:15,000
Speaker 1: God, that's hilarious. Man. What time of night you got

712
00:36:15,000 --> 00:36:17,199
to go out to see him?

713
00:36:17,280 --> 00:36:21,639
Speaker 2: Usually just a little ways into the evening. The sun

714
00:36:21,679 --> 00:36:24,320
sets so early now, especially in the winter time, so

715
00:36:24,480 --> 00:36:28,199
like nine nothing crazy.

716
00:36:27,960 --> 00:36:31,119
Speaker 1: That's crazy. I didn't know they were that abundant out there.

717
00:36:31,239 --> 00:36:31,840
That's cool.

718
00:36:32,360 --> 00:36:36,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, Oh my gosh, it's fantastic. One of my favorite

719
00:36:36,360 --> 00:36:41,360
winter activities is there's a professor, doctor down Altov here

720
00:36:41,400 --> 00:36:44,920
who's all of his study is around southern flying squirrels,

721
00:36:45,199 --> 00:36:48,159
and he lets volunteers go out with him during the

722
00:36:48,199 --> 00:36:51,719
winter to do box checks at all of the boxes

723
00:36:51,760 --> 00:36:54,480
that he has set up all around the state of Ohio,

724
00:36:54,760 --> 00:36:56,880
which I think is so cool. I would love to

725
00:36:56,920 --> 00:37:02,960
see more professors just letting regular regular people participate in science,

726
00:37:03,079 --> 00:37:06,719
especially what it has to do with their local ecosystem.

727
00:37:07,079 --> 00:37:09,320
Speaker 1: Yeah. Man, I remember when I was in high school

728
00:37:09,320 --> 00:37:11,280
this this Uh, I don't know if I told you

729
00:37:11,320 --> 00:37:13,599
this before, but I remember this. We had this one

730
00:37:13,880 --> 00:37:16,639
We took an ecology class and this this this teacher.

731
00:37:17,400 --> 00:37:18,960
We came in one day and he's like, oh, we

732
00:37:19,000 --> 00:37:20,800
got a great field trip today. We're going to do it.

733
00:37:20,840 --> 00:37:22,320
And I was like, you know, He's like, I wasn't

734
00:37:22,320 --> 00:37:25,639
planning on it, but I just saw this fresh roadkilled deer.

735
00:37:25,920 --> 00:37:28,119
We're gonna go get it in the van and then

736
00:37:28,159 --> 00:37:30,000
take it to this empty field and then come back

737
00:37:30,039 --> 00:37:32,800
on Monday. And you know, so this this is fucking

738
00:37:32,880 --> 00:37:35,679
hilarious too. He took us in a van. We went

739
00:37:35,800 --> 00:37:37,920
and you know, with like garbage bags, picked up this

740
00:37:38,079 --> 00:37:40,360
carcass and it had already started to stink. It was.

741
00:37:40,719 --> 00:37:43,280
It was horrible. It smelled terrible. But he was like,

742
00:37:43,320 --> 00:37:45,559
fuck it, we're doing this. And there were probably twelve

743
00:37:45,639 --> 00:37:47,800
of us in this class and this big you know,

744
00:37:47,840 --> 00:37:49,800
one of those old Dodge vans were cod like smell

745
00:37:49,800 --> 00:37:53,440
the gas we was coming up through the floorboards and

746
00:37:53,559 --> 00:37:56,000
so we're all like gagging in there with this dead

747
00:37:56,079 --> 00:37:58,880
deer in the back. And then we go and take

748
00:37:58,920 --> 00:38:01,440
it to this fields a minute drive. We're all laughing

749
00:38:01,440 --> 00:38:03,519
about it, like, oh you know, and then we put

750
00:38:03,519 --> 00:38:05,400
it in the field and we come back in two

751
00:38:05,480 --> 00:38:07,840
days and it's it's all just like the vultures just

752
00:38:07,880 --> 00:38:09,719
picked it clean. It was, but it was an excellent

753
00:38:09,719 --> 00:38:12,519
ecology lesson. It was like, oh wow, yeah, that's actually

754
00:38:12,599 --> 00:38:13,159
pretty cool.

755
00:38:13,199 --> 00:38:13,400
Speaker 2: It was.

756
00:38:13,440 --> 00:38:16,280
Speaker 1: I didn't expect that they picked it clean. Man, two days.

757
00:38:16,280 --> 00:38:20,480
Speaker 2: It was nuts two days, I mean. And that's the

758
00:38:20,519 --> 00:38:22,679
thing we gotta be. We gotta be more hands on

759
00:38:22,760 --> 00:38:25,960
with nature, including the stuff that we conventionally considered to

760
00:38:26,000 --> 00:38:26,800
be gross.

761
00:38:27,079 --> 00:38:30,719
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's I will say, though, man, it's pretty

762
00:38:30,920 --> 00:38:33,480
I have a lot of hope like me and al

763
00:38:33,519 --> 00:38:36,039
Scorch just did this tour, this killer Lawn tour around

764
00:38:36,079 --> 00:38:38,559
which was I just kind of like last minute. I

765
00:38:38,559 --> 00:38:40,039
was like, I wonder we could do this, let's plan it.

766
00:38:40,440 --> 00:38:42,920
And like the amount of enthusiasm I saw. We went,

767
00:38:43,039 --> 00:38:46,880
you know, from Chicago to Saint Paul, Omaha, Lincoln, Kansas City,

768
00:38:47,440 --> 00:38:50,920
and then Fort Worth, and like the amount of enthusiasm

769
00:38:51,000 --> 00:38:52,960
I saw among people was nuts. Mean, we like two

770
00:38:53,039 --> 00:38:55,880
hundred and fifty people come out to Kansas City. Like

771
00:38:55,880 --> 00:38:58,679
people were just excited and they're just excited. People meet

772
00:38:58,679 --> 00:39:01,880
each other there and like planning other meetups and shit,

773
00:39:01,960 --> 00:39:04,760
and it's it's amazing. It's such a great thing to

774
00:39:05,000 --> 00:39:06,480
I see that, and I'm like, God, that's so this

775
00:39:06,559 --> 00:39:09,559
is like such a growing community of people, and there's

776
00:39:09,559 --> 00:39:11,280
so many people that are into this and it's so

777
00:39:11,440 --> 00:39:14,360
positive and feels, you know, feels so good to see.

778
00:39:14,400 --> 00:39:16,400
It's like maybe they're you know, maybe there's a little

779
00:39:16,440 --> 00:39:18,159
bit of hope. I think there's a lot.

780
00:39:18,239 --> 00:39:22,239
Speaker 2: I mean, I think everyone kind of like hit a

781
00:39:22,320 --> 00:39:27,679
point in this loneliness epidemic where people are realizing you

782
00:39:28,119 --> 00:39:31,679
need community, you need connection to something bigger than yourself

783
00:39:32,199 --> 00:39:37,000
in order to feel whole, to feel more fulfilled, and

784
00:39:37,079 --> 00:39:40,320
so it's been really cool to see communities starting to

785
00:39:40,360 --> 00:39:45,039
sprint up, especially around native plants. I was in Montana

786
00:39:45,079 --> 00:39:49,679
and Missoula this past summer gathering sand cherry's in a

787
00:39:49,800 --> 00:39:52,599
Costco parking lot, and I was like, I'm gonna tell

788
00:39:52,599 --> 00:39:54,599
people where they are because I can't take all of

789
00:39:54,639 --> 00:39:57,519
these and it's actually kind of cool that they're landscaping

790
00:39:57,559 --> 00:40:00,480
with nade of plants and I won't for people to

791
00:40:00,480 --> 00:40:02,360
get to be hands on with this. And I heard

792
00:40:02,360 --> 00:40:04,880
that later that night after I posted the video, a

793
00:40:04,920 --> 00:40:09,039
whole group of people converged on the Costco parking lot

794
00:40:09,159 --> 00:40:13,320
after it closed and they made friends with each Other's cool,

795
00:40:14,599 --> 00:40:18,559
and I'm just like, yes, good, perfect. I didn't even

796
00:40:18,599 --> 00:40:19,239
intend this.

797
00:40:19,519 --> 00:40:21,039
Speaker 1: What are sand fairies? Really quick?

798
00:40:22,159 --> 00:40:25,840
Speaker 2: Oh? Maybe a sand plum? Sand plum. It's one of

799
00:40:25,840 --> 00:40:28,440
the prunises and it is cherry sized, but it is

800
00:40:28,480 --> 00:40:33,360
definitely probably considered a plum. It's prinice. Oh give me

801
00:40:33,400 --> 00:40:33,880
a second.

802
00:40:35,280 --> 00:40:37,000
Speaker 1: They were landscaping with these things.

803
00:40:37,119 --> 00:40:38,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they were landscaping with them.

804
00:40:38,800 --> 00:40:40,719
Speaker 1: Oh that's cool. Oh that's great.

805
00:40:40,840 --> 00:40:45,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, And like and it makes sense. They're made like

806
00:40:45,480 --> 00:40:49,920
they are attuned to that environment. They were doing way

807
00:40:49,920 --> 00:40:52,880
better than any of the landscaping plants around any of

808
00:40:52,880 --> 00:40:55,320
the other adjacent buildings that were non made.

809
00:40:55,400 --> 00:40:58,719
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, the natives. And it's crazy like natives and cultivation,

810
00:40:59,239 --> 00:41:02,239
you know, in cultivated areas are often in way better

811
00:41:02,320 --> 00:41:04,599
shape than you might even find them in out in

812
00:41:04,679 --> 00:41:07,960
habitat because they're getting you know, they're getting there's probably

813
00:41:08,000 --> 00:41:12,679
an irrigation system nearby. They're getting maintained somewhat. I mean

814
00:41:12,760 --> 00:41:15,400
it's and they're great seed sources too. Like when you

815
00:41:15,440 --> 00:41:17,400
see people, That's why I always think to them, like

816
00:41:17,880 --> 00:41:20,400
all the all the like strip mall, parking lots, all

817
00:41:20,400 --> 00:41:25,199
the like areas around irrigation, uh or what is it

818
00:41:25,280 --> 00:41:27,400
like you know, the reservoirs when they got to put

819
00:41:27,440 --> 00:41:29,960
the what am I thinking of the when they build

820
00:41:29,960 --> 00:41:32,800
a pond like next to a parking lot? Yeah, yeah,

821
00:41:32,840 --> 00:41:33,400
I forget what.

822
00:41:33,320 --> 00:41:36,199
Speaker 2: That little drainage pond a little.

823
00:41:36,039 --> 00:41:38,719
Speaker 1: Yeah like around that Just why can't you just put

824
00:41:38,800 --> 00:41:41,519
natives around there, especially like in the prairie regions. You know,

825
00:41:41,639 --> 00:41:42,360
I saw that.

826
00:41:42,599 --> 00:41:47,760
Speaker 2: Someone has tossed some of our Nlumbo lutea are native

827
00:41:47,840 --> 00:41:51,840
lotuses seeds into some of those little like pond ditch

828
00:41:51,920 --> 00:41:54,840
drained areas around one of them all north of the.

829
00:41:54,800 --> 00:41:57,679
Speaker 1: City retention ponds, that's what is Yeah.

830
00:41:57,559 --> 00:42:02,519
Speaker 2: Yeah, retention ponds. Y Yeah, and I'm like, good, perfect, Yeah,

831
00:42:02,639 --> 00:42:03,159
there you go.

832
00:42:03,239 --> 00:42:08,280
Speaker 1: See. Yeah, human human human plant mutualism. Someone was exactly

833
00:42:08,480 --> 00:42:10,760
maybe someone just took some seeds and threw them in there.

834
00:42:10,760 --> 00:42:11,400
You never know.

835
00:42:12,239 --> 00:42:14,920
Speaker 2: Exactly, You never know. But it could have also been

836
00:42:15,000 --> 00:42:17,199
a bird, you know, but I like to believe that

837
00:42:17,280 --> 00:42:20,800
it was a silly goose human maybe the same person

838
00:42:21,360 --> 00:42:27,119
who has been putting philosophy ovoid spores and the woodchips

839
00:42:27,159 --> 00:42:28,199
in front of city Hall.

840
00:42:28,400 --> 00:42:30,480
Speaker 1: Okay, we got to talk about, Yeah what was this

841
00:42:30,519 --> 00:42:34,239
because I know they grow on Ohio, but they yeah,

842
00:42:34,400 --> 00:42:36,800
they really come up. They come up in the landscaping

843
00:42:36,800 --> 00:42:38,000
in front of the city hall.

844
00:42:38,840 --> 00:42:43,320
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah. That was a fun little thing that

845
00:42:43,400 --> 00:42:47,480
happened a couple years back here in downtown Columbus. But

846
00:42:47,679 --> 00:42:52,119
they grow everywhere, like our whole city is crisscrossed with

847
00:42:52,280 --> 00:42:56,280
rivers and creeks and full of box elders, which is

848
00:42:56,360 --> 00:43:00,159
one of I believe they're like preferred wood substrates. It's

849
00:43:00,159 --> 00:43:02,440
when they break down and you know, get little chippy

850
00:43:02,480 --> 00:43:06,199
pieces where it floods, and so we just got a

851
00:43:06,199 --> 00:43:09,039
ton of them. Earlier this year, I saw a kid's

852
00:43:09,079 --> 00:43:12,760
playground that was full of them, and I was like, oh, oh.

853
00:43:12,119 --> 00:43:15,039
Speaker 1: That's so funny. I just take those stembuts, Just take

854
00:43:15,079 --> 00:43:18,039
those stem butts and stuff them in the mulch somewhere. Yeah,

855
00:43:18,039 --> 00:43:20,039
it was, it was. It was like that in the

856
00:43:20,039 --> 00:43:22,760
Bay Area too, with Silasi b Leni. But hey, they're

857
00:43:22,800 --> 00:43:25,559
doing a service. They're turning chips into dirt, you know, So.

858
00:43:25,760 --> 00:43:27,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, they're working hard.

859
00:43:28,440 --> 00:43:30,519
Speaker 1: But but yeah, the name. I mean, that's the thing

860
00:43:30,519 --> 00:43:32,440
I always tell people about natives too, is like we

861
00:43:32,440 --> 00:43:34,280
can just look, we just got to change our perception

862
00:43:34,760 --> 00:43:37,599
of what's beautiful because it's been it's been all warped

863
00:43:37,719 --> 00:43:40,559
from you know, growing up in this society that's estranged

864
00:43:40,599 --> 00:43:44,039
from biological and ecological reality. You know, we think plants

865
00:43:44,079 --> 00:43:46,079
that have they need that variegated leaves and they need

866
00:43:46,079 --> 00:43:48,559
the flower all the time. Whatever. It's like, my whole

867
00:43:48,599 --> 00:43:51,679
perception of what's beautiful has changed. I look at the

868
00:43:51,760 --> 00:43:54,760
you know, the typical strip mall landscaping now, and it's

869
00:43:54,760 --> 00:43:58,199
repulsive or like wealthy garden landscaping is like a like

870
00:43:58,239 --> 00:44:01,880
a rich person's garden. It's horrible. Yeah, it's not attractive

871
00:44:01,920 --> 00:44:04,719
to me. It looks weird. And then I spend time

872
00:44:04,760 --> 00:44:07,280
in nature and that's what I want to look at.

873
00:44:07,320 --> 00:44:10,320
And so you know, you start putting those plants in,

874
00:44:11,000 --> 00:44:13,119
you know, and they're all either easy to grow from seed,

875
00:44:13,199 --> 00:44:15,960
there's genetic diversity, and there's a you know, if one

876
00:44:16,039 --> 00:44:18,079
dies from a disease, they're not all going to die.

877
00:44:18,519 --> 00:44:20,559
There's a little bit of diversity in there. And then

878
00:44:20,719 --> 00:44:23,480
they just they were so low maintenance too, but again

879
00:44:23,519 --> 00:44:24,440
that's bad for the comet.

880
00:44:24,480 --> 00:44:26,239
Speaker 2: That's the way that I've been able to sell it

881
00:44:26,280 --> 00:44:29,159
to a lot of my neighbors is, you know, in

882
00:44:29,280 --> 00:44:32,639
high summer and we are we are just finishing year

883
00:44:32,760 --> 00:44:37,639
three of some pretty bad drought conditions here in central

884
00:44:37,760 --> 00:44:41,880
Ohio over the summer, and it's it's that is a

885
00:44:41,920 --> 00:44:46,280
perfect time to lovingly remind your neighbors you would not

886
00:44:46,440 --> 00:44:50,199
need to be out here watering your lawn. Yeah, you

887
00:44:50,360 --> 00:44:53,400
replaced your lawn with some native plants, maybe not all

888
00:44:53,440 --> 00:44:56,400
of it, maybe just a little bit of it. And

889
00:44:57,519 --> 00:44:59,920
that is a nice way to sell it to Also

890
00:45:00,119 --> 00:45:02,679
during the mowing seasons and the spring and the fall.

891
00:45:03,119 --> 00:45:07,000
Another great time to be like, well, it wouldn't just

892
00:45:07,119 --> 00:45:11,320
be no mow may if all of your yard was

893
00:45:11,519 --> 00:45:13,719
native plants, it'd be no mo the whole year.

894
00:45:14,039 --> 00:45:16,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you shouldn't. You shouldn't have to, I mean

895
00:45:16,880 --> 00:45:20,599
having to apply fertilizer all the time and your fungus

896
00:45:20,599 --> 00:45:22,519
sides or something that's not normal. You shouldn't have to

897
00:45:22,559 --> 00:45:22,840
do that.

898
00:45:22,960 --> 00:45:25,159
Speaker 2: You know, you do that, then that is bad for

899
00:45:25,280 --> 00:45:28,119
us too. Nine times out of pens and leaping into

900
00:45:28,159 --> 00:45:34,280
our groundwater like it just it's so wild. Someone in

901
00:45:34,480 --> 00:45:39,360
my most recent leave the Leaves video was saying like, well,

902
00:45:39,719 --> 00:45:42,880
if you left the leaves on your lawn, you could

903
00:45:43,400 --> 00:45:45,280
mow over them first to break them up in the

904
00:45:45,360 --> 00:45:49,719
smaller pieces, and then you could apply this phosphorus fertilizer

905
00:45:49,840 --> 00:45:51,679
and then you could do this and then you could

906
00:45:51,760 --> 00:45:53,800
aerate it in the spring and then you could do that.

907
00:45:54,039 --> 00:45:57,159
If my comment was or you could just get rid

908
00:45:57,159 --> 00:45:57,840
of your lawn.

909
00:45:58,199 --> 00:46:03,039
Speaker 1: Yeah, really, you're self The time I did, I did

910
00:46:03,039 --> 00:46:06,760
this video with this uh this like native landscaping company

911
00:46:06,760 --> 00:46:09,280
called Symbiosa's Texas out here, and I was talking about

912
00:46:09,280 --> 00:46:13,960
we're on like these like really barren, hot, dusty Calichi

913
00:46:14,159 --> 00:46:17,280
hills in the juniper woodlands on the Edwards Plateau just

914
00:46:17,320 --> 00:46:19,840
west of Boston, Texas. And I'm you know, I'm looking

915
00:46:19,880 --> 00:46:22,159
at the plants there and they're incredible, Like these things

916
00:46:22,199 --> 00:46:25,639
are just built for the for the heat there, like Galfimia,

917
00:46:25,719 --> 00:46:28,679
this member of the malpiggy a c with these cool flowers.

918
00:46:28,719 --> 00:46:30,920
It's got this big root in Stilingia. You know, all

919
00:46:30,920 --> 00:46:32,960
this stuff that's got big roots, and like some of

920
00:46:33,000 --> 00:46:35,239
the liatris there are just tough as nails, like growing

921
00:46:35,239 --> 00:46:38,320
out of bare of limestone in one hundred degree heat.

922
00:46:38,639 --> 00:46:40,239
And I and on the video, I'm like, look at

923
00:46:40,280 --> 00:46:42,119
this stuff, and like look at how look at this.

924
00:46:42,119 --> 00:46:44,559
This isn't soil. There's no soil here. This is just

925
00:46:45,239 --> 00:46:49,000
limestone that's slowly weathering from the acidic rain and just

926
00:46:49,039 --> 00:46:52,199
creating this powder. And they're the powder beneath that powder

927
00:46:52,280 --> 00:46:55,159
is just this rock. Like the Why would you try

928
00:46:55,159 --> 00:46:57,199
to plant the crape myrtle here? They didn't evolve in

929
00:46:57,239 --> 00:47:00,280
this crpe myrtles. Crape myrtles are I'm a.

930
00:47:00,280 --> 00:47:02,480
Speaker 2: Smoke tree here. Why do you want to watch those

931
00:47:02,599 --> 00:47:04,440
non native plants slowly die?

932
00:47:04,519 --> 00:47:07,280
Speaker 1: They're probably important where they're native. I mean, I know

933
00:47:07,360 --> 00:47:09,400
they are every plant this, but here they're not you know,

934
00:47:09,480 --> 00:47:11,440
crate birtles. You goinda have to irrigate it. And then

935
00:47:11,519 --> 00:47:13,719
I had like some guy common thing and it turned out,

936
00:47:13,760 --> 00:47:15,960
of course he was like a soil like a like

937
00:47:16,000 --> 00:47:20,239
a soil salesman. His business was like like rehabbing soil

938
00:47:20,360 --> 00:47:23,320
for agriculture. Well, that makes sense for agriculture when you're

939
00:47:23,360 --> 00:47:26,519
growing stuff, but if you just for background landscaping or something,

940
00:47:26,559 --> 00:47:28,599
and he's like, no, man, you can fix that. You

941
00:47:28,679 --> 00:47:31,400
just have to amend it with phosphorus and and uh,

942
00:47:31,480 --> 00:47:33,880
you know, you could put some biochar in there. And

943
00:47:33,880 --> 00:47:35,360
I'm like, you don't need to do any of that.

944
00:47:35,360 --> 00:47:35,920
Speaker 2: That's the point.

945
00:47:35,960 --> 00:47:37,360
Speaker 1: You don't need to do any of that. You have

946
00:47:37,639 --> 00:47:40,039
all these cool oaks and junipers and all these cool

947
00:47:40,039 --> 00:47:42,199
perennials that are I mean, look at the flowers on

948
00:47:42,320 --> 00:47:44,199
like a liatris. Why do you want to change that?

949
00:47:44,360 --> 00:47:44,840
Speaker 4: Just leave it.

950
00:47:45,639 --> 00:47:48,639
Speaker 1: They're the tools that came with the land. It's like

951
00:47:48,679 --> 00:47:51,880
the pizza exactly. It's like having a car and like

952
00:47:52,159 --> 00:47:54,199
buying a new car and being like, well I could

953
00:47:54,320 --> 00:47:56,440
I could swap this piece for this, and you don't

954
00:47:56,480 --> 00:47:58,199
need to. It's fine, Just leave it alone. You know,

955
00:47:58,320 --> 00:47:59,760
you don't need to do that, Just leave it alone,

956
00:48:00,159 --> 00:48:03,280
working thus alone, just learn to respect the pieces that

957
00:48:03,360 --> 00:48:04,519
came with the car that you know.

958
00:48:05,719 --> 00:48:08,400
Speaker 2: Yes, that was part of our talk with city hall

959
00:48:08,480 --> 00:48:11,960
because the big issue that kept coming up from their

960
00:48:12,039 --> 00:48:17,360
end was well, these yards look beautiful when things are blooming,

961
00:48:18,760 --> 00:48:21,559
like we just have issues with things that are not

962
00:48:21,719 --> 00:48:25,639
blooming or things that are seinessing. And I was like, well,

963
00:48:25,880 --> 00:48:28,599
that's how nature works.

964
00:48:28,800 --> 00:48:31,039
Speaker 1: Where do you think they get the energy to bloom

965
00:48:31,320 --> 00:48:33,639
from having green leaves like that?

966
00:48:33,800 --> 00:48:38,760
Speaker 2: We can't just keep chugging for an entire years. It's

967
00:48:38,840 --> 00:48:41,760
just not possible. And I think we have to start

968
00:48:41,800 --> 00:48:46,039
reframing what we consider to be pretty, what we consider

969
00:48:46,159 --> 00:48:52,519
to be an attractive yard. And then I mean we're

970
00:48:52,559 --> 00:48:55,079
still working on talking to them about whether or not

971
00:48:55,159 --> 00:48:58,800
people have to clean up their stems after plants have sinessed,

972
00:48:58,880 --> 00:49:04,519
because that's really important overwintering habitat for so many different species.

973
00:49:05,320 --> 00:49:09,000
And uh, and we're working, We're working on it. We'll

974
00:49:09,000 --> 00:49:12,440
get there. I'm just glad that native pollinator gardens are

975
00:49:12,920 --> 00:49:15,840
legal in my city. Yeah. I wanted that's the thing

976
00:49:15,880 --> 00:49:16,639
that wasn't true.

977
00:49:17,119 --> 00:49:18,880
Speaker 1: I wanted to I wanted to ask you about that.

978
00:49:19,000 --> 00:49:20,559
So getting into that, if we could talk about that

979
00:49:20,599 --> 00:49:23,119
for a little bit, what what exactly happened? When did

980
00:49:23,119 --> 00:49:25,400
the when did the when did the first start? And

981
00:49:25,400 --> 00:49:27,159
then how did it all go and progress?

982
00:49:28,519 --> 00:49:30,840
Speaker 2: So there. For the last couple of years, there have

983
00:49:30,880 --> 00:49:34,360
been a lot of rumblings as people, not not just me,

984
00:49:34,519 --> 00:49:36,119
but a lot of folks around the city who have

985
00:49:36,199 --> 00:49:41,360
been working on restoring the ecology around their homes have

986
00:49:41,400 --> 00:49:45,719
been getting hit with these crazy fines. After you know,

987
00:49:45,840 --> 00:49:51,679
one personnickety neighbor calls three one one on them. Uh,

988
00:49:51,719 --> 00:49:53,920
here in the city, if someone calls three one one

989
00:49:53,960 --> 00:49:57,639
on your yard, Uh, they have to come and check

990
00:49:57,679 --> 00:50:01,239
it out. And the folks who work and checking it out,

991
00:50:01,280 --> 00:50:04,480
and this is absolutely no dig on them, Like they

992
00:50:04,480 --> 00:50:08,440
didn't go to school for botany. That's not usually what

993
00:50:08,559 --> 00:50:12,840
their training is. That is not what most of their

994
00:50:12,920 --> 00:50:16,559
day consists of going and fixing things around the city

995
00:50:16,599 --> 00:50:18,960
and making sure that things are working to their best potential.

996
00:50:19,440 --> 00:50:21,320
So they get to a yard, they see a bunch

997
00:50:21,360 --> 00:50:23,599
of plants that they can't recognize, and they see that

998
00:50:23,639 --> 00:50:27,639
it doesn't look like a kempt lawn with beautifully shaped

999
00:50:27,679 --> 00:50:33,000
hedges and that's what they've been told constitutes a good yard.

1000
00:50:33,400 --> 00:50:38,400
So they immediately write you a ticket. If you're lucky,

1001
00:50:38,599 --> 00:50:43,480
you can contest it. And some people have had success

1002
00:50:43,480 --> 00:50:47,000
with that, some people haven't. And so this past year

1003
00:50:47,199 --> 00:50:51,119
a lot of folks started lobbying our city council, especially

1004
00:50:51,119 --> 00:50:54,719
because we have someone on city council currently who loves gardening,

1005
00:50:55,480 --> 00:50:59,400
and we were like, that's our way in, that's are

1006
00:50:59,519 --> 00:51:02,480
in talked to him and so we did, and he

1007
00:51:02,519 --> 00:51:05,840
started meeting with members of the community and hearing everybody out,

1008
00:51:06,679 --> 00:51:11,239
and then invited us to speak in at city Council

1009
00:51:11,360 --> 00:51:14,920
at City Hall and the chambers in front of folks

1010
00:51:14,960 --> 00:51:19,840
who kind of plead our case, which was a crazy

1011
00:51:19,880 --> 00:51:23,519
thing to have to do in retrospect, but I'm really

1012
00:51:23,559 --> 00:51:26,880
glad that we all did it. You know, people brought

1013
00:51:27,039 --> 00:51:30,800
photos of their yards and got to tell stories about

1014
00:51:31,079 --> 00:51:35,800
kids in their neighborhood getting this hands on education with

1015
00:51:35,920 --> 00:51:40,599
native plants that they wouldn't have received otherwise, talking about

1016
00:51:40,639 --> 00:51:43,159
the species that they have noticed. That was one thing

1017
00:51:43,239 --> 00:51:47,639
that I really harped on was I've been keeping track

1018
00:51:47,719 --> 00:51:51,599
of the animal and you know, insect biodiversity in our

1019
00:51:51,639 --> 00:51:54,079
front and backyard since we moved into this house in

1020
00:51:54,119 --> 00:51:59,679
twenty twenty one, and the explosion in biodiversity after the

1021
00:52:00,039 --> 00:52:02,599
first year of having all of these native plants in

1022
00:52:03,440 --> 00:52:07,519
the front yard and building my little like trough pond

1023
00:52:08,280 --> 00:52:13,039
in the backyard was insane. It doubled the species that

1024
00:52:13,079 --> 00:52:16,400
we were seeing in our yards. Yeah, butterflies and moss

1025
00:52:16,480 --> 00:52:20,639
that I had never seen before here in downtown we

1026
00:52:20,639 --> 00:52:24,440
were suddenly starting to see because our yard, another neighbor

1027
00:52:24,639 --> 00:52:28,360
halfway down the block, another neighbor another block down, all

1028
00:52:28,800 --> 00:52:32,079
within a year had replaced our front yards.

1029
00:52:32,199 --> 00:52:33,880
Speaker 1: Oh that's so great, that's so cool.

1030
00:52:34,039 --> 00:52:34,159
Speaker 2: You know.

1031
00:52:34,199 --> 00:52:37,119
Speaker 1: I always talk about too. I mean because people will say, oh, well,

1032
00:52:37,159 --> 00:52:40,440
you know the snakes and the rats and mosquitoes. I said, no,

1033
00:52:40,480 --> 00:52:41,880
they don't. You know why, because that's the way an

1034
00:52:41,920 --> 00:52:44,400
ecasst the works. There's other things that keep those in check.

1035
00:52:44,400 --> 00:52:45,800
Speaker 2: Balance it out exactly.

1036
00:52:45,920 --> 00:52:49,280
Speaker 1: For like eighties eighties of jypdi are always there where

1037
00:52:49,320 --> 00:52:51,800
there's people. They've been co evolving with people for the

1038
00:52:51,880 --> 00:52:54,719
last thirty thousand years. That's like the tiny mosquitoes that

1039
00:52:54,760 --> 00:52:55,880
cause I don't know, if you get them up there,

1040
00:52:55,920 --> 00:52:58,599
we get them down here in the lower latitudes, and

1041
00:52:58,639 --> 00:53:01,239
they're they're horrible, and they show up. They don't show

1042
00:53:01,280 --> 00:53:02,880
up because of the plants. They show up because there's

1043
00:53:02,920 --> 00:53:05,239
people there, you know. But you know what will show

1044
00:53:05,280 --> 00:53:06,840
up because of the plants is all the things that

1045
00:53:06,960 --> 00:53:09,239
keep those in check. Like I was in the Upper

1046
00:53:09,320 --> 00:53:12,360
Amazon of Ecuador in February and I went there and

1047
00:53:12,400 --> 00:53:14,079
I was like, I'm gonna get deng gay, I'm gonna

1048
00:53:14,119 --> 00:53:17,079
get fucking marked by these mosquitos. Whatever it's worth it.

1049
00:53:17,079 --> 00:53:19,039
There's cool plants. And I went there and I got

1050
00:53:19,079 --> 00:53:21,559
I got bit like twice. I got bit twice. And

1051
00:53:21,599 --> 00:53:23,280
I was like, there are all the mosquitos. It rains

1052
00:53:23,280 --> 00:53:26,480
every day, there's water everywhere. And then I listened to

1053
00:53:26,519 --> 00:53:28,440
the frogs at night and I was talking to an

1054
00:53:28,480 --> 00:53:30,519
arpetologist and there's like, yeah, we have like five thousand

1055
00:53:30,559 --> 00:53:33,239
species of frogs here, you know. And I was like, Oh,

1056
00:53:33,239 --> 00:53:35,280
that's where all the mosquitoes are going. That's why they're

1057
00:53:35,320 --> 00:53:37,719
not you know. But then you clear the forest, you

1058
00:53:37,800 --> 00:53:40,679
destroy the habitat, the mosquitoes come back really quick.

1059
00:53:40,719 --> 00:53:42,519
Speaker 2: They're still there because you're still there.

1060
00:53:42,760 --> 00:53:44,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, And the things that the things that's you know,

1061
00:53:45,000 --> 00:53:47,800
so that eat them don't And that's kind of explaining

1062
00:53:47,840 --> 00:53:50,599
that to you know, people at city Hall, and you're right, yeah,

1063
00:53:50,639 --> 00:53:52,280
it's like a glitch in the system. They don't know.

1064
00:53:52,320 --> 00:53:54,559
They don't know what these plants are. They don't go

1065
00:53:54,599 --> 00:53:57,599
out into nature. There's nowhere they can experience it, and

1066
00:53:57,679 --> 00:53:59,519
so they just don't know. And that's kind of what

1067
00:53:59,599 --> 00:54:02,320
I had to do it too, just really polite and

1068
00:54:02,360 --> 00:54:03,760
I'm like, okay, well, come to my yard. Why do

1069
00:54:03,800 --> 00:54:04,480
you think it's weedy?

1070
00:54:04,719 --> 00:54:04,760
Speaker 2: What?

1071
00:54:05,039 --> 00:54:07,000
Speaker 1: You know? They couldn't really, they just kind of stuttered.

1072
00:54:07,039 --> 00:54:10,039
I was like, I know every genus and species of everything,

1073
00:54:10,320 --> 00:54:13,239
and the law specifically says no plants can be over

1074
00:54:13,280 --> 00:54:16,039
twelve inches unless they're cultivated. But these are all cultivated

1075
00:54:16,159 --> 00:54:16,880
and altivated.

1076
00:54:17,039 --> 00:54:18,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, I put them here.

1077
00:54:18,320 --> 00:54:19,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can prove it to you. I ask me

1078
00:54:19,960 --> 00:54:22,360
what anything is here? And I did that. I was

1079
00:54:22,400 --> 00:54:24,599
really nice. I did that for like a month, and

1080
00:54:24,679 --> 00:54:27,159
they just said, mister Santo, don't worry about the sectation.

1081
00:54:27,280 --> 00:54:29,000
They just gave up. They were like, fuck, this guy's

1082
00:54:29,000 --> 00:54:31,480
too annoying and he obviously knows what he's talking about.

1083
00:54:31,519 --> 00:54:33,599
I don't want to bother with this, and so I

1084
00:54:33,679 --> 00:54:36,000
just keep it hedged so they, you know, can't complain

1085
00:54:36,039 --> 00:54:39,440
it's going in the street and whatever, and yeah it's nice.

1086
00:54:39,480 --> 00:54:41,599
And the same thing. I get distracted walking to my truck.

1087
00:54:41,639 --> 00:54:43,480
I see so much cool stuff. I've got like an

1088
00:54:43,480 --> 00:54:45,039
ininapp survey just from my yard.

1089
00:54:45,960 --> 00:54:50,400
Speaker 2: Yes, oh my, my poor fiance. Every time we're in

1090
00:54:50,440 --> 00:54:54,239
a rush to go places, will literally have to physically

1091
00:54:54,320 --> 00:54:58,840
put blinders up on the sides of my face because

1092
00:54:58,960 --> 00:55:03,000
he knows what out fail. I will notice something in

1093
00:55:03,039 --> 00:55:05,280
the yard that I will want to go and pay closer.

1094
00:55:05,760 --> 00:55:08,519
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah, it's hard. It's hard. That's and that's

1095
00:55:08,559 --> 00:55:10,280
the way it should be. It's like put it right

1096
00:55:10,280 --> 00:55:12,159
where you could see. It's why when people they're like,

1097
00:55:12,159 --> 00:55:13,679
I want to kill my lawn, I'm like, do the

1098
00:55:13,679 --> 00:55:15,960
front yard, because that's where you have to walk. Yeah,

1099
00:55:16,039 --> 00:55:17,159
you know exactly.

1100
00:55:18,400 --> 00:55:20,840
Speaker 2: That's make sure you see it, and that's where you'll

1101
00:55:21,280 --> 00:55:25,639
you'll notice the difference so much more, you know. Are

1102
00:55:25,920 --> 00:55:28,599
We have a neighbor across the street who when they

1103
00:55:28,639 --> 00:55:33,159
moved in, was not super keen about our yard. And

1104
00:55:33,400 --> 00:55:37,000
they finally came over yesterday to come and talk, and

1105
00:55:37,039 --> 00:55:40,079
I got to point at all of the different species.

1106
00:55:40,159 --> 00:55:42,079
I got to give them one of our may pop

1107
00:55:42,159 --> 00:55:46,440
fruits because somehow it's November and we haven't had first

1108
00:55:46,440 --> 00:55:50,840
cross yet, so my may pops are still chugging, still

1109
00:55:50,880 --> 00:55:53,079
go in. I think we have two more fruits. We're

1110
00:55:53,119 --> 00:55:55,440
still gonna We're still gonna get fully right from this

1111
00:55:55,519 --> 00:55:58,239
guy before we get our first frost on Monday, which

1112
00:55:58,280 --> 00:56:04,400
is insane. And when he left, he's like, I really

1113
00:56:04,480 --> 00:56:07,679
like what you're doing here, yes, And I was like,

1114
00:56:07,920 --> 00:56:10,119
if you really like it, you know, you can take

1115
00:56:10,159 --> 00:56:12,320
a couple of the seeds out of this maypop and

1116
00:56:12,320 --> 00:56:14,400
put them in the raised bed in your front yard.

1117
00:56:14,880 --> 00:56:17,320
You know, the vines will climb up your porch. You'll

1118
00:56:17,360 --> 00:56:22,079
have beautiful flowers full of like carpenter bees and butterflies

1119
00:56:22,480 --> 00:56:25,480
all summer and then it dies back to the ground

1120
00:56:25,480 --> 00:56:27,280
every winter. Yeah, nice and easy.

1121
00:56:27,440 --> 00:56:30,519
Speaker 1: You recruited him. That's great. You're slowly recruiting him. You're

1122
00:56:30,559 --> 00:56:32,599
working on that's what we need to do. It's seriously,

1123
00:56:32,599 --> 00:56:33,199
it's like that is.

1124
00:56:33,199 --> 00:56:36,320
Speaker 2: Slowly, but surely. I mean in the politeness, it works,

1125
00:56:36,360 --> 00:56:39,360
and some people get mad at me on some people

1126
00:56:39,400 --> 00:56:44,000
litimately get mad on the internet when I try to

1127
00:56:44,280 --> 00:56:49,440
bring people in, whether it's about getting hip to native plants,

1128
00:56:49,480 --> 00:56:53,119
whether it's about realizing some of the inherent racism in

1129
00:56:53,159 --> 00:56:56,519
our outdoor spaces. Trying to bring people in with politeness

1130
00:56:56,519 --> 00:56:59,280
and kindness. I thought people get mad at me, being

1131
00:56:59,320 --> 00:57:01,880
like they don't deserve that. You know, we all have

1132
00:57:01,960 --> 00:57:05,920
the Internet. Everybody said no by now, and I'm just like,

1133
00:57:06,199 --> 00:57:08,000
when has that attitude?

1134
00:57:09,159 --> 00:57:12,760
Speaker 1: When has it ever worked? It's counterproductive. It's probably a cio.

1135
00:57:13,000 --> 00:57:14,719
If anything, it's probably a syop.

1136
00:57:15,119 --> 00:57:15,320
Speaker 2: You know.

1137
00:57:15,440 --> 00:57:18,519
Speaker 1: It's it's like, because it's so good at fracturing and

1138
00:57:18,559 --> 00:57:22,559
dividing and going and totally totally sawing off the branch

1139
00:57:22,599 --> 00:57:24,679
that you're clinging to, you know, it doesn't work.

1140
00:57:25,440 --> 00:57:26,280
Speaker 2: Sise Lee.

1141
00:57:26,519 --> 00:57:27,199
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was so.

1142
00:57:27,639 --> 00:57:31,639
Speaker 2: I mean, I I try to be like, Okay, people

1143
00:57:31,719 --> 00:57:34,119
can want the same things that I want and want

1144
00:57:34,159 --> 00:57:36,079
to go about them in different ways. But one of

1145
00:57:36,119 --> 00:57:39,079
these people was literally so persistent that I was just like,

1146
00:57:40,280 --> 00:57:43,679
it's given plant energy. It's like and not cool plant,

1147
00:57:43,719 --> 00:57:46,559
It's giving someone planted you into this conversation to try

1148
00:57:46,559 --> 00:57:48,679
to fracture the community energy.

1149
00:57:48,840 --> 00:57:52,000
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I mean, and you know, with like political like,

1150
00:57:52,079 --> 00:57:54,440
I've got my strong opinions. I don't need people to

1151
00:57:54,519 --> 00:57:56,599
agree with them at fucking all. All I need you

1152
00:57:56,679 --> 00:57:59,119
to do is kill your fucking lawn and plant this

1153
00:57:59,159 --> 00:58:01,760
stuff and not met with me for planting it, and

1154
00:58:02,119 --> 00:58:04,639
you'll get you'll start getting that dopamine dripped too. I

1155
00:58:04,679 --> 00:58:06,360
know you will at some point. There's no way you

1156
00:58:06,360 --> 00:58:08,519
can resist it. It's in your fucking genome. You know,

1157
00:58:08,800 --> 00:58:11,159
we're all human. It's been there for a long time.

1158
00:58:11,559 --> 00:58:13,320
You know. That's all I need. It's like it's you know,

1159
00:58:13,360 --> 00:58:13,760
it's And.

1160
00:58:13,719 --> 00:58:16,320
Speaker 2: Once they get a little taste, it's like a domino

1161
00:58:16,440 --> 00:58:19,960
effect and it starts fought like they start wanting to

1162
00:58:20,000 --> 00:58:23,360
feel that about so many more aspects of their life.

1163
00:58:23,760 --> 00:58:27,119
That's the type of thing that like makes people jump

1164
00:58:27,199 --> 00:58:31,360
ship from hyper conservatism and hyper individual worsout.

1165
00:58:31,800 --> 00:58:32,719
Speaker 1: Or shitty job.

1166
00:58:32,719 --> 00:58:35,119
Speaker 2: I think that makes people leave that stuff behind.

1167
00:58:35,519 --> 00:58:39,079
Speaker 1: Yes, it does exactly, because it's it's it's it's addictive,

1168
00:58:39,119 --> 00:58:42,000
and it feels good and it's fucking positive too. It

1169
00:58:42,079 --> 00:58:44,599
feels really good to be around that stuff. And I mean,

1170
00:58:44,599 --> 00:58:46,320
I've gotten a lot of people just write me being

1171
00:58:46,320 --> 00:58:48,679
like you're the reason I got into botany, I got

1172
00:58:48,679 --> 00:58:50,880
into plants. I'm like, fuck, that's great. That's that's all

1173
00:58:50,880 --> 00:58:53,400
I fucking need. Do you know this could die happy?

1174
00:58:53,480 --> 00:58:56,000
That's that's great. That's you know, get onto this stuff.

1175
00:58:56,000 --> 00:58:58,679
It feels good. It saved me, it'll save you too.

1176
00:58:58,760 --> 00:59:00,559
I mean it really, I was a I was a

1177
00:59:00,599 --> 00:59:04,400
fucking miserable fuck. I think quitting alcohol also helped me too,

1178
00:59:04,480 --> 00:59:07,519
but you know I was. This stuff really did man,

1179
00:59:07,840 --> 00:59:09,519
It's so and I've seen it do it to so

1180
00:59:09,599 --> 00:59:10,239
many people.

1181
00:59:11,480 --> 00:59:16,280
Speaker 2: I mean, I have always had like a relationship, I

1182
00:59:16,280 --> 00:59:19,800
feel with my local surroundings with plants. You know, my

1183
00:59:19,920 --> 00:59:25,039
mom is an avid gardener. Our whole family like really

1184
00:59:25,079 --> 00:59:29,039
pride themselves and spending a lot of time outdoors. But

1185
00:59:29,360 --> 00:59:33,159
after I graduated from college, in which I was also

1186
00:59:33,400 --> 00:59:36,800
very disenfranchised, because when I started my degree, originally in

1187
00:59:36,880 --> 00:59:39,679
environmental engineering, I was like, oh, this is perfect. I'm

1188
00:59:39,719 --> 00:59:43,039
going to be outside like building these beautiful systems that

1189
00:59:43,119 --> 00:59:45,840
help keep our environment intact. And They're like, nah, you're

1190
00:59:45,880 --> 00:59:47,440
going to be in an office or you're going to

1191
00:59:47,480 --> 00:59:51,199
be in a lab. And I was like, oh my god, wait,

1192
00:59:51,719 --> 00:59:55,519
I've made a huge mista. And so I left college

1193
00:59:55,639 --> 01:00:00,480
really sad and really depressed and really disenfranchised with just

1194
01:00:00,840 --> 01:00:07,039
the world as a whole, and finding my way back

1195
01:00:07,119 --> 01:00:11,880
to ecology into native plants and to foraging. I think

1196
01:00:12,119 --> 01:00:16,440
really kind of saved my life. Like before I started

1197
01:00:17,239 --> 01:00:20,880
just blogging to keep track of all of the foraging

1198
01:00:20,920 --> 01:00:22,840
that I was doing and all the rabbit holes i'd

1199
01:00:22,840 --> 01:00:25,320
go down about the plants that I was working with.

1200
01:00:26,159 --> 01:00:32,079
I had an eating disorder. I was extremely depressed. Like

1201
01:00:32,960 --> 01:00:36,400
my mom made me start going to therapy, which a

1202
01:00:36,440 --> 01:00:39,159
black mom making you, who's a boomer making you go

1203
01:00:39,239 --> 01:00:42,280
to therapy a thing that they famously do not believe

1204
01:00:42,440 --> 01:00:43,320
actually work.

1205
01:00:44,880 --> 01:00:50,039
Speaker 5: You know, it's bad because like and when they're like, nah,

1206
01:00:50,239 --> 01:00:53,679
maybe you do need to talk to someone about this,

1207
01:00:54,800 --> 01:00:57,239
and just slowly.

1208
01:00:58,320 --> 01:01:01,400
Speaker 2: Tapping into that kind of like childlike wonder and childlike

1209
01:01:01,440 --> 01:01:07,000
curiosity and getting kind of the education that I thought

1210
01:01:07,119 --> 01:01:10,679
I was going to get an undergrad on my own

1211
01:01:10,760 --> 01:01:14,119
by just like going university libraries, going to the public library,

1212
01:01:15,360 --> 01:01:19,639
and the community around native plants especially. I really think

1213
01:01:19,679 --> 01:01:21,840
it saved my life, honestly.

1214
01:01:22,280 --> 01:01:26,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so you got you kind of when you

1215
01:01:26,840 --> 01:01:29,559
graduated from college, you were kind of bummed, like not bumped,

1216
01:01:29,599 --> 01:01:31,880
but I mean you were not set up, You were

1217
01:01:31,920 --> 01:01:34,079
not already into this. It kind of took getting out

1218
01:01:34,079 --> 01:01:38,599
of that and getting back outside and getting more into plants.

1219
01:01:39,199 --> 01:01:44,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, I kind of had resigned myself to I'm never

1220
01:01:44,039 --> 01:01:46,079
gonna I'm never going to have a job that brings

1221
01:01:46,119 --> 01:01:47,719
me to I'm never going to have a job that

1222
01:01:47,800 --> 01:01:51,559
I feel like is contributing to the greater good for anything.

1223
01:01:52,559 --> 01:01:58,199
You know, I was doing like data and QA analyst

1224
01:01:58,480 --> 01:02:02,559
jobs for a while right after college, like and for

1225
01:02:02,639 --> 01:02:05,119
a fast and like for a company that participated in

1226
01:02:05,199 --> 01:02:08,119
fast fashion. So I actively felt like I was going

1227
01:02:08,280 --> 01:02:13,519
against all of my ideals and everything that I wanted

1228
01:02:13,559 --> 01:02:16,840
to see in the world. And I kind of had

1229
01:02:16,920 --> 01:02:18,800
just been told that, you know, that's the way the

1230
01:02:18,800 --> 01:02:21,199
cookie crumballs. You want to make a living, you want

1231
01:02:21,239 --> 01:02:23,000
to be able to afford your rent, you got to

1232
01:02:23,039 --> 01:02:27,920
play the game. And I guess I kind of decided

1233
01:02:27,920 --> 01:02:30,440
I didn't care about playing the game anymore. And I

1234
01:02:30,639 --> 01:02:32,719
was like, oh, it means that I have to move

1235
01:02:32,760 --> 01:02:34,480
back in with my mom. It means that I can

1236
01:02:34,559 --> 01:02:36,119
look back in with my mom.

1237
01:02:36,639 --> 01:02:37,000
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1238
01:02:37,039 --> 01:02:41,320
Speaker 2: And I just I feel like I got very lucky

1239
01:02:41,639 --> 01:02:48,199
that people resonated with the content that I was making

1240
01:02:48,320 --> 01:02:52,159
and really resonated with strengthening their connection to the world

1241
01:02:52,239 --> 01:02:57,960
around them through foraging through food. Because I mean, just

1242
01:02:58,039 --> 01:03:00,280
like Robin Wilkomer said, you know, how are you gonna

1243
01:03:00,280 --> 01:03:03,039
fall in love with the earth if you don't eat theories.

1244
01:03:03,320 --> 01:03:06,960
It's a really good way to not even insidiously, but

1245
01:03:07,079 --> 01:03:12,480
like a little bit sneakily, get people in on on

1246
01:03:12,880 --> 01:03:16,280
taking good care of the spaces around them and seeing

1247
01:03:16,360 --> 01:03:19,159
that there is this value that they never knew was there,

1248
01:03:19,960 --> 01:03:23,639
and realizing that they're not the only ones who can

1249
01:03:23,679 --> 01:03:26,719
benefit from it, and wanting to be able to help

1250
01:03:26,880 --> 01:03:30,679
lots of things benefit not just themselves. It's it's sneaky,

1251
01:03:30,800 --> 01:03:34,599
it's but in the best way possible. And I got

1252
01:03:34,599 --> 01:03:38,119
really lucky that people resonated with that and that I

1253
01:03:38,119 --> 01:03:42,039
guess I have like more energy than any human should,

1254
01:03:42,079 --> 01:03:44,480
which is what I am told frequently by people who.

1255
01:03:44,360 --> 01:03:47,239
Speaker 1: Wanted But you just start so you just you were

1256
01:03:47,280 --> 01:03:49,440
working the job you hated, and you just thought you

1257
01:03:49,480 --> 01:03:51,280
could you quit it? Or were you just going up

1258
01:03:51,320 --> 01:03:53,199
making time to go outside and do the things that

1259
01:03:53,239 --> 01:03:54,400
you love because they felt good.

1260
01:03:55,400 --> 01:03:58,280
Speaker 2: I was making time to go outside and and do

1261
01:03:58,360 --> 01:04:00,559
the things that I loved. When I had my my

1262
01:04:00,639 --> 01:04:03,920
worst job, my job I had immediately out of college

1263
01:04:03,960 --> 01:04:07,760
for about a year or so. I remember I was

1264
01:04:07,840 --> 01:04:11,280
like probably at one of my lowest points and you

1265
01:04:11,320 --> 01:04:13,559
know that cool thing that boomer parents do when they're

1266
01:04:13,599 --> 01:04:17,239
just like, go take a walk. Yeah, I'm just like,

1267
01:04:17,639 --> 01:04:20,159
I don't think taking a walk is gonna fitch this mom,

1268
01:04:20,280 --> 01:04:23,360
But if it'll, if it'll get you to take me

1269
01:04:23,440 --> 01:04:26,679
being sad seriously, I will. And I for the first

1270
01:04:26,679 --> 01:04:29,000
time in a long time, just paid attention to a

1271
01:04:29,000 --> 01:04:32,519
lot of the plants that were growing in my little

1272
01:04:32,760 --> 01:04:36,360
suburban called sac at that time, and it was like,

1273
01:04:36,519 --> 01:04:42,840
huh oh, I do accidentally feel better. And so for

1274
01:04:42,880 --> 01:04:45,039
a while. Then I left that job and I was

1275
01:04:45,079 --> 01:04:48,280
working a marketing job that I did, I did enjoy.

1276
01:04:48,440 --> 01:04:50,440
I loved the people that I was working with. I

1277
01:04:50,480 --> 01:04:53,760
had a really fun team full of really like minded people,

1278
01:04:54,199 --> 01:04:57,599
but all of us kind of had these other passions

1279
01:04:58,199 --> 01:05:03,440
on the side that we didn't bring to work with us.

1280
01:05:03,920 --> 01:05:08,320
My boss was literally also a forager who was cultivating

1281
01:05:08,480 --> 01:05:12,400
native plants on the balcony of her fifth floor walk

1282
01:05:12,519 --> 01:05:17,840
up in Manhattan Wild, and I thought she was just

1283
01:05:18,039 --> 01:05:20,639
the coolest person. She still is the coolest.

1284
01:05:20,679 --> 01:05:22,199
Speaker 1: We were living in New York.

1285
01:05:23,519 --> 01:05:25,960
Speaker 2: I was back and forth between Columbus and New York

1286
01:05:26,079 --> 01:05:28,480
at that time, and one of the few things keeping

1287
01:05:28,480 --> 01:05:31,440
me tethered to Ohio was like the lack of green

1288
01:05:31,559 --> 01:05:34,599
space access if I was going to be living in

1289
01:05:34,679 --> 01:05:38,360
New York proper, that was that was a really hard

1290
01:05:38,480 --> 01:05:42,800
sell for me. Yeah, and she was running this cool

1291
01:05:42,840 --> 01:05:46,239
blog called Garden Cocktails, and she was like, oh, you

1292
01:05:46,280 --> 01:05:49,239
also love these things. Just start just start writing about

1293
01:05:49,239 --> 01:05:51,199
the things that are making you happy, you know, post

1294
01:05:51,199 --> 01:05:52,639
some pictures on on Instagram.

1295
01:05:53,239 --> 01:05:56,320
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's great, man, that's great. Yeah, it's so.

1296
01:05:56,440 --> 01:06:00,840
I think that's the best. Like advice for people who

1297
01:06:00,880 --> 01:06:04,599
are like in a job they dislike is like just file, like,

1298
01:06:05,119 --> 01:06:07,159
take a walk and go outside. Just start paying attention

1299
01:06:07,159 --> 01:06:09,960
to it, or don't just pay attention to something out there,

1300
01:06:10,239 --> 01:06:12,280
but just make sure you get out there. Like you

1301
01:06:12,320 --> 01:06:14,280
may not want to do it at first, but go

1302
01:06:14,480 --> 01:06:16,880
drive to like a trailhead, go drive to some you

1303
01:06:16,920 --> 01:06:19,559
know something, and just go take a walk and just

1304
01:06:19,559 --> 01:06:22,199
just being away from people and having like clean air

1305
01:06:22,280 --> 01:06:26,039
would be nice. And then maybe you ready, yeah, and

1306
01:06:26,360 --> 01:06:28,519
then maybe you just start paying attention to some of

1307
01:06:28,519 --> 01:06:30,679
the stuff that's growing around you and taking pictures of

1308
01:06:30,719 --> 01:06:32,840
it so you could reference it later if you figure

1309
01:06:32,840 --> 01:06:34,920
out what it is or not whatever, do whatever, just

1310
01:06:35,000 --> 01:06:38,760
get out there. And eventually it'll it'll, it'll tick, something'll

1311
01:06:38,960 --> 01:06:41,519
catch you, you know, it'll hook you. I was working for

1312
01:06:41,559 --> 01:06:44,800
the railroad and I just, uh, I would just you know,

1313
01:06:44,840 --> 01:06:47,840
I would go to all these hiking spots and I

1314
01:06:47,880 --> 01:06:50,000
didn't know much about the plants out there, but I

1315
01:06:50,039 --> 01:06:52,119
know it just felt amazing to be out in these places.

1316
01:06:52,119 --> 01:06:53,360
And so I was like, I'm just going to keep

1317
01:06:53,400 --> 01:06:55,199
doing this. And then suddenly I was trying to scam

1318
01:06:55,239 --> 01:06:57,800
time off work so I could go farther out, you know,

1319
01:06:57,920 --> 01:06:59,039
go drive, going.

1320
01:06:58,920 --> 01:07:01,719
Speaker 2: To ask like when I transition happened for you.

1321
01:07:02,320 --> 01:07:05,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was like twenty nineteen, twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen,

1322
01:07:05,440 --> 01:07:10,039
the railroad started doing this thing, this policy called precision

1323
01:07:10,119 --> 01:07:13,760
Scheduled railroading, which just sounds like gobbledegook. It's like words,

1324
01:07:13,800 --> 01:07:17,960
it doesn't mean anything. What it means in actuality is

1325
01:07:18,000 --> 01:07:21,760
that we're going to cut costs. We're gonna screw over

1326
01:07:21,800 --> 01:07:25,760
our customers and our employees to please the shareholders. And

1327
01:07:25,840 --> 01:07:28,559
so you know, if there were like six jobs in

1328
01:07:28,599 --> 01:07:30,880
a yard, like switching jobs, we're going to cut it

1329
01:07:30,880 --> 01:07:34,159
to four and then pile the existing work onto the

1330
01:07:34,199 --> 01:07:35,920
remaining four jobs. So you guys are going to be

1331
01:07:35,960 --> 01:07:39,679
here longer and working harder. And so, you know, I'd

1332
01:07:39,719 --> 01:07:42,320
always been good at scamming time off work because we

1333
01:07:42,360 --> 01:07:44,320
all knew the company didn't care about us, and that

1334
01:07:44,440 --> 01:07:47,440
was kind of solidarity. It was a cool you know,

1335
01:07:47,480 --> 01:07:50,440
whether someone was left left leaning or right leaning, or

1336
01:07:50,480 --> 01:07:54,159
whether they were whatever their background was, wherever they came from.

1337
01:07:54,480 --> 01:07:58,719
Everybody kind of hated the company, which is.

1338
01:07:58,639 --> 01:08:02,800
Speaker 2: Honestly and sometimes that little bit of community within a chology.

1339
01:08:04,440 --> 01:08:06,559
Speaker 1: But it's wild though, because the work wasn't that bad.

1340
01:08:06,599 --> 01:08:08,760
The work was fun, but the company was terrible, and

1341
01:08:08,800 --> 01:08:10,559
it was I kept on thinking, I'm like, God, if

1342
01:08:10,559 --> 01:08:13,239
this company knew how much their employees hate them, why,

1343
01:08:13,360 --> 01:08:15,360
Like this is the most this is not the most

1344
01:08:15,360 --> 01:08:17,359
sensible way to run a company, like you generally want

1345
01:08:17,439 --> 01:08:20,199
your employees to like you, because you know, we would go,

1346
01:08:20,520 --> 01:08:23,199
we would get over time. We'd go park the locomotive

1347
01:08:23,760 --> 01:08:25,800
siding and go to a Takorea and sit down for

1348
01:08:25,840 --> 01:08:28,319
two hours on overtime. Like that's how much we hated

1349
01:08:28,600 --> 01:08:31,239
the company, I know. But anyway, so I started just

1350
01:08:31,239 --> 01:08:34,319
getting time off and going out and it was, you know,

1351
01:08:34,399 --> 01:08:36,199
cow I was living in California. They've got a bunch

1352
01:08:36,239 --> 01:08:38,159
of nice stuff out there, a bunch of nice areas

1353
01:08:38,199 --> 01:08:40,359
to go to, and so that was oh yeah, just

1354
01:08:40,399 --> 01:08:43,239
started getting me help put around twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen,

1355
01:08:43,239 --> 01:08:45,560
because I started there in two thousand and six. Twenty eighteen,

1356
01:08:45,600 --> 01:08:47,119
twenty nineteen, I was like, I got to get out

1357
01:08:47,159 --> 01:08:49,159
of here, man, this is this company is just it

1358
01:08:49,319 --> 01:08:52,720
just got too shitty and the managers were harassing people

1359
01:08:52,800 --> 01:08:56,439
and it was a very antagonistic spot. And then I

1360
01:08:56,479 --> 01:08:58,279
was the same thing. I was just recording stuff that

1361
01:08:58,319 --> 01:08:59,800
I saw because I wanted to share with people. It

1362
01:08:59,880 --> 01:09:03,000
was so cool, and yeah, people liked it. And then

1363
01:09:03,039 --> 01:09:04,960
someone was like, you should put these on YouTube because

1364
01:09:04,960 --> 01:09:07,119
I was just doing Instagram stories, you know, and they

1365
01:09:07,159 --> 01:09:10,239
disappear after a day, and I was like, well, YouTube's

1366
01:09:10,279 --> 01:09:12,880
kind of a cesspool. The comments are you know, it's

1367
01:09:13,039 --> 01:09:16,119
just a toilet, but whatever, it's maybe you're right, you know,

1368
01:09:16,159 --> 01:09:18,319
these the last longer and some of these plants I'm

1369
01:09:18,319 --> 01:09:20,199
singing are pretty rare and the habitat may not even

1370
01:09:20,199 --> 01:09:22,840
be here in thirty years. So started doing that and

1371
01:09:22,840 --> 01:09:24,479
then yeah, people liked it, and I was like, okay,

1372
01:09:24,479 --> 01:09:26,479
I'll keep doing this, and then I just I just

1373
01:09:26,640 --> 01:09:29,239
went down a wormhole. Once I got away from the railroad,

1374
01:09:29,600 --> 01:09:31,279
now I could do this full time, and I just

1375
01:09:31,880 --> 01:09:34,880
learned so much more just by asking questions and paying attention.

1376
01:09:35,000 --> 01:09:40,119
Speaker 2: So yeah, and I and thank goodness that you do.

1377
01:09:40,560 --> 01:09:43,000
And that's that person was just like put these things

1378
01:09:43,039 --> 01:09:46,800
on YouTube because my like one of my favorite things

1379
01:09:46,840 --> 01:09:48,920
about traveling and going to all of these events is

1380
01:09:49,000 --> 01:09:53,000
hearing who else within kind of like the science education

1381
01:09:53,159 --> 01:09:56,840
community at large online people also love and it is

1382
01:09:57,319 --> 01:10:01,640
almost always you. It's like you and all wards from ologies.

1383
01:10:01,960 --> 01:10:04,880
Everyone is just like, oh man, you know cui pace,

1384
01:10:04,920 --> 01:10:06,880
but botany doesn't. That got's so cool. And I was

1385
01:10:06,920 --> 01:10:08,520
like that die is so cool.

1386
01:10:08,720 --> 01:10:11,880
Speaker 1: I just tell you that I just want to, Like,

1387
01:10:12,119 --> 01:10:14,560
I just want There's just so much to learn out there,

1388
01:10:14,600 --> 01:10:17,199
and it's it is, it's like understanding how this wonderful.

1389
01:10:17,239 --> 01:10:19,439
Speaker 2: Reason I'm afraid to die is that I'm afraid I

1390
01:10:19,479 --> 01:10:22,399
won't have time to learn everything that I want to learn.

1391
01:10:22,560 --> 01:10:24,399
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, like I want to. I'm trying to teach

1392
01:10:24,439 --> 01:10:27,199
myself blues piano now, like which has no relations to

1393
01:10:27,239 --> 01:10:29,680
plants at all. But but you know.

1394
01:10:30,000 --> 01:10:33,880
Speaker 2: Okay you say that, but okay, it's it's a long

1395
01:10:33,880 --> 01:10:37,760
stretch because I grew up playing the piano, and when

1396
01:10:37,840 --> 01:10:40,319
things make sense musically in your mind, they also kind

1397
01:10:40,359 --> 01:10:44,199
of make sense mathematically in your mind. That connects to

1398
01:10:44,279 --> 01:10:45,199
the sciences.

1399
01:10:45,479 --> 01:10:46,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, lately.

1400
01:10:48,319 --> 01:10:51,359
Speaker 2: Everything is connected. I was just ranting with one of

1401
01:10:51,399 --> 01:10:54,840
my ecologist friends yesterday about how the biggest lie that

1402
01:10:54,960 --> 01:10:57,079
any of us were sold growing up is that the

1403
01:10:57,199 --> 01:11:00,920
arts and science are two things that should main separated

1404
01:11:00,960 --> 01:11:04,520
from one another instead of being so intrinsic.

1405
01:11:05,520 --> 01:11:09,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, totally connected. They're both so, I mean, they're

1406
01:11:09,239 --> 01:11:12,359
so important. Yeah, who would? Why would? Yeah? I never

1407
01:11:12,399 --> 01:11:15,359
thought about that. That is kind of you need. You

1408
01:11:15,439 --> 01:11:18,359
need a background in one to have a good footing

1409
01:11:18,399 --> 01:11:19,640
in the other, you know.

1410
01:11:19,800 --> 01:11:24,319
Speaker 2: For Yeah, I think the people who make huge splashes,

1411
01:11:24,520 --> 01:11:27,439
whether in the science community or in the arts community,

1412
01:11:27,840 --> 01:11:31,520
almost always also have some sort of affinity for the

1413
01:11:31,560 --> 01:11:32,119
other one.

1414
01:11:32,439 --> 01:11:35,399
Speaker 1: Yeah. And art is so important for happiness too, man,

1415
01:11:35,439 --> 01:11:38,479
it really, Yes, it's so and just like expression, and

1416
01:11:38,520 --> 01:11:41,159
it's it's this fundamentally human thing. You can't just have

1417
01:11:41,199 --> 01:11:44,720
this totally rigid world with you know, where it's all

1418
01:11:44,800 --> 01:11:48,039
just data and numbers and statistics without any like fun

1419
01:11:48,119 --> 01:11:49,279
in it, you know, without.

1420
01:11:49,079 --> 01:11:53,039
Speaker 2: Any joy, without any soul and that I mean, it

1421
01:11:53,079 --> 01:11:56,079
goes back to what we've been talking about this whole time.

1422
01:11:56,159 --> 01:11:59,800
It's right up there with lawns, like lawns and AI

1423
01:12:00,159 --> 01:12:03,840
data centers. Do not a community made.

1424
01:12:04,560 --> 01:12:07,680
Speaker 1: The fucking AI data center. That's yeah, that stuff gets

1425
01:12:07,720 --> 01:12:08,600
this dough pick man.

1426
01:12:08,680 --> 01:12:12,199
Speaker 2: Oh my god, those things are crazy. And you know that,

1427
01:12:12,840 --> 01:12:16,239
like that bubble is about to burst when even rural

1428
01:12:16,279 --> 01:12:19,359
communities in Ohio that some of these places are trying

1429
01:12:19,399 --> 01:12:23,119
to move to are voting now, are like, uh no,

1430
01:12:23,399 --> 01:12:24,279
absolutely not.

1431
01:12:24,439 --> 01:12:27,039
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, do you want this thing that's big, ugly

1432
01:12:27,079 --> 01:12:29,680
and loud and is going to drive your electricity prices up?

1433
01:12:29,760 --> 01:12:33,560
Unto you don't it's gonna be good for They can't

1434
01:12:33,560 --> 01:12:36,399
even say it brings jobs in. It doesn't. There's exactly

1435
01:12:36,479 --> 01:12:39,520
because it doesn't. It's thethesism of just that's a big

1436
01:12:39,560 --> 01:12:41,319
thing up by you. I don't. That's it's I think

1437
01:12:41,319 --> 01:12:44,039
it's down here Texas too, but not around I live

1438
01:12:44,119 --> 01:12:46,159
right on the Mexican border, so's there's not too many

1439
01:12:46,199 --> 01:12:46,960
around here yet.

1440
01:12:47,479 --> 01:12:52,119
Speaker 2: But uh oh, they're trying to make really big inroads here.

1441
01:12:52,840 --> 01:12:55,399
And you know, of course we used to be a

1442
01:12:55,439 --> 01:12:58,079
swing state. We kind of don't we have we haven't

1443
01:12:58,159 --> 01:13:03,319
earned that in a while, and so are very conservative,

1444
01:13:03,439 --> 01:13:06,560
very right leaning government is trying to court all of

1445
01:13:06,600 --> 01:13:09,960
these AI companies and all of these tech companies, and

1446
01:13:10,039 --> 01:13:12,960
it is kind of really encouraging to see that one

1447
01:13:13,039 --> 01:13:16,600
thing a lot of us can agree on, regardless of

1448
01:13:16,640 --> 01:13:20,960
political affinity, is that we're not out here about to

1449
01:13:21,279 --> 01:13:24,560
shoulder the energy bills for like a handful of people

1450
01:13:24,640 --> 01:13:28,359
to get somehow even richer than they already.

1451
01:13:28,439 --> 01:13:31,399
Speaker 1: All yeah, yeah, And you know it's I mean, obviously,

1452
01:13:31,439 --> 01:13:34,399
the any politicians that are behind that, against what their

1453
01:13:34,439 --> 01:13:37,279
constituents want, they're just getting paid off. They're getting It's

1454
01:13:37,319 --> 01:13:41,039
totally self serving somehow. That's what's so sleazy. Man. It's crazy.

1455
01:13:41,079 --> 01:13:44,000
Like I was in Florida two weeks ago looking at

1456
01:13:44,039 --> 01:13:46,520
some of the sand hill communities out there, fucking insane.

1457
01:13:46,520 --> 01:13:48,920
It's so cool. It's like a it's like a humid

1458
01:13:49,039 --> 01:13:52,079
desert with this nutrient poor sand. It reminds me the

1459
01:13:52,159 --> 01:13:54,039
Lake Whales Ridge, reminds me of some of the stuff

1460
01:13:54,079 --> 01:13:58,359
I've seen in like Mina Shariahs, Brazil. Like this nutrient Yeah,

1461
01:13:58,399 --> 01:14:01,159
the sand looks like sugar. It's like this bleach white

1462
01:14:01,199 --> 01:14:04,000
sugar sand. And then there's all these insane plants there,

1463
01:14:04,359 --> 01:14:07,600
and it's all fire adapted. Everything there's fire adapted, and

1464
01:14:07,680 --> 01:14:11,279
like short interval fires too, like two three years, you know.

1465
01:14:11,319 --> 01:14:14,159
And they've got like big xylopodium, like these big woody

1466
01:14:15,199 --> 01:14:18,119
roots that they can, you know, re sprout from. And

1467
01:14:18,199 --> 01:14:21,279
like when you burn the landscape there, everything ends up

1468
01:14:21,319 --> 01:14:24,279
looking so much better. Like the plants thrive, they just

1469
01:14:24,399 --> 01:14:27,239
take off. Whereas because they still get sixty inches of

1470
01:14:27,279 --> 01:14:29,760
rain a year, but they've got this dry season kind

1471
01:14:29,760 --> 01:14:33,119
of like the tropics do, which is kind of what

1472
01:14:33,520 --> 01:14:36,800
central Florida is, and so the winters are dry, but

1473
01:14:36,840 --> 01:14:39,239
it's still like ninety degrees and so, you know, but

1474
01:14:39,399 --> 01:14:41,399
then you've got sixty inches of rain a year. But

1475
01:14:41,439 --> 01:14:43,880
then it's on this sand. It's like a former It's

1476
01:14:43,880 --> 01:14:47,680
like basically the Appalachian Mountains weathered down over millions of years,

1477
01:14:47,880 --> 01:14:49,800
washed out to the Atlantic, and then the Atlantic at

1478
01:14:49,800 --> 01:14:52,159
some point in the last however many million years washed

1479
01:14:52,159 --> 01:14:55,359
all that sand up into these dunes, and so there's

1480
01:14:55,399 --> 01:14:57,680
all these endemic plants there. I'm going off on a

1481
01:14:57,760 --> 01:14:59,359
rant there. I'm sorry, but it was just so.

1482
01:14:59,319 --> 01:15:02,680
Speaker 2: No do it. It's reminding me that when I was

1483
01:15:02,720 --> 01:15:07,159
in Miami for Art Basle, which I had no business

1484
01:15:07,239 --> 01:15:11,840
being at love here. That the only moment of joy,

1485
01:15:12,000 --> 01:15:15,800
the only like little bit of solace I found in

1486
01:15:15,840 --> 01:15:18,680
that city that I am very much not built for

1487
01:15:20,000 --> 01:15:23,920
was the Simpson rockland Hammock Preserve, which is this tiny

1488
01:15:24,039 --> 01:15:28,119
nature preserve hidden right in the middle of downtown Miami,

1489
01:15:28,680 --> 01:15:33,439
where it is all of these sand adapted and like

1490
01:15:33,920 --> 01:15:39,479
all native mostly threatened trees and shrub species. And I

1491
01:15:39,560 --> 01:15:42,720
remember just like stumbling upon it walking in and the

1492
01:15:42,760 --> 01:15:45,600
temperature immediately dropping fifteen degrees.

1493
01:15:45,800 --> 01:15:49,479
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, the transpirational cooling and just the shade,

1494
01:15:49,520 --> 01:15:52,399
and it's it's crazy. I mean, that's how I was

1495
01:15:52,439 --> 01:15:55,119
talking about like native plants as infrastructure on this post

1496
01:15:55,159 --> 01:15:57,079
a couple of weeks ago, because it's like, you know,

1497
01:15:57,159 --> 01:15:59,640
even if you think plants are quote woke and you

1498
01:15:59,720 --> 01:16:01,880
hate you know whatever, I mean, I live in a

1499
01:16:01,920 --> 01:16:04,359
state where reading is woke and going to therapy is

1500
01:16:04,760 --> 01:16:07,760
what you know, you think plants are woke, like and

1501
01:16:07,800 --> 01:16:09,640
it shouldn't be politicized. But even if you think that,

1502
01:16:10,000 --> 01:16:13,720
like they're doing so. They're doing a service by by

1503
01:16:13,800 --> 01:16:16,479
cooling the landscape, preventing the heat from the sun from

1504
01:16:16,520 --> 01:16:18,720
hitting the ground and warming up all that concrete. You know,

1505
01:16:18,760 --> 01:16:21,920
that giant island of asphalt and concrete that you've created. Well,

1506
01:16:21,960 --> 01:16:25,039
now that's not getting charged up by the sun, so

1507
01:16:25,079 --> 01:16:27,159
it's not going to continue to radiate heat until two

1508
01:16:27,199 --> 01:16:29,319
in the morning after the sun goes down. And also,

1509
01:16:29,760 --> 01:16:32,560
you know, they're preventing flooding for when it does rain

1510
01:16:32,600 --> 01:16:34,319
because the roots break up the soil and make it

1511
01:16:34,359 --> 01:16:37,920
poorous like a dry sponge. And you know the transpirational

1512
01:16:37,960 --> 01:16:40,199
cooling from the leaves, I mean those little gas pores

1513
01:16:40,239 --> 01:16:42,760
you let out moisture, it goes to a gas state

1514
01:16:42,840 --> 01:16:44,920
that takes energy, whereas I mean that's how a swamp

1515
01:16:44,920 --> 01:16:47,079
cooler works. You know, It's like, even if you don't

1516
01:16:47,159 --> 01:16:51,359
like plants like you want them on, it doesn't make

1517
01:16:51,359 --> 01:16:53,680
any sense to have these median strips where it's just

1518
01:16:53,760 --> 01:16:55,720
mode lawn. Have it being native plants. You know, the

1519
01:16:55,800 --> 01:16:58,239
sides of a strip mall or a retention pind have

1520
01:16:58,319 --> 01:17:00,960
be native plants. It will cool every thing down. And

1521
01:17:01,039 --> 01:17:03,399
also it'll probably be covering fucking butterflies. And if you

1522
01:17:03,399 --> 01:17:05,920
don't like butterflies, you got something wrong with you, you know,

1523
01:17:06,399 --> 01:17:07,520
you really you don't.

1524
01:17:07,359 --> 01:17:10,720
Speaker 2: Like butterflies, then you might be past fixing.

1525
01:17:10,880 --> 01:17:11,239
Speaker 1: I can't.

1526
01:17:11,399 --> 01:17:14,039
Speaker 2: It might be where I'm just like, uh oh, this

1527
01:17:14,079 --> 01:17:15,119
one's broken.

1528
01:17:14,800 --> 01:17:17,880
Speaker 1: Beyond Stephen Miller. Probably just like butterflies.

1529
01:17:18,600 --> 01:17:22,680
Speaker 2: Honestly, I would not be surprised to Miller. You have

1530
01:17:22,760 --> 01:17:24,520
twenty four hours to respond.

1531
01:17:24,680 --> 01:17:27,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, it'd be fun to man. That guy needs to

1532
01:17:27,039 --> 01:17:29,039
get dosed, you know. I mean, I believe there's hope

1533
01:17:29,079 --> 01:17:31,560
for everybody. But you know, anyway, but I came home

1534
01:17:31,640 --> 01:17:34,720
from uh, I came home from see this is the

1535
01:17:34,720 --> 01:17:36,680
way my mind works. I'm already ping ponging all. I

1536
01:17:36,680 --> 01:17:38,479
forget what I was fucking talking about. We'll get back

1537
01:17:38,479 --> 01:17:40,840
to it in a minute. But I came home speaking

1538
01:17:40,840 --> 01:17:44,840
of butterflies last week, and then I got this plant

1539
01:17:44,840 --> 01:17:47,319
that's a member of the Astraraci, you know, with the

1540
01:17:47,479 --> 01:17:49,640
just which related to Joe Pieweed, And it was in

1541
01:17:49,720 --> 01:17:51,760
my yard and it was covered all that it was

1542
01:17:51,800 --> 01:17:55,039
covered in monarchs. The monarchs were going yeah, and I

1543
01:17:55,159 --> 01:17:57,600
was just like immediately like, oh my god, that's so

1544
01:17:57,760 --> 01:18:00,039
nice to see. I'm so glad I came home to that.

1545
01:18:00,159 --> 01:18:02,640
Whatever I was thinking about before, it doesn't matter. I'm

1546
01:18:02,680 --> 01:18:05,439
just gonna stare at this and lurk, yeah, so and

1547
01:18:05,479 --> 01:18:08,319
showing people that they're just like you know anyway, Okay,

1548
01:18:08,319 --> 01:18:10,880
I remember what it's talking about. So Florida, like the

1549
01:18:11,520 --> 01:18:15,920
corruption and I apologize for this, uh this this ramp,

1550
01:18:15,960 --> 01:18:19,560
but the corruption was nuts. Florida has all this cool

1551
01:18:19,600 --> 01:18:22,840
shit and then but there's been so much development there

1552
01:18:22,880 --> 01:18:26,079
because all the politicians there man are so own and

1553
01:18:26,119 --> 01:18:28,760
like I was hanging out with my friend Lily and

1554
01:18:28,920 --> 01:18:30,920
her friend Valerie and they were telling me about you know,

1555
01:18:30,960 --> 01:18:35,279
the levels of corruption are just insane, like stuff stuff

1556
01:18:35,279 --> 01:18:38,079
you would expect in like a Banana republic where these

1557
01:18:38,119 --> 01:18:42,199
developers just own the politicians. There's you know, the politicians

1558
01:18:42,800 --> 01:18:45,800
getting these positions where they install developers in the fit

1559
01:18:45,960 --> 01:18:50,079
the Wildlife Commission. You know, these people that have no

1560
01:18:50,239 --> 01:18:53,640
backing in science, no backing and even hunting or going outside.

1561
01:18:54,079 --> 01:18:57,359
They're just developers, you know, they're just these ledges are

1562
01:18:57,439 --> 01:19:01,079
now like in charge of management decisions or you know

1563
01:19:01,119 --> 01:19:04,760
what little state parks remain like that that is insane,

1564
01:19:04,920 --> 01:19:07,800
like how do you even? That's so corrupt, like there's

1565
01:19:07,840 --> 01:19:10,720
no oversight, like how do you even? And Florida has

1566
01:19:11,079 --> 01:19:14,199
biological riches like beyond belief, like there's so many plants

1567
01:19:14,239 --> 01:19:16,800
that only grow in Florida. They don't cur anymore there.

1568
01:19:18,079 --> 01:19:20,159
Speaker 2: I don't know, like it just makes you go, like,

1569
01:19:20,279 --> 01:19:25,479
how do we how do we start untangling that? You know?

1570
01:19:26,239 --> 01:19:27,800
And I mean I guess for both of us it's

1571
01:19:27,840 --> 01:19:31,000
not necessary. I mean we're not Florida residents, but like, yeah,

1572
01:19:31,119 --> 01:19:35,880
how does a plucky, you know, hopeful Florida residence start

1573
01:19:35,920 --> 01:19:42,319
the process of that uncoupling before we lose things that

1574
01:19:42,319 --> 01:19:43,920
we can literally never get that?

1575
01:19:44,279 --> 01:19:46,439
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you just show people, look, this cool

1576
01:19:46,479 --> 01:19:49,359
stuff is where you are. It's really amazing, and by

1577
01:19:49,399 --> 01:19:51,560
the way, it's threatened by this, and then you start

1578
01:19:51,600 --> 01:19:54,159
talking about the levels of corruption and you get people

1579
01:19:54,159 --> 01:19:56,199
to show up, you know, but there's a lot of

1580
01:19:56,279 --> 01:19:57,760
and there's a lot of people in Florida that are

1581
01:19:57,760 --> 01:20:01,199
really showing up and are pissed off about But you know,

1582
01:20:01,520 --> 01:20:03,560
that could be anywhere. I mean, that's what like Mike

1583
01:20:03,680 --> 01:20:06,119
he was doing with the public lands that that you know,

1584
01:20:06,159 --> 01:20:08,680
the guy that looks like a thumb from Utah. He

1585
01:20:08,720 --> 01:20:10,199
looks like a he looks like a thumb.

1586
01:20:10,399 --> 01:20:12,680
Speaker 2: He does look so much like a thumb. Oh my god.

1587
01:20:12,880 --> 01:20:15,079
Speaker 1: Yeah, but he was you know, his he's still coming

1588
01:20:15,119 --> 01:20:17,319
at it again. Now he's got some other public lands,

1589
01:20:17,479 --> 01:20:20,560
you know, border security. He tried the like we're doing

1590
01:20:20,600 --> 01:20:23,720
this for affordable housing thing, which was so like, man,

1591
01:20:23,760 --> 01:20:26,000
are you really this Like this is such bullshit? Are

1592
01:20:26,000 --> 01:20:27,439
you really this cynically you think people are going to

1593
01:20:27,520 --> 01:20:29,640
leave this? But and that failed, Like even the hunting.

1594
01:20:29,920 --> 01:20:33,600
The hunting community was really the the you know, the

1595
01:20:33,640 --> 01:20:36,520
demographic that's helps you.

1596
01:20:36,640 --> 01:20:41,199
Speaker 2: Yeah, and when you anger the hunting community as like, oh,

1597
01:20:41,319 --> 01:20:44,319
well you messed up, you messed up because now we're

1598
01:20:44,399 --> 01:20:45,279
allied together.

1599
01:20:45,600 --> 01:20:47,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it was really cool. It was one of

1600
01:20:47,760 --> 01:20:51,000
those things you're seeing people from normally wouldn't work together

1601
01:20:51,119 --> 01:20:54,399
working together to defeat these anti public lands. But anyway,

1602
01:20:54,439 --> 01:20:56,880
now he's got another one up that's a border security

1603
01:20:56,920 --> 01:20:59,239
anything within one hundred miles of a border, and they're

1604
01:20:59,279 --> 01:21:02,760
considering like Lake Michigan a borders. So everything in Chicago

1605
01:21:03,359 --> 01:21:05,840
is like, you know, yeah they can, they can build

1606
01:21:05,920 --> 01:21:08,600
roads through wilderness areas. They're trying to do this, so

1607
01:21:08,640 --> 01:21:11,039
hopefully it'll fail again, but it's it's just crazy, man.

1608
01:21:11,079 --> 01:21:13,520
It's that they're never going to stop, like you've already

1609
01:21:13,520 --> 01:21:16,119
taken so much, like just stop, like can there be

1610
01:21:16,159 --> 01:21:20,079
a moratorium and any more development and protect this stuff.

1611
01:21:20,399 --> 01:21:22,359
And also like we need to understand how it works.

1612
01:21:22,359 --> 01:21:26,319
It's why like funding sciences and ecological studies and surveys

1613
01:21:26,640 --> 01:21:29,079
and all this stuff is so important right at the

1614
01:21:29,079 --> 01:21:30,479
same time, everything's and my.

1615
01:21:30,399 --> 01:21:33,079
Speaker 6: Thing is, I'm just like we we in most of

1616
01:21:33,119 --> 01:21:36,000
our cities, we are not out of space, Like why

1617
01:21:36,000 --> 01:21:40,319
are we not just rezoning things for more dense living,

1618
01:21:40,520 --> 01:21:44,039
for more apartments so we don't feel like we constantly

1619
01:21:44,600 --> 01:21:47,840
need to be over developing some of the few wild space.

1620
01:21:48,279 --> 01:21:50,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah, and that's.

1621
01:21:50,760 --> 01:21:53,600
Speaker 2: The d makes no sense. But then you start angering

1622
01:21:53,840 --> 01:21:57,520
the the nundies and then and then that's when we

1623
01:21:57,600 --> 01:22:00,000
get fractured, and then that's when we have problems.

1624
01:22:00,279 --> 01:22:02,600
Speaker 1: But that's the thing is like I think, you know density,

1625
01:22:02,840 --> 01:22:06,000
but with you know, every four blocks there's a block

1626
01:22:06,079 --> 01:22:09,239
of just native green space where people can actually go in.

1627
01:22:09,359 --> 01:22:11,640
It's not off limits. You want to get people's asses

1628
01:22:11,680 --> 01:22:13,319
in there, get them in there to engage with it.

1629
01:22:13,720 --> 01:22:16,279
But you know that will and that will lighten the

1630
01:22:16,319 --> 01:22:19,640
load of the quote density, but also just not when

1631
01:22:19,680 --> 01:22:23,199
you've got density, you don't need as much car car space,

1632
01:22:23,279 --> 01:22:26,399
parking lots. Yeah, all that you can walk places. It's

1633
01:22:26,399 --> 01:22:28,960
good for your health too, Like heart disease is a

1634
01:22:29,000 --> 01:22:31,840
big problem in America. You think they might be related

1635
01:22:31,840 --> 01:22:33,800
to being trapped in a car and sitting down not

1636
01:22:34,000 --> 01:22:35,560
moving for three hours.

1637
01:22:35,079 --> 01:22:39,840
Speaker 2: Hours a day. Exactly. Yeah, And I feel very lucky,

1638
01:22:39,920 --> 01:22:44,920
like we're our neighborhood honestly does not get a lot

1639
01:22:45,079 --> 01:22:47,880
from the city. I joke, but it's not a joke

1640
01:22:47,920 --> 01:22:50,920
that like we're the sacrificial lamb when the city floods,

1641
01:22:50,960 --> 01:22:54,000
like we literally get walled in by the flood walls.

1642
01:22:54,880 --> 01:22:59,039
It has historically been a very poor and thus very

1643
01:22:59,079 --> 01:23:05,439
diverse neighborhood, and somehow we lucked into having these pocket parks,

1644
01:23:06,359 --> 01:23:10,279
like every other block, every other street running off of

1645
01:23:10,279 --> 01:23:16,119
our main street. And it's crazy how the houses that

1646
01:23:16,119 --> 01:23:20,359
are along the pocket parks get so they're so much cooler,

1647
01:23:20,399 --> 01:23:24,640
they get so much additional shade during the summertime. Seeing

1648
01:23:24,640 --> 01:23:27,720
the kids running through the pocket parks just like playing

1649
01:23:27,880 --> 01:23:32,199
catch or kickball, people walking their dogs, people just sitting

1650
01:23:32,199 --> 01:23:36,159
at the picnic tables underneath you know, the giant basswood

1651
01:23:36,199 --> 01:23:41,079
tree in one of them, just enjoying being outside. And

1652
01:23:41,800 --> 01:23:44,600
I just don't understand why we aren't doing that everywhere?

1653
01:23:44,880 --> 01:23:47,079
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think, Well that's what I wanted to ask

1654
01:23:47,119 --> 01:23:49,399
you too, cause I'm just curious what you think. But

1655
01:23:49,880 --> 01:23:53,079
you know, for kids that are growing up, like teenagers

1656
01:23:53,079 --> 01:23:54,880
that are growing up in some of those like cul

1657
01:23:54,920 --> 01:23:58,000
de sec communities that are alienated from all this stuff

1658
01:23:58,000 --> 01:24:00,359
and it's hard to get anywhere without a car, what

1659
01:24:00,439 --> 01:24:02,840
do you think, I don't know. What do you think

1660
01:24:02,880 --> 01:24:04,840
can give them hope? What do you think can get

1661
01:24:04,880 --> 01:24:05,319
them out?

1662
01:24:05,760 --> 01:24:05,960
Speaker 2: Like? What?

1663
01:24:06,239 --> 01:24:08,359
Speaker 1: I don't know? I guess because that's like that's who

1664
01:24:08,760 --> 01:24:11,880
those are. The people I feel bad because they didn't

1665
01:24:11,920 --> 01:24:15,000
choose that man, their parents just you know whatever, they're

1666
01:24:15,079 --> 01:24:18,000
just ended up there. You know, they're growing up in that.

1667
01:24:18,479 --> 01:24:21,079
I wonder that I worry about those kids, you know, like,

1668
01:24:21,119 --> 01:24:23,399
how do you just like life is so cool? Life

1669
01:24:23,399 --> 01:24:26,560
can be full of such wonderful things, and you're probably

1670
01:24:26,920 --> 01:24:28,960
there's a lot of depression, there's a lot of anxiety,

1671
01:24:29,079 --> 01:24:33,279
Like get people to go out and partake in these things,

1672
01:24:33,359 --> 01:24:34,760
or at least if you're going to be starting at

1673
01:24:34,760 --> 01:24:38,239
your screen, use it for you know, whether it's following

1674
01:24:38,319 --> 01:24:40,880
nature accounts or you're looking at an out or just

1675
01:24:41,000 --> 01:24:43,359
asking questions like what are the cool plants that grow

1676
01:24:43,359 --> 01:24:46,199
in this area or in this area or what you know,

1677
01:24:47,119 --> 01:24:48,960
I don't know. I mean you've got the library in

1678
01:24:49,000 --> 01:24:52,279
your pocket, Like the phone can be cool, if it.

1679
01:24:52,319 --> 01:24:56,039
Speaker 2: Can be a good thing, I think not like you

1680
01:24:56,159 --> 01:25:00,960
just mentioned, is so important for gtting people's foot in

1681
01:25:01,000 --> 01:25:04,720
the door and kind of sparking this interest and sparking

1682
01:25:04,760 --> 01:25:07,359
the realization that you can be in a city, you

1683
01:25:07,399 --> 01:25:09,239
can be on a cul de sac in the middle

1684
01:25:09,239 --> 01:25:15,800
of suburbia and still have biodiversity around you. To an extent,

1685
01:25:16,439 --> 01:25:20,399
I love suggesting to people try downloading AMAT and just

1686
01:25:20,560 --> 01:25:26,079
open the explore tab and see if anybody has logged anything.

1687
01:25:25,720 --> 01:25:27,640
Speaker 1: Around it, if it's something.

1688
01:25:27,399 --> 01:25:30,840
Speaker 2: You've ever seen before. Oh, it's the coolest. I love

1689
01:25:30,880 --> 01:25:34,159
it so much. And I'm like, if you, if there's

1690
01:25:34,239 --> 01:25:39,239
nothing in your neighborhood, go out and log like two

1691
01:25:39,399 --> 01:25:42,800
or three plants. That makes you immediately have to start

1692
01:25:42,840 --> 01:25:45,039
paying attention because you have to start telling the difference

1693
01:25:45,079 --> 01:25:48,439
between a couple different plants. Take a picture of it,

1694
01:25:48,880 --> 01:25:51,720
see if you can figure out what it is. If

1695
01:25:51,760 --> 01:25:54,960
you can hee it out with between their suggestions and

1696
01:25:55,000 --> 01:25:59,560
comparing it to pictures on the Wikipedia pages. It's such

1697
01:25:59,560 --> 01:26:04,279
a great tool for inspiring curiosity.

1698
01:26:03,680 --> 01:26:04,359
Speaker 1: And if you're looking.

1699
01:26:04,640 --> 01:26:08,000
Speaker 2: I think people were like told to not be curious

1700
01:26:08,079 --> 01:26:09,600
after we're not kids anymore.

1701
01:26:09,800 --> 01:26:12,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's depressing too, Like when when people stop

1702
01:26:13,000 --> 01:26:15,920
being excited about like finding roly Polly's under a rock,

1703
01:26:16,000 --> 01:26:18,760
that's why. No, it's like they've fully been They're in

1704
01:26:18,800 --> 01:26:21,439
the matrix now, you know, like you gotta get them

1705
01:26:21,439 --> 01:26:24,239
pick up. But I tell I tell people, you know,

1706
01:26:24,239 --> 01:26:26,279
if you live in one of these cul de sects

1707
01:26:26,119 --> 01:26:28,399
that you know it looks like these housing pods everywhere.

1708
01:26:28,439 --> 01:26:30,319
If you live like when you're looking at it from above,

1709
01:26:30,520 --> 01:26:32,600
you're trying to find a spot to go, just pull out,

1710
01:26:32,600 --> 01:26:35,199
look at like Google satellite maps and look for like

1711
01:26:35,279 --> 01:26:38,399
power line easements or sides of railroad tracks or the

1712
01:26:38,520 --> 01:26:41,159
edge of a retention pond. Like there's gonna be places

1713
01:26:41,159 --> 01:26:44,039
where the mowers can't go and where people aren't gonna

1714
01:26:44,039 --> 01:26:47,119
bother to spray herbicide or try to trim things up,

1715
01:26:47,119 --> 01:26:50,039
and you're you're gonna find stuff there. There'll probably be

1716
01:26:50,039 --> 01:26:52,640
a mixture of natives and invasives, but they're at least

1717
01:26:52,640 --> 01:26:55,720
they're they're feral or they're wild. They're not you know,

1718
01:26:55,760 --> 01:26:59,079
this weird minecraft landscaping and just look what's there. You

1719
01:26:59,239 --> 01:27:02,520
never you'll never guess maybe what what things might be

1720
01:27:02,640 --> 01:27:05,840
using those quote nether regions of human infrastructure like those

1721
01:27:05,880 --> 01:27:07,359
are those are.

1722
01:27:07,600 --> 01:27:10,039
Speaker 2: And then they can be like you following your footsteps,

1723
01:27:10,079 --> 01:27:12,920
gather a couple seeds and bring them home. Maybe put

1724
01:27:12,920 --> 01:27:15,359
a couple of them into the ground in the backyard.

1725
01:27:15,039 --> 01:27:18,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally, or just disperse them to places like along

1726
01:27:18,119 --> 01:27:20,039
fence lines, places where you know they're not going to

1727
01:27:20,079 --> 01:27:22,760
get mowed and no one's gonna no one's gonna, you know,

1728
01:27:22,880 --> 01:27:26,600
bother them whatever. So it's there's cool, Yeah, there's I

1729
01:27:26,680 --> 01:27:28,680
just want to get people excited about this stuff. I

1730
01:27:28,720 --> 01:27:30,640
just want people to realize, like I see kids who

1731
01:27:30,640 --> 01:27:33,319
are like depressed or anxious, and it's you know, just man,

1732
01:27:33,359 --> 01:27:36,680
there's it gets better. There's no reason to feel that way.

1733
01:27:36,760 --> 01:27:39,520
There's this is such a wonderful fucking place to be

1734
01:27:40,199 --> 01:27:43,479
on this planet, and you know, we have such treasures here.

1735
01:27:43,520 --> 01:27:44,920
You just got to go out and find it. They

1736
01:27:44,960 --> 01:27:47,239
may not be in your immediate area because of what

1737
01:27:47,319 --> 01:27:49,039
the society we live in has done, but you can

1738
01:27:49,119 --> 01:27:51,039
you can get away from that, and they're out there

1739
01:27:51,079 --> 01:27:53,239
somewhere you know, and.

1740
01:27:53,199 --> 01:27:57,399
Speaker 2: It's so easy to get lost in spiraling about what

1741
01:27:57,479 --> 01:28:02,119
we have lost instead of celebrating what we do still have.

1742
01:28:02,560 --> 01:28:05,840
And that sorrow, I think is also very dangerous because

1743
01:28:05,880 --> 01:28:09,439
sorrow is immobilizing. Sorrow makes you feel like you can't

1744
01:28:09,520 --> 01:28:14,439
do anything but mourn and be sad. And yeah, when

1745
01:28:14,439 --> 01:28:16,079
you get out in nature, you see that there are

1746
01:28:16,119 --> 01:28:18,680
still beautiful things to take care of, there's still beautiful

1747
01:28:18,680 --> 01:28:22,359
things to protect. Yeah, and everybody go touch a blade

1748
01:28:22,359 --> 01:28:24,439
of grass, well not a blade of oh maybe a

1749
01:28:24,520 --> 01:28:27,880
native grass and big bluestem.

1750
01:28:28,000 --> 01:28:30,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, go touch it. Go find some andropogan God, the

1751
01:28:30,840 --> 01:28:35,199
fucking andropoguans in Lake Wales Ridge are insane. They're like waxy, man,

1752
01:28:35,239 --> 01:28:38,560
they're like icy blue. It's it's crazy. That's such crazy

1753
01:28:38,600 --> 01:28:41,720
shit down there in Florida, like these. The andropogon diversity

1754
01:28:41,760 --> 01:28:46,039
is insane. There's like twelve species anyway. Really, yeah, it's

1755
01:28:46,079 --> 01:28:49,319
it's crazy. I'll send you some pictures later. It's yea.

1756
01:28:49,600 --> 01:28:52,000
They're like it and they're blue. They're like then there's

1757
01:28:52,039 --> 01:28:53,920
wax on the leaf plads you look at like the

1758
01:28:53,960 --> 01:28:56,479
base of the plant. They're like these four five foot

1759
01:28:56,520 --> 01:28:58,319
six foot tall grasses and then you look at the

1760
01:28:58,319 --> 01:29:00,279
base of the leaves and they're like icy blue. Like

1761
01:29:00,359 --> 01:29:02,239
it's like, yeah, it's it's the.

1762
01:29:02,920 --> 01:29:05,840
Speaker 2: Fun gloccous color that you get when things are have

1763
01:29:05,920 --> 01:29:07,279
that nice waxy coating.

1764
01:29:07,560 --> 01:29:07,760
Speaker 6: Yeah.

1765
01:29:08,119 --> 01:29:10,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, because it's me. It's hard out there and you're walking,

1766
01:29:10,640 --> 01:29:12,600
you're walking around on that white sand and it's like

1767
01:29:12,680 --> 01:29:16,319
reflecting back at you, you know, like like it's intense,

1768
01:29:16,359 --> 01:29:18,520
it's hard. It's a harsh environment. That's you get a

1769
01:29:18,560 --> 01:29:21,520
lot of cool stuff. But anyway, but yeah, I'll get

1770
01:29:21,560 --> 01:29:24,960
you know, I get these people asking me sometimes and

1771
01:29:25,119 --> 01:29:26,600
I don't know what to say to them because I

1772
01:29:26,600 --> 01:29:29,000
could rant about it forever. But that young people, they'll

1773
01:29:29,039 --> 01:29:31,359
be like, how do you see all this stuff, like

1774
01:29:31,399 --> 01:29:34,600
all the destruction or just the whatever dumb shit you know,

1775
01:29:34,680 --> 01:29:37,199
our society is doing right now, our civilization? How do

1776
01:29:37,239 --> 01:29:38,840
you see that and not get depressed? I'm like, I

1777
01:29:38,880 --> 01:29:42,399
don't know, man. I I see so much beauty around me,

1778
01:29:42,439 --> 01:29:44,359
and that's what I intentionally put around me, whether it's

1779
01:29:44,399 --> 01:29:46,640
my front yard of the place I go to, and

1780
01:29:46,720 --> 01:29:49,680
I guess maybe I've just got perspective. The geologic timescale.

1781
01:29:49,680 --> 01:29:51,479
I always tell people it's really important, you know this

1782
01:29:51,640 --> 01:29:53,560
is a blink of an eye. This is we're not

1783
01:29:53,640 --> 01:29:56,079
going to win this war We've waged on nature. I

1784
01:29:56,119 --> 01:29:59,000
guarantee we might win a couple of battles, but we're

1785
01:29:59,039 --> 01:30:02,600
not gonna win. And so I think, you know, just

1786
01:30:03,199 --> 01:30:06,199
it's not about I don't know. You can't have this

1787
01:30:06,279 --> 01:30:09,159
short Try not to have this short sighted view, you know,

1788
01:30:09,439 --> 01:30:12,479
take a long term, long game view, and just do

1789
01:30:12,560 --> 01:30:14,840
what you can. It's fun, you know, but don't don't

1790
01:30:14,840 --> 01:30:18,960
do what you're doing with you know, the the end

1791
01:30:19,039 --> 01:30:21,039
in mind, Like, oh I'm doing it. It's a means

1792
01:30:21,079 --> 01:30:24,000
to an end. Do it just because it's it feels great.

1793
01:30:24,119 --> 01:30:26,239
It feels so good. I was like, even before we

1794
01:30:26,279 --> 01:30:27,880
get on the phone, I was like planting shit in

1795
01:30:27,960 --> 01:30:30,199
my neighbor's yard. They said I could, They said I

1796
01:30:30,199 --> 01:30:32,039
could plant some stuff. I was like, you don't know what,

1797
01:30:32,119 --> 01:30:34,520
you just invite it in man, it's you know this

1798
01:30:34,680 --> 01:30:38,720
is But yeah, I don't know. I think there's there's

1799
01:30:38,760 --> 01:30:41,840
so much good ship out there and what we're what's

1800
01:30:41,880 --> 01:30:42,520
going on, so.

1801
01:30:42,520 --> 01:30:44,840
Speaker 2: Much to hope for, and like, I don't know, sometimes

1802
01:30:44,880 --> 01:30:48,159
I do get a little depressed about it. But yeah,

1803
01:30:48,239 --> 01:30:51,279
one thing I've worked on for a large portion of

1804
01:30:51,279 --> 01:30:55,439
my adult life is asking myself, like how much time

1805
01:30:55,479 --> 01:30:58,079
I'm giving myself to wallow and whether or not I

1806
01:30:58,119 --> 01:31:01,920
feel like I'm getting anything productive. Like if I get

1807
01:31:02,000 --> 01:31:04,840
upset or angry about something, sometimes that's a really good

1808
01:31:04,920 --> 01:31:09,560
motivator for me to like get boots on the ground,

1809
01:31:10,000 --> 01:31:15,399
spread some seeds in some spaces, go learn about a

1810
01:31:15,520 --> 01:31:18,920
new to me species. I've been trying to use it

1811
01:31:19,039 --> 01:31:25,079
as a reason to go and get excited and find

1812
01:31:25,119 --> 01:31:28,439
something to get happy about instead of just like letting

1813
01:31:28,479 --> 01:31:32,800
myself wallow for an extended period of time. But I

1814
01:31:32,840 --> 01:31:35,279
but I have to be really deliberate about it, and

1815
01:31:35,319 --> 01:31:37,119
I have to be able to catch myself and like

1816
01:31:37,239 --> 01:31:41,479
self parent and be like, okay, girl, let's cry for

1817
01:31:41,520 --> 01:31:45,600
an hour and then let's maybe try something out.

1818
01:31:45,720 --> 01:31:47,720
Speaker 1: I mean, the wallowing is important for a little while.

1819
01:31:47,720 --> 01:31:50,439
You gotta feel. You got to feel your feeling, your feeling. Yeah,

1820
01:31:50,439 --> 01:31:52,760
you gotta feel your feelings. Don't suppress that shit because

1821
01:31:53,079 --> 01:31:56,199
that doesn't go anywhere good either. But uh yeah, man,

1822
01:31:56,279 --> 01:31:58,960
I it's yeah, I think that's a good tactic. Get out,

1823
01:31:59,359 --> 01:32:01,159
just let it feel it for a minute. Then you

1824
01:32:01,199 --> 01:32:04,000
got to go out and fall in love with the world.

1825
01:32:04,039 --> 01:32:08,479
Speaker 2: Again exactly kind of. I mean, before we started recording,

1826
01:32:08,520 --> 01:32:12,239
I was telling you I'm going on this journey of

1827
01:32:12,359 --> 01:32:18,720
like fibercrafting from wild plants netals all around the world,

1828
01:32:18,800 --> 01:32:21,039
All sorts of different species of metals have a really

1829
01:32:21,079 --> 01:32:24,960
long history of being used for their really strong and

1830
01:32:25,039 --> 01:32:28,640
like kind of silky bast fibers. And we have wood

1831
01:32:28,720 --> 01:32:33,960
netals what is it lappertea cana dency that are native

1832
01:32:34,000 --> 01:32:39,920
here and their fibers are beautiful. And I love clothes self.

1833
01:32:40,159 --> 01:32:42,960
You know, admittedly, I'm not going to say that I

1834
01:32:42,960 --> 01:32:45,960
I am not a fool for a good article of

1835
01:32:46,000 --> 01:32:48,920
clothing on the internet, because you can go to my

1836
01:32:49,000 --> 01:32:51,520
page and see for yourself.

1837
01:32:52,239 --> 01:32:53,640
Speaker 1: She's got a night profession.

1838
01:32:54,640 --> 01:32:58,159
Speaker 2: I just I love a good dress. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

1839
01:32:58,239 --> 01:33:00,560
It's a fun way to express myself. It's one vice

1840
01:33:00,640 --> 01:33:04,680
I've left myself in this world. And but I also

1841
01:33:04,840 --> 01:33:10,560
know how much, especially fast fashion is imperiling so many

1842
01:33:10,600 --> 01:33:13,760
parts of this planet. And for me, that journey has

1843
01:33:13,800 --> 01:33:16,359
looked like, oh, a couple of years, I started like

1844
01:33:16,560 --> 01:33:21,680
very deliberately phasing out like polyester out of my wardrobe.

1845
01:33:21,720 --> 01:33:25,159
And thankfully, I'm very lucky and privileged to be in

1846
01:33:25,199 --> 01:33:28,319
a position where I can be preferential and be like,

1847
01:33:28,760 --> 01:33:32,760
now I'm trying to play the natural fibers game, trying

1848
01:33:32,800 --> 01:33:36,760
to not be putting microplastics into this into the world

1849
01:33:36,800 --> 01:33:40,439
every single time I wash my clothes, which is like

1850
01:33:40,680 --> 01:33:43,600
crazy to think about that. We're all just doing and

1851
01:33:43,600 --> 01:33:48,199
it's real normal. And but now I'm like, Okay, I

1852
01:33:48,359 --> 01:33:53,119
really want to see how much effort it takes for

1853
01:33:53,279 --> 01:34:00,399
a person to just be fully responsible for a soul garment.

1854
01:34:00,520 --> 01:34:03,239
It's probably gonna be like a scarf. I'm gonna be

1855
01:34:03,319 --> 01:34:05,680
real honest with everybody right now. I'm not gonna be

1856
01:34:05,720 --> 01:34:09,199
like that cool artist Eve who is going and trying

1857
01:34:09,239 --> 01:34:12,039
to grow an entire dress out of flax as she

1858
01:34:12,119 --> 01:34:13,479
grew in her front yard right now.

1859
01:34:13,560 --> 01:34:14,359
Speaker 1: Damn, where was that?

1860
01:34:15,319 --> 01:34:18,119
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. She lives in Vermont and she's trying

1861
01:34:18,119 --> 01:34:20,760
to go from putting the seeds in the ground to

1862
01:34:20,800 --> 01:34:23,760
a dress in fifty two weeks. She does weekly updates

1863
01:34:23,800 --> 01:34:24,720
and it is like my.

1864
01:34:24,840 --> 01:34:30,239
Speaker 1: Super Bowl man, And that's linen. That's COMFX is comfortable

1865
01:34:30,239 --> 01:34:33,199
flax and hamper like the most comfortable fibers.

1866
01:34:33,199 --> 01:34:35,560
Speaker 2: Oh, it's amazing. It gets I mean, with all of

1867
01:34:35,600 --> 01:34:39,199
our plant fibers. They get softer the longer that you

1868
01:34:39,279 --> 01:34:42,319
wear them, the longer that they get to have a

1869
01:34:42,359 --> 01:34:45,560
life with you, the better they become as a garment.

1870
01:34:46,159 --> 01:34:51,159
It's crazy that that's like not what everyone is preferential towards.

1871
01:34:51,319 --> 01:34:54,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, really the polyester thing is yeah, man, it's

1872
01:34:54,880 --> 01:34:55,600
that's it.

1873
01:34:56,000 --> 01:34:58,800
Speaker 2: I thought I was just a sweaty girl. I thought

1874
01:34:58,840 --> 01:35:03,640
I was just a sweaty Also.

1875
01:35:02,560 --> 01:35:04,600
Speaker 1: Speaking of dryer lind traps though, you remember that that

1876
01:35:04,720 --> 01:35:06,800
you could sometimes remember as a kid, you could take

1877
01:35:06,840 --> 01:35:08,279
some of that and light it on fire and it

1878
01:35:08,279 --> 01:35:13,439
will go up, like that's all the polyester. That's like, man,

1879
01:35:13,479 --> 01:35:14,239
it's fine.

1880
01:35:15,279 --> 01:35:17,600
Speaker 2: And Scouts like I was a girl Scout and they

1881
01:35:17,600 --> 01:35:19,880
were telling us to use that stuff was fire starter

1882
01:35:20,079 --> 01:35:23,680
and I'm just like, oh my god, damn at least

1883
01:35:23,840 --> 01:35:26,159
so much so much microplastic.

1884
01:35:27,800 --> 01:35:30,439
Speaker 1: Wait, so how do you make fibers out of it?

1885
01:35:30,479 --> 01:35:32,720
So what is the process? Because I'm actually interested in that.

1886
01:35:32,800 --> 01:35:36,840
It's a gave fiber, I mean banana fiber. You know,

1887
01:35:36,880 --> 01:35:38,840
if you ever get a chance and you and you're

1888
01:35:38,840 --> 01:35:41,279
in Chicago, go to the Field Museum and they got

1889
01:35:41,319 --> 01:35:45,279
a whole fucking room of plant fibers, Like in glass

1890
01:35:45,319 --> 01:35:48,479
cases with different plant families. Oh my god. And they

1891
01:35:48,479 --> 01:35:51,079
got the Well Witchy a diorama in there too, like

1892
01:35:51,159 --> 01:35:55,359
a diorama for well Witchy. You know that that weirdest.

1893
01:35:55,000 --> 01:35:57,680
Speaker 2: Chicago was way too close of a drive to me do.

1894
01:35:59,840 --> 01:36:02,680
Speaker 1: It. And I worry because it's just it's called like

1895
01:36:02,720 --> 01:36:05,279
the Hall of Botany. I worry that that, and it's

1896
01:36:05,319 --> 01:36:07,039
like in the corner of the museum. I worry they're

1897
01:36:07,039 --> 01:36:08,760
gonna like get try to get rid of it someday

1898
01:36:08,800 --> 01:36:11,439
because it's it's not enough of a draw or you

1899
01:36:11,479 --> 01:36:13,960
never know. All it takes is one administrator or someone

1900
01:36:14,000 --> 01:36:16,680
an administrative position to change.

1901
01:36:16,439 --> 01:36:18,239
Speaker 2: The term something's not important.

1902
01:36:18,600 --> 01:36:22,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, they as much as I love animatronic dinosaurs, you know,

1903
01:36:22,439 --> 01:36:25,640
maybe it's not worth shuttering the Hall of Botany for

1904
01:36:25,880 --> 01:36:29,000
you know, but another one. Yeah, but it's not. It's

1905
01:36:29,039 --> 01:36:31,439
so it's such a cool fucking exhibit, man, they've got

1906
01:36:31,520 --> 01:36:33,600
I mean, it's really and they've got great models of

1907
01:36:33,640 --> 01:36:36,640
plants in there too. It's it's really fucking cool.

1908
01:36:36,960 --> 01:36:42,279
Speaker 2: I gotta go with the that's so cool. I've been

1909
01:36:42,319 --> 01:36:46,600
going now trying to find just a compendium of you know,

1910
01:36:46,680 --> 01:36:49,319
as complete a list of all of the different fiber

1911
01:36:49,399 --> 01:36:53,279
plants that were used by you know, as many different

1912
01:36:53,319 --> 01:36:57,079
groups across North America as I can find. But unfortunately,

1913
01:36:57,199 --> 01:37:02,439
because fibers are so delicate, a lot of them don't

1914
01:37:02,479 --> 01:37:06,159
last the test of time. And because fibers and clothing

1915
01:37:06,199 --> 01:37:09,279
have been considered like women's work for so much of

1916
01:37:09,359 --> 01:37:13,359
human history for a long time, that's not even like

1917
01:37:13,399 --> 01:37:16,840
a thing historians were paying attention to when they were

1918
01:37:16,880 --> 01:37:23,279
trying to gather information from, you know, who is you know,

1919
01:37:23,399 --> 01:37:26,479
the people who are left of all of the different

1920
01:37:26,520 --> 01:37:30,800
indigenous tribes and bands across the Americas. And so it's

1921
01:37:30,920 --> 01:37:34,520
hard to find that information. I mean, it's even hard

1922
01:37:34,520 --> 01:37:38,039
to find that information for like Western Europe.

1923
01:37:38,359 --> 01:37:41,159
Speaker 1: It's such fascinating stuff. Yeah, I was looking up because

1924
01:37:41,199 --> 01:37:43,199
I was curious. I bought some like bracelet at a

1925
01:37:43,239 --> 01:37:45,800
market for like two bucks in the in the Amazon

1926
01:37:45,840 --> 01:37:49,079
and Ecuador, and I was gonna, I just I don't know.

1927
01:37:49,079 --> 01:37:50,479
It was like two bucks, and it was it was

1928
01:37:50,520 --> 01:37:53,159
all native plants. It was like the the bactress, the

1929
01:37:53,239 --> 01:37:57,199
native palm was the fiber. And then there's legume seeds

1930
01:37:57,199 --> 01:37:58,760
in there. One of that, you know, some of the

1931
01:37:58,880 --> 01:38:01,840
legumes produced those red seeds. They look like coral beans.

1932
01:38:01,960 --> 01:38:05,039
They're really toxic. Yeah, but they've they were using those as.

1933
01:38:05,119 --> 01:38:06,560
Speaker 2: They made sick jewelry.

1934
01:38:06,640 --> 01:38:08,439
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I was like, this is fucking beautiful. I

1935
01:38:08,439 --> 01:38:10,920
don't even really wear it. Where's any jewelry? Oh, but

1936
01:38:10,960 --> 01:38:12,520
this is just the cool bracelet. I'm just gonna get

1937
01:38:12,520 --> 01:38:14,640
it just to hang. And and then that got me

1938
01:38:14,680 --> 01:38:16,439
into thinking about, like, man, how do they make these

1939
01:38:16,479 --> 01:38:18,960
fibers because this is not this is like in a remotere.

1940
01:38:19,199 --> 01:38:21,119
This is not They're not ordering shit out of a

1941
01:38:21,159 --> 01:38:24,039
shipping container from China to make this stuff. This is

1942
01:38:24,600 --> 01:38:27,560
locally produced. And so I was looking up like the

1943
01:38:27,600 --> 01:38:32,199
twining basically spinning individual fibers together and then trying to

1944
01:38:32,199 --> 01:38:34,039
get them. It's a you know, it's a process. You

1945
01:38:34,079 --> 01:38:37,199
spin the fibers with your hands individually clockwise, then you

1946
01:38:37,239 --> 01:38:39,600
wrap them around each other counterclockwise and let go and

1947
01:38:39,640 --> 01:38:42,800
they anyway. But it was fascting stuff. But I wanted

1948
01:38:42,800 --> 01:38:45,439
to ask you though, like with the wood nettles, how

1949
01:38:45,479 --> 01:38:47,319
do you how do you put it together? Like how

1950
01:38:47,359 --> 01:38:48,720
are you? How are you? How's it going?

1951
01:38:49,720 --> 01:38:52,760
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, well I've been at it for a

1952
01:38:52,800 --> 01:38:57,239
couple of weeks now, everyone except for people who specifically

1953
01:38:57,279 --> 01:39:01,039
work in fibercraft has been confused. In my Instagram stories,

1954
01:39:01,359 --> 01:39:05,119
one person's like, are you making paper question mark? Are

1955
01:39:05,159 --> 01:39:10,800
you getting fiber to eat? Question Mark? And so what

1956
01:39:10,960 --> 01:39:15,439
I what I've been doing is gathering chunky wood netal

1957
01:39:15,479 --> 01:39:19,520
stems as they are sinessing after they've already dropped their seeds.

1958
01:39:20,039 --> 01:39:23,359
I'll go out with one gloved hand, one not gloved hand.

1959
01:39:23,960 --> 01:39:26,439
I'll cut them off at the base so I don't

1960
01:39:26,479 --> 01:39:31,079
disrupt their root system. Use my gloved hand to kind of,

1961
01:39:31,239 --> 01:39:33,520
you know, go up the stem to break all of

1962
01:39:33,560 --> 01:39:39,239
the try cones, because I'm not trying to be more

1963
01:39:39,279 --> 01:39:41,479
in pain than I already am from the handful of

1964
01:39:41,520 --> 01:39:45,399
splinters that I get from this process. And in my opinion,

1965
01:39:45,560 --> 01:39:50,439
I think wood metal stings hurt way worse than stinging netalstad.

1966
01:39:50,640 --> 01:39:53,600
Speaker 1: To which they are related. Yeah. Same family, yes.

1967
01:39:53,680 --> 01:39:58,600
Speaker 2: Yes, same family. We love all of our sweet stinging

1968
01:39:59,039 --> 01:40:05,039
tamat friends, and I have been processing them green. So

1969
01:40:05,359 --> 01:40:09,199
I will take them home. I will hit them with

1970
01:40:09,279 --> 01:40:12,840
a huge mallet going up the stem to split them,

1971
01:40:13,840 --> 01:40:16,439
peel the bark off of them, and the bark will

1972
01:40:16,479 --> 01:40:19,720
contain all of those fibers. I will hang up the

1973
01:40:19,760 --> 01:40:22,640
bark strips to dry for at least twenty four hours.

1974
01:40:23,159 --> 01:40:28,359
Then I will there's a process called scutching where you

1975
01:40:28,720 --> 01:40:33,359
use a butter knife. Back in the day with flax,

1976
01:40:33,399 --> 01:40:37,279
they used to use these sick, giant wooden swords and

1977
01:40:37,479 --> 01:40:41,880
run it down the bark fibers to dislodge all of

1978
01:40:41,920 --> 01:40:46,079
the kind of dried pecked in all of the barkie bits,

1979
01:40:46,119 --> 01:40:50,199
to just expose these really beautiful silky fibers. And then

1980
01:40:50,239 --> 01:40:52,840
I'll brush them a couple of times, separate the long

1981
01:40:52,880 --> 01:40:56,520
fibers from the short fibers. And then I'm also learning

1982
01:40:56,520 --> 01:41:00,319
how to spin on a spindle, a drop spindle, so

1983
01:41:00,479 --> 01:41:04,119
I can hopefully make a good amount of thread and

1984
01:41:04,159 --> 01:41:07,680
then weave it into a small garment, hopefully before the

1985
01:41:07,680 --> 01:41:08,399
winter is over.

1986
01:41:08,520 --> 01:41:11,359
Speaker 1: And how did you it's how did you learn this?

1987
01:41:12,439 --> 01:41:17,399
Speaker 2: Good? Well, I had a grammy that used to spin

1988
01:41:17,920 --> 01:41:21,000
my uh put. My paternal grandmother used to spend a

1989
01:41:21,000 --> 01:41:23,079
little bit when I was little, and I remember being

1990
01:41:23,359 --> 01:41:28,479
entranced by that work. And when I got older, when

1991
01:41:28,560 --> 01:41:30,119
I was in like Scouts, and when I was a

1992
01:41:30,119 --> 01:41:35,000
camp counselor, I knew about using nettles for just making

1993
01:41:35,199 --> 01:41:38,079
rough cordage nothing you'd want to wear against your body,

1994
01:41:38,119 --> 01:41:41,359
but you know, still taking advantage of those fibers. So

1995
01:41:41,439 --> 01:41:43,600
I have a little bit of knowledge going into it.

1996
01:41:43,760 --> 01:41:49,520
But I have been pouring through fiber history books. I

1997
01:41:50,119 --> 01:41:55,840
just read someone's dissertation on flax and metal usage in

1998
01:41:56,039 --> 01:42:02,840
northern Europe and in Northern Africa. I have been watching

1999
01:42:03,039 --> 01:42:10,159
a lot of very quiet YouTube video and then just

2000
01:42:10,239 --> 01:42:13,279
going and getting my hands thirty and trying things and

2001
01:42:13,319 --> 01:42:17,399
seeing what works and what doesn't. I've been taking notes of,

2002
01:42:17,439 --> 01:42:22,399
you know, what processes seem to yield longer fibers versus

2003
01:42:22,399 --> 01:42:26,880
shorter ones, softer fibers versus coarser ones, hoping that I

2004
01:42:26,920 --> 01:42:31,000
can land on a solid process. So hopefully next season,

2005
01:42:31,800 --> 01:42:35,800
as the nettles are starting to siness, I can gather

2006
01:42:36,319 --> 01:42:40,159
even more, have a solid system put together, and oh no,

2007
01:42:40,560 --> 01:42:45,960
maybeest or something. I just I want that physical, visceral

2008
01:42:46,239 --> 01:42:50,600
reminder of how much time and energy goes into a garment,

2009
01:42:51,199 --> 01:42:54,560
because regardless of whether I'm the one who's doing it

2010
01:42:54,680 --> 01:42:59,119
or not, it's still happening. Yeah, there is a degree

2011
01:42:59,199 --> 01:43:04,760
of new that is needed for processing fibers that machines

2012
01:43:05,199 --> 01:43:10,279
cannot do yet fully. So garments are always going to

2013
01:43:10,359 --> 01:43:16,079
be a very human, very hands on process. Whether that

2014
01:43:16,319 --> 01:43:20,720
is someone working in you know, a union shop in

2015
01:43:21,079 --> 01:43:27,039
southern California, or that's someone working in a sweatshop in Bangladesh.

2016
01:43:27,079 --> 01:43:31,479
Like someone is responsible for the garment that you are

2017
01:43:31,479 --> 01:43:36,199
wearing right now, and I just want to be able

2018
01:43:36,199 --> 01:43:39,960
to step into those shoes and to hopefully be responsible

2019
01:43:40,000 --> 01:43:43,000
for a couple more of the garments that I own.

2020
01:43:43,199 --> 01:43:46,640
I've always loved sewing, but fast and sense is real weird.

2021
01:43:46,760 --> 01:43:49,079
So I've grown up making a lot of my clothes

2022
01:43:49,119 --> 01:43:53,520
since I was a kid, and I this just feels

2023
01:43:53,600 --> 01:43:59,840
like the next logical step for a very strange and

2024
01:44:00,079 --> 01:44:01,039
illogical woman.

2025
01:44:01,319 --> 01:44:03,119
Speaker 1: What a way, What a way to bond with the

2026
01:44:03,119 --> 01:44:08,000
plant though too. I mean, man, that's that's you know, making.

2027
01:44:07,960 --> 01:44:11,199
Speaker 2: Trying to notice nuances in this plant that I've known

2028
01:44:11,520 --> 01:44:14,640
for decades now that I have never noticed. I mean,

2029
01:44:14,680 --> 01:44:16,720
making having to be this hands on.

2030
01:44:17,039 --> 01:44:19,960
Speaker 1: Making fiber is a really essential tool too, you know,

2031
01:44:20,199 --> 01:44:23,840
if like just making rope or anything like that. I've

2032
01:44:24,039 --> 01:44:27,760
you know, I saw someone do that with a gave once, and.

2033
01:44:27,760 --> 01:44:31,199
Speaker 2: So agave fibers are so strong, agave and yet the

2034
01:44:31,279 --> 01:44:33,359
fibers are so cool.

2035
01:44:33,760 --> 01:44:35,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm still kind of like, I'm still I

2036
01:44:36,359 --> 01:44:38,000
don't understand. That's the thing I want to ask you.

2037
01:44:38,000 --> 01:44:40,760
I guess I too. Is you got like La Portia Cana?

2038
01:44:40,800 --> 01:44:43,039
That is? How tall? Is it? Get? Like three four feet?

2039
01:44:43,159 --> 01:44:43,640
Five feet?

2040
01:44:43,840 --> 01:44:46,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, the tallest ones I've been finding have been maxing out.

2041
01:44:46,880 --> 01:44:49,439
I've found a couple that are like five feet tall,

2042
01:44:49,479 --> 01:44:52,000
but they usually max out between three and four And.

2043
01:44:51,920 --> 01:44:53,359
Speaker 1: So you've you've you got to get them at the

2044
01:44:53,399 --> 01:44:55,439
right time of year when it's still soft, right, and

2045
01:44:55,479 --> 01:44:58,359
then how do you get the fibers together to make

2046
01:44:58,399 --> 01:45:01,000
a longer fiber from if it's only in three to

2047
01:45:01,079 --> 01:45:02,920
five foot sections.

2048
01:45:03,000 --> 01:45:07,720
Speaker 2: So that is where spinning it comes into play, because

2049
01:45:07,880 --> 01:45:11,239
cotton is, you know, one of the most widely used

2050
01:45:11,279 --> 01:45:15,640
fibers on the planet, and cotton it's what is it?

2051
01:45:15,640 --> 01:45:19,359
It's ply length like length of each fiber is usually

2052
01:45:19,359 --> 01:45:22,920
only a couple of inches, and so it's the speed

2053
01:45:23,079 --> 01:45:27,359
at which you are spinning and joining those fibers together.

2054
01:45:28,039 --> 01:45:33,000
You're essentially trying to space out a couple fibers to

2055
01:45:33,079 --> 01:45:35,119
twist up at a time, and you don't want them

2056
01:45:35,119 --> 01:45:38,079
to be perfectly lined up with each other. You want

2057
01:45:38,079 --> 01:45:40,840
them to be getting kind of tangled and for you

2058
01:45:40,880 --> 01:45:47,239
to be making this continual pull of like fibers that are,

2059
01:45:47,800 --> 01:45:49,760
you know, ones a little bit above this one, this

2060
01:45:49,800 --> 01:45:51,960
one's a little bit below that one. To try to

2061
01:45:52,000 --> 01:45:55,359
get an even thread with all of them, you're essentially

2062
01:45:55,439 --> 01:45:59,159
spinning them to get them to tangle up with one another. Yeah,

2063
01:46:01,920 --> 01:46:04,960
it's so neat and like. The spinning wheel is also

2064
01:46:05,119 --> 01:46:08,800
just like a cool and crazy invention because plant fibers

2065
01:46:09,319 --> 01:46:11,399
don't want to tangle up with each other as much

2066
01:46:11,439 --> 01:46:15,520
as wool. Wool has tiny little microscopic like there they

2067
01:46:15,560 --> 01:46:18,760
look like little zigzags when you zoom in on them,

2068
01:46:18,920 --> 01:46:22,319
whereas plant fibers are relatively smooth and straight, so you

2069
01:46:22,399 --> 01:46:26,399
need a really fast spin speed to make a good, strong,

2070
01:46:26,520 --> 01:46:27,560
consistent fiber.

2071
01:46:27,600 --> 01:46:29,479
Speaker 1: I see what I see it is now Okay, I

2072
01:46:29,479 --> 01:46:31,279
looked up spinning wheel for fibers.

2073
01:46:31,359 --> 01:46:32,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, and now I got you.

2074
01:46:33,159 --> 01:46:35,560
Speaker 1: Now I get Fuck that's cool, man. I tried to

2075
01:46:35,600 --> 01:46:39,159
take there's feral hemp all over like Western Iowa, Nebraska,

2076
01:46:39,479 --> 01:46:42,239
and I tried to take some. I just like wadded

2077
01:46:42,319 --> 01:46:44,119
it up into a ball. It's like still on the

2078
01:46:44,119 --> 01:46:47,760
floor of my truck somewhere. But I was so curious.

2079
01:46:46,960 --> 01:46:50,239
Speaker 2: Probably wet that and still like roll it between your

2080
01:46:50,279 --> 01:46:52,039
hands a couple of times to break up.

2081
01:46:52,239 --> 01:46:55,279
Speaker 1: Oh, get away, okay, get fibers out of them, get

2082
01:46:55,319 --> 01:46:57,800
it wet to make it more pliable. Yeah, I don't know,

2083
01:46:58,119 --> 01:47:00,600
fucking hemp isn't more common because it's I bought a

2084
01:47:00,640 --> 01:47:05,079
hemp shirt was at like a Goodwill in Vancouver and

2085
01:47:05,159 --> 01:47:07,760
it was the most comfortable thing. It breathed so well.

2086
01:47:07,800 --> 01:47:10,199
It was way more comfortable than cotton. But you can't

2087
01:47:10,239 --> 01:47:13,039
find hemp anywhere. It's like sixty bucks for a T shirt.

2088
01:47:13,039 --> 01:47:13,680
It's crazy.

2089
01:47:13,920 --> 01:47:17,000
Speaker 2: Oh god, I know. And it's wild because it is

2090
01:47:17,039 --> 01:47:20,079
a that is a pretty like set it and forget it.

2091
01:47:20,119 --> 01:47:22,159
As far as non native plants.

2092
01:47:22,039 --> 01:47:24,720
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's feral, man, It's everywhere. Over in the

2093
01:47:24,800 --> 01:47:28,319
over Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa. We were on the border of

2094
01:47:28,439 --> 01:47:31,279
we were going to this like Bison Preserve on the

2095
01:47:31,720 --> 01:47:35,560
Less Hills in a broken kettle. That was an amb

2096
01:47:35,560 --> 01:47:37,399
of it. In western Iowa right on the South Dakota

2097
01:47:37,439 --> 01:47:39,600
border on the river, got a fucking beautiful area, man.

2098
01:47:40,319 --> 01:47:43,079
And yeah, there was just like feral hemp everywhere. And

2099
01:47:43,159 --> 01:47:45,720
I was like, why is this not more common? Why

2100
01:47:45,720 --> 01:47:48,319
are there like hemp fiber farms. Wish there were.

2101
01:47:48,399 --> 01:47:52,439
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I'm starting to see as I'm getting more

2102
01:47:52,439 --> 01:47:56,960
into fibercraft, a lot of these local regional fiber sheds

2103
01:47:57,399 --> 01:48:00,520
that are encouraging people to find out what fiber plants

2104
01:48:00,840 --> 01:48:04,640
both are native and feral in their areas and encouraging

2105
01:48:04,720 --> 01:48:07,239
them to work with them more.

2106
01:48:07,439 --> 01:48:11,960
Speaker 2: You know, it's fewer things are better, you know, foot

2107
01:48:12,000 --> 01:48:14,319
carbon footprint wise, as much as you know the carbon

2108
01:48:14,319 --> 01:48:19,279
footprint system is not perfect. Then sourcing you know, food

2109
01:48:19,399 --> 01:48:21,960
or clothing from the place that you're living in.

2110
01:48:22,600 --> 01:48:25,079
Speaker 1: But also just learning about I mean, like learning to

2111
01:48:25,119 --> 01:48:27,159
connect with the place that you're living in too. Like, Yo,

2112
01:48:27,279 --> 01:48:30,079
this came from the land around my house, like, and

2113
01:48:30,159 --> 01:48:33,279
I know the species I was there. It's a it's

2114
01:48:33,319 --> 01:48:36,279
got to feel fulfilling as hell. What are you gonna

2115
01:48:36,319 --> 01:48:39,560
do a video on like spinning yet? Yeah, that would

2116
01:48:39,560 --> 01:48:40,039
be really cool.

2117
01:48:40,159 --> 01:48:44,079
Speaker 2: I'm working. I'm I'm gonna do, like I'm accounting to

2118
01:48:44,119 --> 01:48:50,039
do a full YouTube video, which is very hard, very

2119
01:48:50,079 --> 01:48:53,000
hard for me. Every time I see how quickly you

2120
01:48:53,039 --> 01:48:56,159
are crank about videos, I'm just like that is insane.

2121
01:48:56,359 --> 01:48:59,239
But last time I did a horizontal YouTube video, it

2122
01:48:59,279 --> 01:49:01,800
was only five minutes long. And it took me two

2123
01:49:01,840 --> 01:49:03,560
weeks to make le to edit.

2124
01:49:03,720 --> 01:49:06,399
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just edited on my phone. I use an

2125
01:49:06,399 --> 01:49:08,880
app called inshot. That's like, yeah, I paid twenty bucks

2126
01:49:08,880 --> 01:49:11,000
once and I'm feeling in a lifetime. It's fucking great.

2127
01:49:11,039 --> 01:49:13,079
It's so easy. But I hate editing.

2128
01:49:13,079 --> 01:49:13,199
Speaker 2: Man.

2129
01:49:13,279 --> 01:49:16,319
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've still got videos from Chile and Florida and

2130
01:49:16,399 --> 01:49:19,319
all this shit to edit. I'm just like at I

2131
01:49:19,359 --> 01:49:21,439
can't sit still. I got too much going on. But

2132
01:49:21,520 --> 01:49:24,239
the fiber I had this. I had this guy. The

2133
01:49:24,319 --> 01:49:27,359
last podcast I did was with this guy, Cyrus Harp,

2134
01:49:27,359 --> 01:49:31,159
who's like a paleo forager. And you know, I'm not

2135
01:49:31,239 --> 01:49:33,720
into a lot of like I'm not into like forging

2136
01:49:33,720 --> 01:49:35,680
a lot. I'm always interested in at the botany, but

2137
01:49:35,720 --> 01:49:38,840
for me, I just you know, it's not not necessarily

2138
01:49:38,840 --> 01:49:42,319
my thing. But this guy's stuff is all through the

2139
01:49:42,359 --> 01:49:46,399
context of like Native American ethnobotany and recreating how things

2140
01:49:46,399 --> 01:49:49,439
were made and which is fucking fascinating. And he was

2141
01:49:49,560 --> 01:49:51,960
so yeah, and he was using he was talking about

2142
01:49:52,039 --> 01:49:56,159
using Yuka fibers and all these other fibers for making

2143
01:49:56,159 --> 01:49:58,880
his own for like making a bow or just making rope.

2144
01:49:58,920 --> 01:50:01,720
It was really fascinating stuff. Yeah, so it's kind of cool.

2145
01:50:01,720 --> 01:50:05,000
I was, you know, just talking about this last week,

2146
01:50:05,439 --> 01:50:08,479
but I think that, man, it is really interesting. It is.

2147
01:50:08,600 --> 01:50:10,720
It is super interesting to be able to see a

2148
01:50:10,760 --> 01:50:14,039
plant and know what it can be used for. It's

2149
01:50:14,039 --> 01:50:16,359
not just like oh can I eat it? Or is

2150
01:50:16,359 --> 01:50:18,720
it medicinal? But like, yo, you can make stuff out

2151
01:50:18,760 --> 01:50:21,359
of this, Like you can make clothing out of this.

2152
01:50:21,359 --> 01:50:24,319
This is a great you know again, it's just that

2153
01:50:24,399 --> 01:50:26,880
more that connecting with the living world around you. It's

2154
01:50:26,920 --> 01:50:28,479
fucking amazing, man.

2155
01:50:29,439 --> 01:50:31,279
Speaker 2: And all of the different ways that you can do it.

2156
01:50:31,319 --> 01:50:34,199
I just think, you know, the more connected you get

2157
01:50:34,199 --> 01:50:39,279
to feel. Also is Cyrus's page Paleo Foraging, because that

2158
01:50:39,479 --> 01:50:41,560
is one of the pages that I've been looking at

2159
01:50:41,920 --> 01:50:44,680
for like fibercraft inspiration.

2160
01:50:45,079 --> 01:50:45,319
Speaker 1: Yeah.

2161
01:50:45,479 --> 01:50:47,720
Speaker 2: The work that he's doing is so cool.

2162
01:50:48,119 --> 01:50:51,359
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, he's really cool guy, like really like humble,

2163
01:50:51,720 --> 01:50:54,399
you know, down to earth and just super knowledgeable, but

2164
01:50:54,479 --> 01:50:57,039
also like being like, yo, this isn't I didn't just

2165
01:50:57,119 --> 01:50:59,279
come up with this, Like other people were doing this

2166
01:50:59,319 --> 01:51:02,720
for thousands of year doing this work, and like here's

2167
01:51:02,760 --> 01:51:05,359
respect to them. Yeah, like here's some respect to them,

2168
01:51:05,439 --> 01:51:10,319
to the ogs, you know, and and uh, it's fascinating because.

2169
01:51:10,079 --> 01:51:13,199
Speaker 2: I mean that's another reason why I like working with

2170
01:51:13,279 --> 01:51:18,880
the wood metals is cool. But also depressing, is I mean,

2171
01:51:19,119 --> 01:51:23,520
so much of the culture of the Eastern woodlands was

2172
01:51:23,600 --> 01:51:30,359
just absolutely decimated during colonialism. Like it's you know, it's

2173
01:51:30,439 --> 01:51:32,359
a joke, but it's not a joke that it's like

2174
01:51:32,399 --> 01:51:34,880
it took them until they reached the Mississippi River to

2175
01:51:34,920 --> 01:51:41,960
be like, oh they're people. Yeah, yeah, danger that's on us.

2176
01:51:42,039 --> 01:51:45,359
Speaker 1: And it happened. It happened before. I mean so much

2177
01:51:45,960 --> 01:51:48,159
earlier in the history of this country than like the

2178
01:51:48,199 --> 01:51:51,640
tribes out west, you know, because they landed on the east,

2179
01:51:51,640 --> 01:51:54,439
the Europeans land on the east first, and just got

2180
01:51:54,560 --> 01:51:55,159
right to work.

2181
01:51:55,399 --> 01:51:57,600
Speaker 2: You know, there's not right to work, and so there's

2182
01:51:57,640 --> 01:52:03,640
so there are so many gaps in the ethno botanical

2183
01:52:03,800 --> 01:52:08,720
history and so many patches of the eastern side of

2184
01:52:08,760 --> 01:52:11,760
the country. And so it's one of those things where

2185
01:52:11,760 --> 01:52:15,399
it's like, well, we know that wood metals were being

2186
01:52:15,720 --> 01:52:20,359
used for fiber and for cordage, but we don't really

2187
01:52:20,760 --> 01:52:24,319
have a lot of great examples, like extant examples to

2188
01:52:24,359 --> 01:52:26,800
be able to point to that could also give you

2189
01:52:27,520 --> 01:52:32,239
a lot of visual information about how it was spun

2190
01:52:32,439 --> 01:52:35,840
if it was being spun with other fibers, like what

2191
01:52:35,920 --> 01:52:38,680
kind of applied twists? So are we talking about with

2192
01:52:38,800 --> 01:52:45,239
these fibers. It's it's pretty heartbreaking, and part of me

2193
01:52:46,000 --> 01:52:50,880
is always like so happy and a little envious that

2194
01:52:51,039 --> 01:52:53,600
the further out west you go, the more of that

2195
01:52:53,680 --> 01:52:57,880
information has managed to stay intact. Of course, in a

2196
01:52:58,560 --> 01:53:01,600
good and perfect and just world, all of that information

2197
01:53:01,760 --> 01:53:03,840
for everybody you could still right intact.

2198
01:53:04,119 --> 01:53:07,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the information I mean about the ethyl

2199
01:53:07,000 --> 01:53:10,520
botanical uses, but also just how to manage the land man, like, yes,

2200
01:53:11,079 --> 01:53:14,039
like the fire suppression. That was the dumbest shit that

2201
01:53:14,039 --> 01:53:18,520
these the arrival settlers did, like just suppressing fire, like

2202
01:53:18,680 --> 01:53:21,319
you know, you've got sixty inches of rain a year

2203
01:53:21,399 --> 01:53:24,199
man in most the East coast, like stuff grows so

2204
01:53:24,479 --> 01:53:26,760
fast and you're just so fast. Yeah, and then you

2205
01:53:26,840 --> 01:53:29,039
add an invasive species too, and you get the sheep,

2206
01:53:29,159 --> 01:53:30,880
you get what I call the shitty woods. It's just

2207
01:53:31,159 --> 01:53:35,039
smothered woods. And then there's ticks everywhere because you're everywhere,

2208
01:53:35,199 --> 01:53:37,560
you're not burning, and the predators are all gone, and

2209
01:53:37,600 --> 01:53:40,720
there's deer. There's too many deer, and so there's yeah,

2210
01:53:40,760 --> 01:53:43,039
there's ticks there ticks a butt. I mean, that's why

2211
01:53:43,159 --> 01:53:46,079
you know there's all these like forced to be vegan

2212
01:53:46,720 --> 01:53:50,560
restaurants I read about in northeastern Massachusetts, like in Cape

2213
01:53:50,600 --> 01:53:52,399
Cox because everybody has alpha goal.

2214
01:53:52,520 --> 01:53:55,560
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's where my family, That's where my family

2215
01:53:55,640 --> 01:53:58,640
is from, and Yew and Martha's Vineyard. Now you will

2216
01:53:58,680 --> 01:54:01,359
go to restaurants, we'll see, you know, the little like

2217
01:54:01,520 --> 01:54:04,680
V with a leaf for vegetarian or vegan, but you'll

2218
01:54:04,680 --> 01:54:08,479
also see a little tick logo for alpha gol because

2219
01:54:09,159 --> 01:54:16,760
so wide spread. Yeah, I mean, just so people will

2220
01:54:16,800 --> 01:54:19,239
know because not. I mean, there are a lot of

2221
01:54:19,439 --> 01:54:22,319
like sneaky things that alpha gl will also make you

2222
01:54:22,359 --> 01:54:28,359
have a reaction to some seaweed proteins and polysaccharides.

2223
01:54:27,720 --> 01:54:34,640
Speaker 7: Hell, and so it's it's so crazy, and it's like

2224
01:54:34,720 --> 01:54:38,720
the answer, the answer is right there, and it is

2225
01:54:39,520 --> 01:54:40,560
fire based.

2226
01:54:40,800 --> 01:54:42,199
Speaker 2: Hands on land Man.

2227
01:54:43,159 --> 01:54:46,319
Speaker 1: Does anybody talk about because I've like, that's actually part

2228
01:54:46,319 --> 01:54:48,520
of the reason I've avoided the northeast except for the cities.

2229
01:54:48,840 --> 01:54:51,439
Does anybody talk about that up there? Like, yo, maybe

2230
01:54:51,439 --> 01:54:53,680
we need to start burning again like that.

2231
01:54:53,760 --> 01:54:58,279
Speaker 2: I mean, it's definitely a conversation that happens within like

2232
01:54:58,560 --> 01:55:02,279
naturalist circles. But you know, one of the things that

2233
01:55:02,800 --> 01:55:09,199
is sometimes a blessing and sometimes a curse about states

2234
01:55:09,279 --> 01:55:16,039
like Massachusetts is the bureaucracy is so hard to wade

2235
01:55:16,079 --> 01:55:19,239
through to be able to get the permission to do

2236
01:55:19,359 --> 01:55:23,720
things like that on public land. Yeah, on like mass

2237
01:55:23,760 --> 01:55:28,159
autobonn Land, like these are things that my friends who

2238
01:55:28,479 --> 01:55:32,239
work at like Felix neck on Martha's Vineyard, which is

2239
01:55:32,279 --> 01:55:37,199
a beautiful piece of land. Like they know that fire

2240
01:55:37,279 --> 01:55:40,319
suppression is the reason why a lot of these issues

2241
01:55:40,359 --> 01:55:43,319
are happening, but it's just the hoops that you'd have

2242
01:55:43,359 --> 01:55:46,760
to go through in order to be able to do

2243
01:55:46,840 --> 01:55:48,760
so are so daunting.

2244
01:55:49,039 --> 01:55:51,640
Speaker 1: Yeah. God, they could change everything there in a decade

2245
01:55:51,640 --> 01:55:53,680
if they just started burning, just doing learning to do

2246
01:55:53,800 --> 01:55:56,199
control burns. And it was part of the popular culture.

2247
01:55:56,239 --> 01:55:57,880
Like you don't even care about plants, you don't care

2248
01:55:57,920 --> 01:56:00,279
about the wood, but you just know we got to burn.

2249
01:56:00,399 --> 01:56:02,279
It's just burned. If you have to burn or else

2250
01:56:02,279 --> 01:56:04,560
the ticks get out of control and the invasions get

2251
01:56:04,560 --> 01:56:06,399
out of control, and you can't walk through the woods,

2252
01:56:06,880 --> 01:56:09,119
you know, without getting stuck on something or without getting

2253
01:56:09,119 --> 01:56:12,399
a tick on you. The tick situation there is insane, man,

2254
01:56:12,439 --> 01:56:12,920
I mean it is.

2255
01:56:13,119 --> 01:56:16,520
Speaker 2: Oh, it's awful, and it's only it's only getting worse.

2256
01:56:17,039 --> 01:56:20,720
I I was driving to go see my mom. Got there.

2257
01:56:20,920 --> 01:56:23,239
It's a long drive from here, and you have to

2258
01:56:23,600 --> 01:56:25,920
you know, it's like planes, trains and automobiles. You take

2259
01:56:25,920 --> 01:56:27,840
a really long drive and then you have to take

2260
01:56:27,880 --> 01:56:31,039
a faery and then it's you get there. I'm so

2261
01:56:31,119 --> 01:56:33,720
happy to be there geting my mama. Hug. Look down,

2262
01:56:33,880 --> 01:56:36,680
there's already a tick on my leg. I just got here.

2263
01:56:36,800 --> 01:56:39,319
Speaker 1: You don't even have to go into the woods. There everywhere,

2264
01:56:39,359 --> 01:56:40,840
you don't even have to go into the woods. It's

2265
01:56:40,840 --> 01:56:42,960
like it's like that in parts of Chicago.

2266
01:56:43,720 --> 01:56:43,840
Speaker 2: Uh.

2267
01:56:44,000 --> 01:56:46,880
Speaker 1: There was this forest reserve on Ogden Avenue I used

2268
01:56:46,920 --> 01:56:48,760
to go to, and it's the same thing. It's it's

2269
01:56:48,760 --> 01:56:51,960
like understory is just invasive honeysuckle and buckthorn, and they

2270
01:56:51,960 --> 01:56:55,279
don't burn. And I think they started masticating, like they'll

2271
01:56:55,319 --> 01:56:58,800
go chew up the understory, but you know, and then

2272
01:56:58,800 --> 01:57:00,800
it's just hardwood forest. But it's like God that they

2273
01:57:00,800 --> 01:57:03,399
could just burn, you know. I remember going off. I

2274
01:57:03,439 --> 01:57:06,399
stepped off the trail to piss once and just came

2275
01:57:06,439 --> 01:57:08,119
out with like six ticks on me, and I'm like,

2276
01:57:08,159 --> 01:57:10,720
what the fuck, Like, what the are you fucking kidding me?

2277
01:57:10,760 --> 01:57:12,760
Like where are they like carabeaning out of the trees,

2278
01:57:12,800 --> 01:57:13,960
Like where are they?

2279
01:57:14,000 --> 01:57:16,399
Speaker 2: You know, are they waiting? Are they just sitting there

2280
01:57:16,439 --> 01:57:17,840
with a little bib tied on?

2281
01:57:17,960 --> 01:57:24,000
Speaker 1: And they're right, yeah, but there's deer everywhere. It's over deer,

2282
01:57:24,119 --> 01:57:25,199
and they haven't.

2283
01:57:24,960 --> 01:57:28,479
Speaker 2: It on the vineyard. I mean, once again, blessing and

2284
01:57:28,520 --> 01:57:31,560
a curse was being overwhelmingly blue. And it's a thing

2285
01:57:31,640 --> 01:57:33,880
that I'm like, one of the things that I've grown

2286
01:57:33,920 --> 01:57:37,159
to be appreciative of, even as a vegan here in

2287
01:57:37,199 --> 01:57:39,439
Ohio is that there is a much bigger hunting culture

2288
01:57:39,479 --> 01:57:43,239
here than there is on say, Cape Cod and the

2289
01:57:43,319 --> 01:57:48,359
islands in Massachusetts, and all of the predator species are gone.

2290
01:57:48,359 --> 01:57:51,279
So the deer gpulation is insane. I know because I

2291
01:57:51,279 --> 01:57:53,159
have to hear about it every time they eat my

2292
01:57:53,199 --> 01:57:55,399
mom's yuka shoots before they blew.

2293
01:57:55,399 --> 01:57:57,159
Speaker 1: Or they wreck a car. It's like that here in

2294
01:57:57,199 --> 01:57:59,800
parts of Suextas. I mean, I hit I hit a deer.

2295
01:58:00,039 --> 01:58:01,840
It was in a rental car locally, it was two

2296
01:58:01,920 --> 01:58:04,960
years ago, and it like just ran out in front

2297
01:58:05,000 --> 01:58:07,319
of me, like I didn't like looks like it.

2298
01:58:07,239 --> 01:58:09,479
Speaker 2: Was I mess up your car.

2299
01:58:09,600 --> 01:58:12,479
Speaker 1: They den It was like it was like a kama

2300
01:58:12,560 --> 01:58:15,600
kazi just for the hood. It was like, buddy, what

2301
01:58:15,640 --> 01:58:18,319
are you doing? You know, come on, man, So you

2302
01:58:18,399 --> 01:58:21,279
got to pick up this this phenomenon, This is a

2303
01:58:21,319 --> 01:58:24,239
real thing, you know. But yeah, I don't know.

2304
01:58:24,359 --> 01:58:24,399
Speaker 2: Me.

2305
01:58:24,479 --> 01:58:26,600
Speaker 1: I wonder about that with the Northeast, like are they

2306
01:58:26,640 --> 01:58:28,159
ever going to start burning up there? Is it just

2307
01:58:28,239 --> 01:58:29,840
going to become part of the culture where like, you

2308
01:58:29,960 --> 01:58:31,720
have to burn. It's just what you have to do

2309
01:58:31,760 --> 01:58:32,359
if you live here.

2310
01:58:32,479 --> 01:58:34,239
Speaker 2: It's just what you have to do unless you want

2311
01:58:34,520 --> 01:58:37,720
everybody to be kicking it with a red meat plus

2312
01:58:37,760 --> 01:58:39,680
other things allergy.

2313
01:58:39,479 --> 01:58:42,159
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, and so you know the burning, that's what

2314
01:58:42,199 --> 01:58:43,840
I'm curious about too. It's like, yeah, I mean, like

2315
01:58:43,880 --> 01:58:47,239
I was saying, the burning practices of Native people on

2316
01:58:47,279 --> 01:58:49,560
the East Coast, like what were they Like, God, if

2317
01:58:49,560 --> 01:58:51,239
you could just go back to the time and talk

2318
01:58:51,279 --> 01:58:53,039
to them about like.

2319
01:58:53,079 --> 01:58:55,479
Speaker 2: Only because you know, it can't be the exact same

2320
01:58:55,520 --> 01:58:58,119
as some of the still extant practices that we see

2321
01:58:58,359 --> 01:59:03,039
in the Pacific Northwest, but I would love for there

2322
01:59:03,079 --> 01:59:07,840
to be able to be some sort of facilitated information exchange.

2323
01:59:07,880 --> 01:59:10,720
Like there are some really amazing Indigenous live groups out

2324
01:59:10,720 --> 01:59:14,000
in Oregon, like the wagon Burners best name ever.

2325
01:59:14,079 --> 01:59:14,760
Speaker 1: That's pretty good.

2326
01:59:14,960 --> 01:59:18,359
Speaker 2: And to be able to have them go and work

2327
01:59:18,439 --> 01:59:22,039
with like other Indigenous communities, Like it would be so

2328
01:59:22,199 --> 01:59:24,159
cool to have them be able to fly out and

2329
01:59:24,199 --> 01:59:26,800
meet with like the Aquinna and the tap equticc Wampanog

2330
01:59:27,399 --> 01:59:30,800
communities on the Vineyard on the island. Yeah, to just

2331
01:59:30,840 --> 01:59:34,119
be like, here's what we're doing out here. Maybe let's

2332
01:59:34,159 --> 01:59:37,079
have a conversation about what that could look like in

2333
01:59:37,159 --> 01:59:41,039
these spaces too, if those communities, if those communities wanted that,

2334
01:59:41,119 --> 01:59:45,920
I just I think that would be amazing. And it's overdue.

2335
01:59:46,159 --> 01:59:48,880
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's long over too, man. I mean it's

2336
01:59:48,880 --> 01:59:50,319
the thing. At some point, it's like what are you

2337
01:59:50,319 --> 01:59:52,680
gonna do? You just gonna let like this red meat,

2338
01:59:52,960 --> 01:59:55,079
this red meat analogy. I mean, it's it's better for

2339
01:59:55,159 --> 01:59:58,199
the planet, honestly, if everyone's you know, vegan or not

2340
01:59:58,239 --> 01:59:58,800
eating as.

2341
01:59:58,760 --> 02:00:03,720
Speaker 2: Much continuing to mow down. Yeah, swath, But.

2342
02:00:03,720 --> 02:00:06,399
Speaker 1: I think people I think people should have a choice

2343
02:00:06,439 --> 02:00:08,880
about it. But Alpha Gal doesn't give you a choice.

2344
02:00:08,920 --> 02:00:11,439
It just says, guess what you're vegan now or you're

2345
02:00:11,479 --> 02:00:14,239
gonna be pissing out your ass, you know, and exactly

2346
02:00:14,279 --> 02:00:18,359
extreme dietary, you know, extreme gastro intestinal pain. I think

2347
02:00:19,119 --> 02:00:21,239
it's gonna have to crack at some point, man. I mean,

2348
02:00:21,239 --> 02:00:22,680
they're gonna have to take it up.

2349
02:00:23,079 --> 02:00:26,439
Speaker 2: But you know, the burning important is gonna get alpha

2350
02:00:26,439 --> 02:00:29,199
gal and then suddenly the flood pates are gonna be

2351
02:00:29,239 --> 02:00:32,720
open for conversations. Yeah, what the heck are any we

2352
02:00:32,760 --> 02:00:33,680
can do about that?

2353
02:00:33,800 --> 02:00:36,119
Speaker 1: Yeah, the burn intervals, i know, out west were a

2354
02:00:36,159 --> 02:00:38,359
lot longer, like a lot more The fires were a

2355
02:00:38,399 --> 02:00:40,079
lot more spaced out than in the East, if that

2356
02:00:40,159 --> 02:00:42,439
makes sense though, because it's so there's so much more

2357
02:00:42,520 --> 02:00:44,439
rain in the east, I mean in the east.

2358
02:00:44,439 --> 02:00:48,760
Speaker 2: So the the Yeah, the growth in the like under

2359
02:00:48,840 --> 02:00:52,399
bits of the canopy, it happens so fast. Yeah, you

2360
02:00:52,439 --> 02:00:56,039
see that in people who are like manually going and

2361
02:00:56,079 --> 02:01:02,880
removing glossy buckthorn uh non native honeysuckle bushes. It's like

2362
02:01:03,199 --> 02:01:06,600
it's crazy work because you will be doing it again

2363
02:01:06,800 --> 02:01:07,680
in like a year.

2364
02:01:07,960 --> 02:01:11,159
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it comes back so quick. Yeah, it's it's

2365
02:01:11,760 --> 02:01:12,840
you know, and you can see it in a lot

2366
02:01:12,880 --> 02:01:14,720
of the plants too, Like a lot of plants, like

2367
02:01:14,920 --> 02:01:17,840
the seeds won't germinate without smoke. They won't Like, we

2368
02:01:17,920 --> 02:01:19,640
know these things evolved with fire.

2369
02:01:20,199 --> 02:01:21,920
Speaker 2: We know that it's and I think that there are

2370
02:01:21,960 --> 02:01:26,199
even some native species that are kept in better control

2371
02:01:26,279 --> 02:01:30,399
with fire. Like The Northeast also has crazy poison ivy.

2372
02:01:30,720 --> 02:01:35,000
Poison ivy is on, Like fuck every thing.

2373
02:01:35,199 --> 02:01:37,319
Speaker 1: You're reminding me of all the reasons I don't go

2374
02:01:37,399 --> 02:01:39,760
out there. Oh God, you're welcome.

2375
02:01:40,000 --> 02:01:43,359
Speaker 2: I know. If you ever need a reason to not visit,

2376
02:01:43,720 --> 02:01:48,319
uh Martha's vineyard, it's the poison ivy and the deer

2377
02:01:48,439 --> 02:01:51,119
ticks literally everywhere.

2378
02:01:50,560 --> 02:01:51,800
Speaker 1: I need to get up there. At some point, I

2379
02:01:51,840 --> 02:01:53,479
get people like getting mad at me, like, man, why

2380
02:01:53,479 --> 02:01:55,239
don't you just why do you avoid the Northeast? When'd

2381
02:01:55,279 --> 02:01:55,840
you come up here?

2382
02:01:56,239 --> 02:02:00,760
Speaker 2: You know? Like, well, if you ever want to go

2383
02:02:00,840 --> 02:02:02,720
to the vineyard and need a place to crash and

2384
02:02:02,800 --> 02:02:03,439
let me know.

2385
02:02:04,000 --> 02:02:04,680
Speaker 1: I'll take you up.

2386
02:02:05,239 --> 02:02:06,039
Speaker 7: I will just like.

2387
02:02:06,560 --> 02:02:09,640
Speaker 2: Every article of clothing and what is it like parma

2388
02:02:09,720 --> 02:02:11,560
thren before leaving the house.

2389
02:02:11,840 --> 02:02:13,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess that's what you'd have to do. Yeah,

2390
02:02:13,600 --> 02:02:15,520
I want Man, we have to check how Maine the

2391
02:02:15,600 --> 02:02:17,479
geology and Maine looks really, the.

2392
02:02:17,439 --> 02:02:21,920
Speaker 2: Geology in Maine is amazing but also the ticks are insane.

2393
02:02:22,560 --> 02:02:26,119
That's where some of jests family, my fiance's family is,

2394
02:02:26,199 --> 02:02:29,239
and it's oh, I mean the nature is stunning. The

2395
02:02:29,279 --> 02:02:34,439
geology is amazing. The confluence of the two. Getting to

2396
02:02:34,479 --> 02:02:38,720
see like what seaweed species correspond to, like what sort

2397
02:02:38,720 --> 02:02:42,039
of rocky outcroppings you're seeing on the coast. That's another

2398
02:02:42,119 --> 02:02:44,439
thing that's made me go, I need to know more.

2399
02:02:44,600 --> 02:02:46,680
Speaker 1: I want to ask you about I wanted to ask

2400
02:02:46,720 --> 02:02:49,960
you about seaweed. But yeah, we're already two hours. But yeah, man,

2401
02:02:50,000 --> 02:02:51,520
I mean next, Oh.

2402
02:02:51,600 --> 02:02:53,600
Speaker 2: No, we have to talk a guy.

2403
02:02:54,039 --> 02:02:56,000
Speaker 1: Well, well we could talk a little bit about seaweed

2404
02:02:56,039 --> 02:02:57,880
because I know I saw you posting stuff from the

2405
02:02:57,880 --> 02:03:01,039
Pacific and then also from the let's get into it.

2406
02:03:01,279 --> 02:03:01,960
What's up with the sea?

2407
02:03:02,279 --> 02:03:06,119
Speaker 2: Do it? Let's do it. I have had a bit

2408
02:03:06,119 --> 02:03:08,439
of an unhealthy obsession with seaweed ever since I was

2409
02:03:08,479 --> 02:03:12,359
a kid. Like I said, my mom's family is the

2410
02:03:12,600 --> 02:03:16,119
like Cape Cod area. They've been there, oh my god,

2411
02:03:16,159 --> 02:03:19,359
for like the last four hundred years, which is like

2412
02:03:19,479 --> 02:03:22,119
as a family of color, kind of like an insane

2413
02:03:22,279 --> 02:03:24,960
thing to say that is also fraught with a lot

2414
02:03:25,000 --> 02:03:29,159
of pride and a lot of sadness, and so I

2415
02:03:29,279 --> 02:03:32,439
just I, you know, it's normal in our family to

2416
02:03:32,439 --> 02:03:34,960
get like thrown into the ocean at age one or

2417
02:03:34,960 --> 02:03:37,760
two and being like, well, you'll learn to swim, and

2418
02:03:38,159 --> 02:03:43,800
just spending a ton of time socializing with family at

2419
02:03:43,840 --> 02:03:48,159
the beach in the ocean. You know. I'd spend my

2420
02:03:48,319 --> 02:03:52,000
summers out there, and we'd just be on the coast,

2421
02:03:52,239 --> 02:03:57,079
you know, hanging out eating peebee and jays and drinking

2422
02:03:57,119 --> 02:04:01,680
polar seltzers with our cousins most days of most days

2423
02:04:01,680 --> 02:04:04,000
of the week. And when you're near the ocean that much,

2424
02:04:04,560 --> 02:04:09,079
you start noticing the things that live there, like the seaweed. Granted,

2425
02:04:09,199 --> 02:04:11,880
as a kid, I was like, well, there's a seaweed

2426
02:04:11,960 --> 02:04:14,520
that you can eat in like the seaweed salad that

2427
02:04:14,560 --> 02:04:16,720
they sell at the fish market. And then there's this

2428
02:04:16,800 --> 02:04:19,279
seaweed that I throw at my sister because it's funny.

2429
02:04:20,359 --> 02:04:25,239
And I was not connecting those two things until I

2430
02:04:25,439 --> 02:04:29,399
got to be an adult and I started looking into

2431
02:04:30,960 --> 02:04:35,399
just seaweed as a regenerative food source, as a zero

2432
02:04:35,720 --> 02:04:41,520
input food source, started reading up on how popular it

2433
02:04:41,640 --> 02:04:45,039
used to be on both sides of the Atlantic. We

2434
02:04:45,159 --> 02:04:49,399
hear so much about you know, Pacific seaweed culture. Thankfully,

2435
02:04:49,439 --> 02:04:53,880
a lot of it is still you know, intact on

2436
02:04:54,119 --> 02:04:58,119
the uh you know, in Asia and China and Japan

2437
02:04:58,319 --> 02:05:03,800
and Korea and and even like moving southward into like Indonesia,

2438
02:05:04,640 --> 02:05:09,319
we know that they have a robust culture around eating

2439
02:05:09,319 --> 02:05:13,279
seaweed and the aquaculture of it. And for me growing up,

2440
02:05:13,279 --> 02:05:16,079
I was like, oh, that's crazy, because we have seaweed too,

2441
02:05:16,279 --> 02:05:20,239
and why didn't we develop some sort of like sushi

2442
02:05:20,399 --> 02:05:24,600
adjacent thing in the Atlantic. And what I grew up

2443
02:05:24,640 --> 02:05:28,439
to figure out was that very much did happen with

2444
02:05:28,920 --> 02:05:34,119
Atlantic lava, which is in the same genus but different species,

2445
02:05:34,119 --> 02:05:39,600
the same genus Porphyra as nori in the Pacific was

2446
02:05:39,680 --> 02:05:43,920
a really popular food stuff, both for indigenous groups on

2447
02:05:44,039 --> 02:05:48,680
our side of the ocean and especially in Wales, where

2448
02:05:48,920 --> 02:05:53,079
lava bread, which is made out of that seaweed, is still,

2449
02:05:53,760 --> 02:06:00,720
you know, historically significant part of their food systems. And

2450
02:06:00,760 --> 02:06:03,479
I was like, oh, so, why don't we talk about it?

2451
02:06:03,840 --> 02:06:07,319
And for some reason, eating seaweed after the Victorian era

2452
02:06:07,520 --> 02:06:10,319
kind of just fell out of fashion. It had a

2453
02:06:10,319 --> 02:06:16,000
really big boom because they were into jiggly desserts in

2454
02:06:16,159 --> 02:06:20,319
Europe in the Victorian era, and they were like, how

2455
02:06:20,319 --> 02:06:24,760
are we gonna set this either with gelatin, which was

2456
02:06:24,800 --> 02:06:29,279
expensive at the time, with swim bladders of fish, or

2457
02:06:29,560 --> 02:06:34,640
with chandras crispus, irish moss seaweed, which is where we

2458
02:06:34,720 --> 02:06:39,239
still source karraghinan for a ton of different products all over.

2459
02:06:40,000 --> 02:06:44,560
And so for a second it got really popular. It

2460
02:06:44,600 --> 02:06:46,399
was a way for like women to make money because

2461
02:06:46,399 --> 02:06:48,880
they could just like hang out in beachcomb and I

2462
02:06:48,880 --> 02:06:52,439
guess their husbands didn't hate that, and then they'd get

2463
02:06:52,479 --> 02:06:55,399
to sell it to confectioners to make cool things with.

2464
02:06:55,720 --> 02:06:57,880
And then it just kind of faded away. And that

2465
02:06:58,840 --> 02:07:02,800
makes me sad because I think seaweed is so cool

2466
02:07:03,239 --> 02:07:05,960
and it's not being a plant but being very plant

2467
02:07:06,039 --> 02:07:08,720
adjacent and a lot of the ways that it behaves,

2468
02:07:08,920 --> 02:07:10,279
and there's so many different.

2469
02:07:10,039 --> 02:07:12,880
Speaker 1: Kinds and it's delicious when you spice them and you

2470
02:07:12,880 --> 02:07:14,239
put salt them.

2471
02:07:15,199 --> 02:07:19,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, so good, So many different delicious kinds. There's like

2472
02:07:20,159 --> 02:07:23,840
dolls and pepper dolls which end up tasting like bacony

2473
02:07:24,039 --> 02:07:27,239
when you toast them or fry them. We have all,

2474
02:07:27,359 --> 02:07:30,359
you know, a ton of species of kelps, which are

2475
02:07:30,439 --> 02:07:35,319
fantastic for flavoring soup rops or even making a seaweed

2476
02:07:35,359 --> 02:07:38,680
salad out of them. I like to pop them into

2477
02:07:38,680 --> 02:07:40,560
the air fryer with a little sprits of oil and

2478
02:07:40,600 --> 02:07:43,760
then they turn into little crunchy kelp chips. That's what

2479
02:07:45,359 --> 02:07:47,399
they're so good. Oil.

2480
02:07:47,439 --> 02:07:48,840
Speaker 1: What do you use? Just olive oil or what?

2481
02:07:49,520 --> 02:07:53,039
Speaker 2: Yeah? Usually just olive oil, sometimes avocado, really whatever I

2482
02:07:53,119 --> 02:07:53,840
have on hand.

2483
02:07:54,239 --> 02:07:56,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, because that stuff is expensive. We just got an

2484
02:07:56,680 --> 02:07:58,920
Asian food market down here, and it's like, I'll buy

2485
02:07:58,960 --> 02:07:59,479
that stuff, but.

2486
02:07:59,439 --> 02:08:03,720
Speaker 2: It's still expensive to buy the imported stuff. One. Yeah,

2487
02:08:03,800 --> 02:08:07,640
if you're near an ocean, there's a lot of seaweed

2488
02:08:07,720 --> 02:08:10,159
near you. Granted, you do also have to pay attention

2489
02:08:10,239 --> 02:08:13,840
to things like your water safety levels, but people get

2490
02:08:13,880 --> 02:08:15,840
really worried about that, and I'm like, well, I have

2491
02:08:15,920 --> 02:08:17,760
one step ahead of you, and by me, I mean

2492
02:08:17,840 --> 02:08:20,640
the fishing industry. They have to be keeping track of

2493
02:08:20,680 --> 02:08:22,880
the health of these waters too, for the sake of

2494
02:08:22,880 --> 02:08:27,600
their businesses. So at least when I'm foraging seaweeds, whether

2495
02:08:27,720 --> 02:08:30,880
it's when I'm with my family in Massachusetts or chest

2496
02:08:30,960 --> 02:08:33,760
family in Maine, it is really nice that you can

2497
02:08:33,800 --> 02:08:35,920
just be like, well, are the fishermen and the shell

2498
02:08:36,159 --> 02:08:40,079
fishers getting food out of the ocean here today. Yes, okay,

2499
02:08:40,199 --> 02:08:41,840
then I feel more comfortable doing that.

2500
02:08:41,920 --> 02:08:44,920
Speaker 1: So you're mate, you're mostly looking for like fecal coliform

2501
02:08:45,159 --> 02:08:47,479
bacteria that might be in the water for like red

2502
02:08:47,520 --> 02:08:51,560
tide stuff, red tide. Yes, yeah, okay, yeah, you got.

2503
02:08:51,800 --> 02:08:55,960
Speaker 2: You gotta be very wary of both cases. And in

2504
02:08:56,520 --> 02:09:00,720
Maine it's usually much kinder because the water is holder

2505
02:09:01,239 --> 02:09:06,199
and there's just less industry and less sewage going directly

2506
02:09:06,239 --> 02:09:10,079
out into the ocean. Whereas on Martha's Vineyard, I'm just

2507
02:09:10,079 --> 02:09:13,479
giving you all the reasons to not visit one of

2508
02:09:13,520 --> 02:09:17,079
my favorite places on Earth. Every time it rains too much,

2509
02:09:17,640 --> 02:09:20,560
the sewing's overflow connects to wear the ocean.

2510
02:09:21,039 --> 02:09:22,680
Speaker 1: Oh they used to Yeah, they used to do that

2511
02:09:22,720 --> 02:09:26,439
in Chicago Lake Michigan. The yeah, and then you get

2512
02:09:26,439 --> 02:09:27,239
ship water.

2513
02:09:28,319 --> 02:09:34,920
Speaker 2: Yes exactly. And so that's ookie, spooky, bad and scary. No,

2514
02:09:35,000 --> 02:09:37,399
but you said you should still go to Martha's Vineyard.

2515
02:09:37,399 --> 02:09:42,239
It's a beautiful place. But there's no antips.

2516
02:09:41,760 --> 02:09:45,119
Speaker 1: Oh god, the tax, there's no uh, there's no seaweed

2517
02:09:45,119 --> 02:09:46,279
that's innately toxic.

2518
02:09:46,960 --> 02:09:51,119
Speaker 2: Is there are those seaweeds that would be growing in

2519
02:09:52,279 --> 02:09:54,119
nothing that's going to be toxic in a way that

2520
02:09:54,159 --> 02:09:58,560
would hurt you badly. There's one type of help, acid

2521
02:09:58,640 --> 02:10:01,800
help that when it's cell walls are broken, it does

2522
02:10:01,840 --> 02:10:04,279
initiate a chemical reaction that creates a tiny bit of

2523
02:10:04,319 --> 02:10:09,199
sulfuric acid, but nothing that's going to like cause long term,

2524
02:10:09,680 --> 02:10:14,800
extremely painful damage. But most seweet species are edible. The

2525
02:10:14,840 --> 02:10:17,720
ones that aren't edible are typically because they're just too

2526
02:10:18,279 --> 02:10:23,880
calcium rich to be comfortable to eat. Like they're tough,

2527
02:10:24,239 --> 02:10:25,319
they're gonna hurt your teeth.

2528
02:10:25,600 --> 02:10:28,600
Speaker 1: So what's the tissue made out of? Is it cellulose

2529
02:10:28,680 --> 02:10:29,039
or is it?

2530
02:10:30,319 --> 02:10:32,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. It is a lot of cellulose, just

2531
02:10:32,720 --> 02:10:37,319
like what you will see in plants, but they build

2532
02:10:37,479 --> 02:10:41,079
up in a lot of different ways. They tend to

2533
02:10:41,119 --> 02:10:45,159
be a bit more protein heavy than your average you know,

2534
02:10:45,720 --> 02:10:49,720
leaves and stems that you're seeing on land plants. They

2535
02:10:49,840 --> 02:10:53,239
of course don't have roots in their place. They have

2536
02:10:53,319 --> 02:10:57,359
hold fasts, which don't absorb anything. They just keep them

2537
02:10:57,399 --> 02:11:01,359
anchored onto rocks. They're going to be absorbing their nutrition

2538
02:11:02,359 --> 02:11:06,439
directly from the sun and the water around them, so

2539
02:11:06,479 --> 02:11:11,319
they are still photosynthesizing just like plants are, even though

2540
02:11:11,520 --> 02:11:13,920
they are. They are different, and I have to be

2541
02:11:13,960 --> 02:11:17,880
that annoying person that's just like macro algae colon. They're different.

2542
02:11:18,520 --> 02:11:21,680
Every time that I switched to talking about them after

2543
02:11:21,760 --> 02:11:23,079
mostly talking about plants.

2544
02:11:23,159 --> 02:11:25,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, phylogenetically they're cool though, too, because I know it

2545
02:11:25,840 --> 02:11:29,199
like brown, brown algae, red algae and green algae are.

2546
02:11:29,119 --> 02:11:30,079
Speaker 2: Not green algae.

2547
02:11:30,159 --> 02:11:32,560
Speaker 1: They're not closely really, they're not closely related.

2548
02:11:33,039 --> 02:11:37,640
Speaker 2: No, they are not, which is mind blowing. How long

2549
02:11:37,680 --> 02:11:41,000
ago I mean, you're talking about us, you know, the

2550
02:11:41,520 --> 02:11:43,840
time of humans really being the blink of an eye

2551
02:11:44,039 --> 02:11:47,640
and the history of this planet. Nothing reminds me of

2552
02:11:47,680 --> 02:11:50,399
that more than how far back you have to go

2553
02:11:50,439 --> 02:11:56,199
to find a common ancestor for red, green, and brown seap.

2554
02:11:56,319 --> 02:11:58,159
Speaker 1: What are you caryotic life of it? It's like one

2555
02:11:58,159 --> 02:12:00,560
point six billion years or two bills or something.

2556
02:12:00,600 --> 02:12:04,840
Speaker 2: They yeah, somewhere in that range. And that's just that's

2557
02:12:04,840 --> 02:12:07,960
so old, it's so you can't even fathom it. You

2558
02:12:08,000 --> 02:12:10,239
can try, but I just I can't wrap my head

2559
02:12:10,319 --> 02:12:12,479
around that much.

2560
02:12:12,359 --> 02:12:16,960
Speaker 1: Time life beginning to see. Yeah, and these are there,

2561
02:12:17,279 --> 02:12:22,640
these are very old lineages. It's a that's one and they.

2562
02:12:22,560 --> 02:12:25,479
Speaker 2: Really found their niche and they and they're like, okay, cool,

2563
02:12:26,439 --> 02:12:26,920
We're good.

2564
02:12:27,199 --> 02:12:29,359
Speaker 1: It's wild to think about because some of the plant

2565
02:12:29,399 --> 02:12:33,119
you know, like fightapra irish potato blight and the same

2566
02:12:33,159 --> 02:12:36,319
and then the sudden oak death. They're both fightastra. I know,

2567
02:12:36,399 --> 02:12:38,920
those are a member of the brown algae clade. Like

2568
02:12:38,920 --> 02:12:41,239
they're not fun yeah, which is fun.

2569
02:12:43,159 --> 02:12:51,600
Speaker 2: It's so wild. And I always love talking to the

2570
02:12:51,640 --> 02:12:54,680
folks who study fung i. AM always jealous that you

2571
02:12:54,720 --> 02:12:57,479
and Alan Rockfeller get to hang out so much because

2572
02:12:57,560 --> 02:13:02,039
gotting to talk to them about the evolutionary history of

2573
02:13:02,199 --> 02:13:07,479
fungi is so cool and crazy. Yeah, and they also

2574
02:13:07,600 --> 02:13:10,199
probably get just as annoyed as I do about people

2575
02:13:10,520 --> 02:13:15,640
classifying macro algae as plants, as people classifying fungy as.

2576
02:13:15,479 --> 02:13:20,520
Speaker 8: Play Oh my god, yeah that is like you crack

2577
02:13:20,600 --> 02:13:24,960
open like old, old the taxonomy or biology books from

2578
02:13:25,000 --> 02:13:26,880
like eighty years ago, you know, and you'll see it

2579
02:13:26,920 --> 02:13:28,920
in there and you're like, man, what is this really?

2580
02:13:30,720 --> 02:13:33,239
Speaker 1: But they're they're both, I mean they're both like fungy

2581
02:13:33,239 --> 02:13:36,359
and algae are both. Really they're both really old, and

2582
02:13:36,399 --> 02:13:38,920
they're both really bizarre, at least when you're coming at

2583
02:13:38,960 --> 02:13:42,119
them from a botany standpoint. You're like, these things what

2584
02:13:42,239 --> 02:13:44,720
are they? How the fuck does it? You know, like,

2585
02:13:44,840 --> 02:13:49,640
how does it evolve? I had someone on my friend Julia,

2586
02:13:49,720 --> 02:13:53,840
we were talking about she studies protus and and this

2587
02:13:53,920 --> 02:13:55,079
is like a year or two ago, and we were

2588
02:13:55,079 --> 02:13:57,640
just talking about the whole the whole tree of life,

2589
02:13:57,720 --> 02:14:02,000
and there's I've really got a myopic lens on it.

2590
02:14:02,079 --> 02:14:04,039
You know. I'd like to think I know a lot

2591
02:14:04,119 --> 02:14:06,119
more than I do, but I really it's just there's

2592
02:14:06,239 --> 02:14:09,079
all these other things out there, and plants are a

2593
02:14:09,119 --> 02:14:11,319
tiny part of it, and these other things that you

2594
02:14:11,439 --> 02:14:14,560
don't really pay attention to, and algae are one of them.

2595
02:14:14,640 --> 02:14:17,920
I mean that's I'm I kind of want to learn

2596
02:14:17,960 --> 02:14:20,720
more about them because I think it would probably blow

2597
02:14:20,760 --> 02:14:21,880
my damn mind.

2598
02:14:23,119 --> 02:14:26,399
Speaker 2: I have been saying for years that at some point,

2599
02:14:26,439 --> 02:14:29,479
when Jeff and I are up in May, I want

2600
02:14:29,479 --> 02:14:33,279
to just invite all of my nerdy plant friends up

2601
02:14:33,479 --> 02:14:36,439
so I can give all of you guys the bug

2602
02:14:36,520 --> 02:14:38,760
of also being nerdy about algae. Here.

2603
02:14:39,479 --> 02:14:42,319
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, there, you know, there's there's some there's some

2604
02:14:42,359 --> 02:14:44,479
weird stuff going on over there. I mean that alone,

2605
02:14:44,479 --> 02:14:47,880
when you learn like this, this notorious plant pathogen is

2606
02:14:48,319 --> 02:14:51,479
technically an algae and not a fungus. It makes you

2607
02:14:51,520 --> 02:14:54,359
wonder what other things might be out there that, you know,

2608
02:14:54,439 --> 02:14:58,039
what other weird forms might have this lineage might have

2609
02:14:58,119 --> 02:15:01,199
evolved to. But yeah, I don't know.

2610
02:15:01,239 --> 02:15:03,119
Speaker 2: I know, And when I hear about that, I also

2611
02:15:03,680 --> 02:15:05,800
I don't know. I also wonder. I'm like, oh, maybe

2612
02:15:05,840 --> 02:15:09,199
in algae is the answer to some of the to

2613
02:15:09,279 --> 02:15:11,399
some of the blights that we are dealing with. Like

2614
02:15:12,439 --> 02:15:15,720
it just yeah, it just makes you start thinking about

2615
02:15:15,720 --> 02:15:20,239
how much we still don't know because we've learned so

2616
02:15:20,319 --> 02:15:23,119
much just in the last eighty years. Yeah, just said,

2617
02:15:23,199 --> 02:15:26,439
And I hope that I am still around to see

2618
02:15:26,800 --> 02:15:30,520
just like what we're doing in another fifty or sixty

2619
02:15:30,560 --> 02:15:31,560
if I'm so lucky.

2620
02:15:31,840 --> 02:15:34,279
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I always think about that with you know,

2621
02:15:34,359 --> 02:15:37,920
with especially with ecology, like there's all these different relationships

2622
02:15:38,199 --> 02:15:40,000
that we don't know exists yet. Like I'll look at

2623
02:15:40,039 --> 02:15:43,359
a plant and I'll try to find out what pollinates it,

2624
02:15:43,760 --> 02:15:45,920
and there's nothing out there on it. There's no research

2625
02:15:45,920 --> 02:15:48,319
you could look google scar there's nothing there's We think

2626
02:15:48,319 --> 02:15:50,520
it might be this, but we don't really know. I mean,

2627
02:15:50,560 --> 02:15:54,159
the connection between insects and plants and the deep ties

2628
02:15:54,239 --> 02:15:57,640
going on there, there's still so much that's not known.

2629
02:15:57,840 --> 02:15:59,640
And that's just even in the United States. You go

2630
02:15:59,640 --> 02:16:03,720
to place is where they're more remote, like say Ecuador, or.

2631
02:16:04,920 --> 02:16:09,600
Speaker 2: Still so much to be found, so many species we

2632
02:16:09,680 --> 02:16:11,920
haven't even seen or classified yet.

2633
02:16:12,399 --> 02:16:14,680
Speaker 1: And how about how they're like evolving together too, like

2634
02:16:14,720 --> 02:16:17,119
the relationships. You know, that's what blows my mind. I mean,

2635
02:16:17,159 --> 02:16:19,479
it really is. It's like a living machine and we

2636
02:16:19,520 --> 02:16:22,600
have no clue how more than half the pieces in

2637
02:16:22,640 --> 02:16:24,960
it work, like how they're operating, and then.

2638
02:16:24,840 --> 02:16:27,439
Speaker 2: We just throw a wrench into it without knowing how.

2639
02:16:27,359 --> 02:16:29,319
Speaker 1: They're we could get rid of it. How about a

2640
02:16:29,359 --> 02:16:32,280
cattle pasture here? How about that? Or a data center

2641
02:16:32,399 --> 02:16:37,600
or a housing subdivision. And yeah, it's it's frustrating, man.

2642
02:16:37,600 --> 02:16:39,559
But I think, you know, I see I see stuff

2643
02:16:39,959 --> 02:16:41,840
like the I see a lot of hope. I see

2644
02:16:41,840 --> 02:16:46,719
a lot of positive reason for hope. Just in the

2645
02:16:46,799 --> 02:16:49,399
terms of too. People are just.

2646
02:16:49,360 --> 02:16:53,200
Speaker 2: In terms of awareness, and people who maybe thirty forty

2647
02:16:53,280 --> 02:16:56,799
fifty years ago would not have wanted to go into

2648
02:16:56,840 --> 02:17:00,559
the sciences felt comfortable going into the sciences. Who are

2649
02:17:00,879 --> 02:17:03,440
And as that space becomes more diverse, people are asking

2650
02:17:03,440 --> 02:17:08,159
different questions and noticing different things. I mean, I think

2651
02:17:08,639 --> 02:17:10,639
you know. Robin wal Kimmer of course, speaks to this

2652
02:17:10,799 --> 02:17:14,440
in Braiding Sweet Grass, with her entering wanting to answer

2653
02:17:14,440 --> 02:17:18,479
the question of why asks and golden rd so frequently

2654
02:17:18,520 --> 02:17:22,040
grow near each other and look so beautiful, And you know,

2655
02:17:22,920 --> 02:17:25,079
fifty years ago that is not a question that you

2656
02:17:25,079 --> 02:17:27,360
could ask in a scientific concept. Yeah, And when she

2657
02:17:27,479 --> 02:17:30,000
was first starting her education, that was something you couldn't

2658
02:17:30,040 --> 02:17:31,280
ask in a scientific contry.

2659
02:17:31,319 --> 02:17:33,559
Speaker 1: Yeah, she got shut down. Yeah. I remember reading that. Yeah,

2660
02:17:33,559 --> 02:17:35,280
and I was like, that's a fucking great question. Who

2661
02:17:35,280 --> 02:17:37,239
would shut that down? What kind of stiff would shut

2662
02:17:37,239 --> 02:17:37,639
that down?

2663
02:17:39,360 --> 02:17:42,360
Speaker 2: So I can't wait. I can't wait for so many

2664
02:17:42,399 --> 02:17:46,840
more people to ask those questions and just blow the

2665
02:17:46,840 --> 02:17:49,520
front door off of what we even think we know

2666
02:17:49,799 --> 02:17:53,639
about ecology and how so many different living beings relate

2667
02:17:53,680 --> 02:17:54,280
to each other.

2668
02:17:54,479 --> 02:17:56,479
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I think the other thing too. I mean,

2669
02:17:56,520 --> 02:17:58,879
there's a lot of you know, obviously a lot of

2670
02:17:59,280 --> 02:18:01,479
social media and phones and cause a lot of problems,

2671
02:18:01,479 --> 02:18:03,639
but man, like they can do a lot of good too.

2672
02:18:03,680 --> 02:18:05,959
You've got the library in your pocket now, And I

2673
02:18:06,000 --> 02:18:08,959
see I see this kind of dismantling of this like

2674
02:18:09,079 --> 02:18:12,719
hierarchy of class in terms of the natural sciences, where

2675
02:18:12,719 --> 02:18:14,280
it's like, oh, you're gonna take out all this money

2676
02:18:14,280 --> 02:18:16,040
and go to school and blah blah, Like no, man,

2677
02:18:16,079 --> 02:18:18,760
maybe you could just you know, go for a degree

2678
02:18:18,760 --> 02:18:21,840
in electrical engineering and then just you know, on the side,

2679
02:18:22,239 --> 02:18:24,200
you know, because it's a trade, then on the side

2680
02:18:24,360 --> 02:18:28,840
just fucking dive into you know, being a community scientist

2681
02:18:28,920 --> 02:18:31,639
studying bugs or just you know, getting into native plants

2682
02:18:31,680 --> 02:18:34,639
around you whatever. Like it's so accessible to more people

2683
02:18:34,719 --> 02:18:37,360
now and this kind of horn and toyty Ivory tower

2684
02:18:37,399 --> 02:18:40,719
shit is kind of fading, like you cut, people are coming. Yeah,

2685
02:18:40,760 --> 02:18:43,079
people can really you don't need you don't need that,

2686
02:18:43,200 --> 02:18:44,719
Like you don't need that. I mean I didn't. I

2687
02:18:44,719 --> 02:18:47,120
don't even have a college degree. I dropped out of college.

2688
02:18:47,159 --> 02:18:50,079
Speaker 2: You know. Fuck I mean, but neither does Sam Sayer

2689
02:18:50,239 --> 02:18:54,600
and you too are some of the like Key are

2690
02:18:54,639 --> 02:18:57,760
some of the people that people turn to about native

2691
02:18:57,799 --> 02:19:01,479
plants and native ecosystems. Now. It's just like it's it's

2692
02:19:01,520 --> 02:19:02,719
so excited to see.

2693
02:19:02,840 --> 02:19:05,520
Speaker 1: It just takes asking questions. It just takes asking questions

2694
02:19:05,520 --> 02:19:07,479
and going out there and like, you know, if you

2695
02:19:07,479 --> 02:19:09,159
don't know something to me, like I don't know shit

2696
02:19:09,239 --> 02:19:11,559
about that, I want to learn that's it's you know, yeah,

2697
02:19:11,760 --> 02:19:13,879
it's it gives me. It does give me a lot

2698
02:19:13,920 --> 02:19:14,399
of fucking hope.

2699
02:19:14,440 --> 02:19:14,520
Speaker 2: Man.

2700
02:19:14,559 --> 02:19:16,719
Speaker 1: There's so many people out there that are just like

2701
02:19:17,360 --> 02:19:19,959
random schmucks like me who're just into this stuff now.

2702
02:19:20,000 --> 02:19:22,559
And it's that's how you bring the living world back,

2703
02:19:22,639 --> 02:19:25,200
you know, because it's the death cult is trying to

2704
02:19:25,200 --> 02:19:27,600
get rid of it. Man. It's just yeah, they don't

2705
02:19:27,639 --> 02:19:31,200
know any better. But but yeah, there's there's so much hope.

2706
02:19:31,239 --> 02:19:33,639
So anyway, well, I guess we cut it short there.

2707
02:19:33,680 --> 02:19:35,200
I love talking to you, Thank you so much for

2708
02:19:35,239 --> 02:19:35,959
being down to do this.

2709
02:19:36,120 --> 02:19:38,559
Speaker 2: So I love talking to YouTube Julie. It's always so

2710
02:19:38,639 --> 02:19:40,079
great when we get to catch out.

2711
02:19:40,000 --> 02:19:42,200
Speaker 1: And I love seeing your videos and it's yeah, it's

2712
02:19:42,319 --> 02:19:45,000
you know, it's a it's a it's definitely a good medicine.

2713
02:19:45,040 --> 02:19:45,959
It's a cheer upper.

2714
02:19:46,120 --> 02:19:50,639
Speaker 2: So hey, that's exactly how I feel about you right.

2715
02:19:50,440 --> 02:19:52,879
Speaker 1: Back after all right, man, well thanks a lot. I

2716
02:19:52,879 --> 02:19:55,680
appreciate you. Lecxis Nicole, And are you gonna be uh

2717
02:19:55,879 --> 02:19:58,280
are you going to be out like you're giving talks now? Right?

2718
02:19:58,319 --> 02:20:00,399
I mean you I assume you travel all right, I've.

2719
02:20:00,280 --> 02:20:03,399
Speaker 2: Been I've been giving lectures I've been giving talks and

2720
02:20:03,440 --> 02:20:06,680
plant walks. Things are about to slow down just because

2721
02:20:07,040 --> 02:20:09,520
you know, in a lot of the country the plants

2722
02:20:09,520 --> 02:20:12,799
are about to be dormant for the next couple of months,

2723
02:20:13,079 --> 02:20:15,079
which I love. It means I get to put my

2724
02:20:15,120 --> 02:20:17,399
feet up and like, I don't know, finish a book

2725
02:20:17,440 --> 02:20:17,840
for once.

2726
02:20:18,159 --> 02:20:20,760
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you got a book in the works. That's great,

2727
02:20:21,360 --> 02:20:22,000
that makes me well.

2728
02:20:22,280 --> 02:20:24,879
Speaker 2: And yeah, so my my book will will be out

2729
02:20:24,920 --> 02:20:27,440
by this time next year, which is insane to think about.

2730
02:20:27,520 --> 02:20:30,760
I just started seeing some of the uh the actual

2731
02:20:30,799 --> 02:20:35,159
design of the pages for the first time, and it's

2732
02:20:35,200 --> 02:20:39,120
crazy that it's real, because I think a lot of

2733
02:20:39,159 --> 02:20:41,040
people were like, I don't know if she's ever going

2734
02:20:41,079 --> 02:20:43,600
to finish that book. It's me. I'm people, do you

2735
02:20:43,639 --> 02:20:51,360
get a title happy Snacking Don't Die. That's amazing, you know,

2736
02:20:51,840 --> 02:20:55,000
people to snack happy. But I'm also like, hey, hey,

2737
02:20:55,440 --> 02:20:58,079
I do need you to know that they're they're there's

2738
02:20:58,159 --> 02:21:00,879
some fine print at the bottom.

2739
02:21:00,479 --> 02:21:04,239
Speaker 1: Of the fact. That's perfect. God, I love it. Man,

2740
02:21:04,479 --> 02:21:06,680
are you but if people want to go see you

2741
02:21:06,799 --> 02:21:08,520
talk anywhere? Is there do you have like a list

2742
02:21:08,520 --> 02:21:10,799
of places you'll be speaking anywhere? Or a website or anything,

2743
02:21:10,879 --> 02:21:12,040
or oh.

2744
02:21:11,879 --> 02:21:15,399
Speaker 2: My gosh, I am working on getting that up as

2745
02:21:15,440 --> 02:21:20,000
like a pinned post on my Instagram page. And keep

2746
02:21:20,239 --> 02:21:24,079
an eye out because I guess pre orders are probably

2747
02:21:24,159 --> 02:21:26,959
going to be starting in like the next couple of

2748
02:21:27,079 --> 02:21:30,000
months for the book, and I am planning on going

2749
02:21:30,040 --> 02:21:34,239
on a book tour. So also, please do not hesitate

2750
02:21:34,319 --> 02:21:37,280
to let me know where you think I should go,

2751
02:21:37,920 --> 02:21:40,399
or I will just go to the places.

2752
02:21:40,000 --> 02:21:42,440
Speaker 1: That I know. God man, that's kind of makes me

2753
02:21:42,520 --> 02:21:44,600
so happy. It makes me so happy. Now you're putting

2754
02:21:44,600 --> 02:21:46,120
on a book and you're going to be on tour too,

2755
02:21:46,799 --> 02:21:48,120
I want to come see you speak.

2756
02:21:49,319 --> 02:21:51,639
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, that would be a dream. If you

2757
02:21:51,719 --> 02:21:55,799
ever wanted to do an event together, I would love that.

2758
02:21:56,040 --> 02:21:58,719
Speaker 1: Yes, oh yeah, that'd be a great idea. Actually we

2759
02:21:58,760 --> 02:22:01,799
could probably find out the dream.

2760
02:22:02,040 --> 02:22:05,719
Speaker 2: I can bring people my my weird little wild snacks, cake,

2761
02:22:05,799 --> 02:22:09,239
warm turkies, so like a Laffel's made out of honey

2762
02:22:09,239 --> 02:22:10,520
locust beans.

2763
02:22:10,280 --> 02:22:14,280
Speaker 1: Damn, or like a walk like a plant walk or something. Yeah, fu,

2764
02:22:14,479 --> 02:22:17,440
that'd be fun. Oh great, Yeah, well let's yeah, let's

2765
02:22:17,440 --> 02:22:18,840
try to make it happen next year. They'd be cool,

2766
02:22:18,879 --> 02:22:21,200
that'd be really enjoyed. I love that so all right,

2767
02:22:21,239 --> 02:22:22,040
well before.

2768
02:22:21,920 --> 02:22:25,280
Speaker 2: The book comes out in September, I am purposefully taking

2769
02:22:25,319 --> 02:22:29,239
it easy. So book tour does not like end my life.

2770
02:22:29,639 --> 02:22:32,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, man, especially if you being on the road.

2771
02:22:32,719 --> 02:22:33,959
How long are you going to Are you gonna go

2772
02:22:34,000 --> 02:22:35,520
out for a little bit at a time and then

2773
02:22:35,559 --> 02:22:37,000
come back and then go out again. Are you going

2774
02:22:37,040 --> 02:22:38,920
to try and do one long book?

2775
02:22:39,600 --> 02:22:44,000
Speaker 2: Probably going to do like one one long book tour,

2776
02:22:44,959 --> 02:22:48,959
which yeah, very scary for me to think about. But

2777
02:22:49,840 --> 02:22:52,239
I'm always tired until the second that I walk into

2778
02:22:52,280 --> 02:22:54,239
the room and I get to start talking to people,

2779
02:22:54,479 --> 02:22:59,959
and then my energy always just skyrockets because the plant commune,

2780
02:23:00,120 --> 02:23:02,479
he's amazing. We're a fun bunch. Yeah.

2781
02:23:02,559 --> 02:23:04,879
Speaker 1: People get excited, man, God, I got I bet people

2782
02:23:04,920 --> 02:23:08,120
go go bat shit on your at your events too,

2783
02:23:08,159 --> 02:23:10,120
because people are there's so many people that be excited

2784
02:23:10,159 --> 02:23:12,120
as how to see you and you're just so high

2785
02:23:12,239 --> 02:23:15,360
energy anyway. But definitely make sure you take a day

2786
02:23:15,399 --> 02:23:18,000
off every couple of days too, so you can you know,

2787
02:23:18,040 --> 02:23:19,559
you don't get burnt out. I mean, I don't need

2788
02:23:19,600 --> 02:23:20,920
to tell you that. You know that, but I learned

2789
02:23:20,920 --> 02:23:22,360
that the hard way. I was going every day and

2790
02:23:22,399 --> 02:23:23,239
I was like, fuck, I needed.

2791
02:23:23,680 --> 02:23:27,440
Speaker 2: I know you. I was gonna say, are so busy?

2792
02:23:27,479 --> 02:23:29,479
You're here, there, and everywhere, and then you're in a

2793
02:23:29,479 --> 02:23:33,920
different country and you're posting all of these videos. I

2794
02:23:33,959 --> 02:23:37,799
frequently find myself wondering when you find time to relax.

2795
02:23:37,920 --> 02:23:39,440
Speaker 1: I need to just I don't think I do. I

2796
02:23:39,440 --> 02:23:41,280
don't know. I hang out with my kid and then say,

2797
02:23:41,319 --> 02:23:43,399
it's like hanging out with my kid and doing like

2798
02:23:43,479 --> 02:23:45,399
fun stuff. That's like my relax time. You know.

2799
02:23:46,040 --> 02:23:47,920
Speaker 2: Oh well that counts as relaxing.

2800
02:23:48,159 --> 02:23:50,840
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, but she's pretty high energy too, so I

2801
02:23:50,840 --> 02:23:54,600
don't really fuck hard to keep up with her. But anyway, well,

2802
02:23:54,639 --> 02:23:56,639
thanks so much. This is This has been great talking

2803
02:23:56,639 --> 02:23:57,479
to you boys.

2804
02:23:57,520 --> 02:24:00,479
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me. It was so great getting to

2805
02:24:00,600 --> 02:24:03,520
chat today. I was just like flowing by.

2806
02:24:03,319 --> 02:24:05,360
Speaker 1: So it's always yeah, man, I was. I looked and

2807
02:24:05,360 --> 02:24:08,799
I was like, oh two hours ship. That was fast. Anyway,

2808
02:24:08,840 --> 02:24:10,440
all right, Alexis, thanks again.

2809
02:24:11,360 --> 02:24:12,719
Speaker 2: Of course, talk to you soon.

2810
02:24:12,879 --> 02:24:15,639
Speaker 1: Okay, talk to you soon. Take care, bye bye