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Speaker 1: Hey, thanks for being a part of the conversation. This

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is Forest Stories. I am the Poet in the Forest,

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a children's series that I pinned out in the nineteen nineties. Now,

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none of it would be possible if it wasn't for

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this forest right here in South Charlotte, North Carolina. I

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talk about it so much that I thought maybe it's

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time that you get to know what has inspired me

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for thirty years. Thanks for being a part of the conversation.

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Welcome back to the forest. Great news. Yeah, we've talked

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about her so many times.

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Speaker 2: Her real name is Barbara, but we always called her

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the pig Lady because she had a pig, a gigantic

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pop belly pig, and I mean she would walk that

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pig like we walk our dogs through this forest. But

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we all thought something happened to Barbara. And what happened

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was is that she did lose her husband, and she

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we thought was also very sick, when in fact, she

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went home to Ohio and she just needed to be

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with somebody, her sisters and brothers, so that she could

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help heal and then and make her way back to

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the forest. I mean, I've fell over when I found

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that out that the pig Lady is coming back to

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the forest. I can't wait to sit down with her

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and share the stories to help her belong. I realized

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that she lost her husband. It's a tough time, but

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the goal is to let her feel welcome back into

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this forest and how much we missed her in the

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days that followed that transition. But I can't believe that

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the pig Lady is coming back because when Jazzi and

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I would walk through this forest, she would stand there

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and watch us. She would sit there and giggle and

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snort and just look at the way that Jazzy would playfully,

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you know, just kind of roll around on the forest floor.

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And she was never, you know, like an evil person,

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just a very, very calm woman who just happened to

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own a pot belly pig, I mean a huge pot

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belly pig in a forest. And if that doesn't inspire

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you to want to write a children's book, the pot

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belly Pig in the Forest, Oh my god, it just

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brings out the child in me. He thanks for being

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a part of the conversation.