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Speaker 1: All right, welcome to the crime pace of botany dozen podcasts.

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I'm excited for today's guests because I've been told by

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numerous listeners that I should have this guy on probably

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for a few months now. So with me today is

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Brad Lancaster, who specializes in rainwater harvest thing. I I

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just seen a Ted talk he did. He's get a

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Ted talk out there, which was fucking dope. I should

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mention too. It was very inspiring, I think for anyone

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that lives in a climate that's generally hot as balls,

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which certainly where I live and where you live both are.

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You're in Tucson, I'm in South Texas. And so what's

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the name of your book again, by the way, because

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I know you got a book on this.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So it's rainwater Harvesting for dry Lands and beyond.

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And then I've got two out. I've got the volume one,

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the starter book, and then the volume two for people

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that want to go in really deep. And I just

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came out with the new Spanish edition Cossetcha the augur

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yuvia Arizona Adi Porta.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Man, that's okay, that's that's what I'll need for

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my region. What so so, let's just I just want

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to get right into it.

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Speaker 2: Man.

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Speaker 1: So how did you get into this? And because I'm

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coming at this from you know, my whole thing I've

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been talking about for a while is plants are infrastructure.

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Let's get away from this this you know, horticultural atrocity

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mindset where plants are Oh, that's just pretty landscaping. We

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just need something pretty to put in the back to

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It looks pretty that, you know, that wedding backdrop idea

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of plants, where it's like, no, they're actual, actually essential infrastructure.

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They mitigate flooding, they mitigate the urban heat island effect,

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and that's like, that seems to be all of what

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you're about, as well as actually, you know, intelligently building

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infrastructure in dry areas so that we're not just pumping groundwater,

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which is not a renewable resource. You know. So how

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did you get in all this?

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Speaker 2: Yes, I'd say, uh, you know, it's kind of with

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some childhood stuff we can come back to. But when

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my brother and I we bought this about to be

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condemned house together just on the north side of downtown

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Tucson because that's the only thing we could afford, and

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there was almost nothing growing on it. And the neighborhood

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was amazing, just a real diverse neighborhood with an interesting history.

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But the streetscapes were just barren and you didn't want

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to be out and about, or you might see a

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neighbor and talk to a neighbor because it was just

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so hot and exposed. So in talk with neighbors, everyone

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wanted they want more trees, they wanted more life in

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the neighborhood. And being much younger at the time, I

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had a ton of energy. I thought, well, all right,

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I'll help organize a tree planting project. But then I

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heard more of the history from the neighbors. So like

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one of my elder neighbors, she said that she used

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to be able to walk downtown and back barefoot in

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the middle of the day in the summer. How did

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you do that without scalding your feet? And she said, well,

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it used to be lined with trees. The streets were

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lined with trees. I said, well, what happened to the trees.

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They're not any now, and she explained, well, she couldn't

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remember what happened. She said, I guess they kind of

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died out over time. So I looked at the Historic

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Society at old photos and they are mostly exotic China

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berry trees. They weren't native trees. They're all exotics.

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Speaker 1: Oh god, yeah it is.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. And so when people stopped watering, stopped caring for it,

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they just died out. So I thought, okay, well, how

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can we do better? And we looked to the We

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only had to walk out into the desert outside of

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Tucson and see there's all these amazing native trees that

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are doing just fine without anybody's care. So that, well,

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let's do that. But there was no program at the

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time in the city that planted native trees. In fact,

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there was a program that's still going today called Trees

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for Tucson, but they only offered exotic plants, so they

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probably really should have been called Trees for some other place.

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But thankfully and working with them, Doug Coppinger, the guy

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who was working with him at the time, he said, hey,

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if you want to add a couple native trees to

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the list, we'll get those for you. So I kind

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of went overboard and I erased all the non native

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trees from the list and I added nine native trees.

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And he was cool about it. He said Okay, we'll

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just consider this little pilot project. And we planted two

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hundred trees that first year, and we've since planted over

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eighteen hundred trees in the neighborhood. And the amazing thing

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is we've found the native bird LIFs come back. One

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of my elder neighbors, Maria, she said that this used

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to be a really quiet neighborhood, meaning there was no

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bird song. And she said, now she loves it because

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every morning the birds are out there singing and all

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because we've brought back their native habitat. So that that's

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kind of how we got going. But then and we

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started planting the rain when we planted the trees, but

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we i was still learning, so we didn't do it

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big enough, we didn't do it good enough, but it

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was better enough and it was a start. So we

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just plant these little three foot diameter six inch deep

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basins in which we'd put the trees, and so then

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when it rained, you'd have a good puddle of free

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rain water that would infiltrate for the tree. But we

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quickly realized that when we'd get a good storm, the

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streets would flow like rivers and the water would just

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flow right by our little basins and which were perched

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higher than the street. We realized, oh man, we're missing

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the boat. So we started expanding, deepening our basins, and

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then we started to divert the water from the street

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into the street side basins.

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Speaker 1: Wait wait, hold on, So these you're talking about what

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people call colloquially the hell strip between the sidewalk and

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the street, correct, right, yeah, full on.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And so you were digging basin so that the water

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wouldn't just run off, so that it would actually collect

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and then infiltrate the ground. But the water would also

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I mean, all that surface area of the road would

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just collect the water, turn into a gutter essentially, and

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the rain would just go right by it into the sewers.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So with our little three foot diameter six

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inch basin, you know, we were capturing I don't know,

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maybe how many gallons, maybe fifty to one hundred gallons

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of water, but what we saw flowing down the street

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was just thousands upon thousands of gallons.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, all that surface man just collecting water.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So we're like, ah, man, well let's use the

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street to water the street trees for free, just by

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redirecting that street. Runoff off the street where it's not

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doing any good. Unlet's direct it into the street side

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hellscape and turn it into a heaven escape. And so

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we started by doing this where there were these dips

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in the curb where there were or had been driveways,

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and so we just brought the basins to that dip

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in the curb and that worked fantastic. Oh the trees growth,

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it tripled, the growth rate tripled. They were way more

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vibrant productive. So then we got on we got to

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do more this, but there's not enough dips in the curb,

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there's not enough driveways. So we realized we had to

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cut the curbs to make stormwater inlets to pull it

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off the street into the hellscape becoming heavenscape.

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Speaker 1: Yes, I think I seen a video of this and

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it looks awesome. It was like rain water running down

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the curb side gutter basically and then being channeled into

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a tree basin. Yep.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so we we we said, okay, well we got

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to start cutting curbs. But that was illegal at the time,

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but I think a better term is it was just

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pre legal. It hadn't been legalized.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go. That's a good way to look

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at it right. They just you were just showing them

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how to do it right. They didn't know yah, so

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you were just helping them.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So we considered our little project to be an

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experimental pilot project. And that's the amazing thing about pilot

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projects I encourage people to do that is they have

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they are going to be illegal when they start, because

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you're typically doing something differently than is the norm, and

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that's why it's an experiment. And if you're doing something

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like cutting the curbs for storm water harvesting, and if

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it's at the time illegal, well you have to break

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the law to show that the law is messed up

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and it needs to be changed. So so that's what

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we were trying to do. So on a Sunday morning,

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when no one from the city was watching, we rented

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a fourteen inch circular saw, gas powered and we cut

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the curb and that worked great. And then the neighbors

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they saw how our trees were just thriving and they said, look,

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we don't even see you guys watering. Why are your

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trees doing so much better than ours? And we showed him.

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We said, well, this is what we did. We cut

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the curve and they said, well, we want to do that,

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but it was since it was still pre legal. We

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it took me a while. I was actually scared to

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approach the city. I thought we might get fined and whatnot,

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and I couldn't I couldn't afford that to pay any fine.

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So it took me three years, no more than that.

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It took me almost eight years before I approach the city.

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And when I finally did, it took three years of

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meetings and we finally legalized it. And so now not

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only is it legal, and we kept working with the

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city and we got it to be incentivized so you

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can get a two thousand dollars rebate for doing this,

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and then we got a mandated so a new road

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construction and major road renovation. They have to do this.

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And not that they're always doing it right. Everyone's still learning,

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but it's at least starting to move in the right direction.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's incredible that I'm so envious that you

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live in a place where that was possible. I mean,

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I guess it's possible where I live too, but there's

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just so much I mean, I'm only saying this half jokingly.

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People hate trees where I live. It's the hottest climate too.

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It's the hottest climate. And I think, you know, because

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people are so disconnected that they just they look at

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the quote and they just I mean, this is all

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in doctrination. It's the result of complete societal indoctrination and

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disconnection from nature. But they see the mess and they

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don't realize like, oh wow, the shade or the fact

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that I mean, let alone the urban heat island, man,

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I mean that that is insanity like it. You know,

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it takes a six inch slab of asphalt fifteen hours

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to cool off from one hundred and fifty degrees fahrenheit

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to ambient air temperature. And so it starts cooling off

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at night, and then the whole time it's just radiating heat,

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becoming a space heater, making ever the whole rest surrounding

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area hotter than what otherwise would be and preventing the

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area from cooling off. And then you know, by six am,

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the sun's already coming up again and recharging it up

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with heat. And so that's I mean, that's how the

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heat island works. I don't need to explain this to you,

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of course, this is just for anybody listening. Yeah, yeah,

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you know. But the way you prevent that is you

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prevent the ground from getting heated up in the first

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place with shade, by shading it, whether it's a pergola

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or better yet, native tree. So did you encounter was

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I mean, was there resistance at first or did you.

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Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, there's a lot of resistance. So in fact,

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so we're we're right on the northern edge of downtown Tucson,

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and there's a number of organizations in our neighborhood that

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house and feed the homeless population, and so there was

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a lot of fear among some neighbors that if they

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planted a tree, it would just become a camp site

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for homeless. And I said, well, why do you I

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asked them, I said, why do you think that would

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be the case? And they said, well, because it would

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be nice and cool under the tree, and that's where

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they'd want to hang out. So then I asked them, well,

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well where do you want to hang out? And they said, well,

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I'd like to hang out in a nice, comfortable place.

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They go, yeah, so this is about you, this is

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about your neighbors. How do we make this more comfortable

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and more inviting for those of us that are here

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right now and wouldn't you rather live in that than

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a prison yard?

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Speaker 1: You know, it's just barren Jesus Christ. It's just it's

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so the lack of logic, I mean, the whole whatever.

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I mean. And we don't need to get into this,

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of course, because we just want to. We just want

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to get other people thinking like this. But that logic

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is so deranged and just fucked up.

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Speaker 2: You know.

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Speaker 1: It's like we can't, we can't have nice things because

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then we'll get a homeless person hanging out on earth.

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Tell them to leave, it's your yard whatever for whatever?

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Just are you that inept at navigating through life? Are

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you not a fucking adult? Like, tell them to leave?

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You get a tweaker hanging out in your You think

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a tweaker is just gonna go hang out, you know,

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on the hellscape, you know, and if they do, chase

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them off whatever. I mean, it's just you know, because

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this is it's the same reasoning like, oh, I don't

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I don't want the trees because they make a mess. Well,

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sweep the fucking sidewalk. You sweep the sidewalk? What what

252
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are you? Your paraplegic? You don't have you know, like

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the benefit is that now you have a nice place

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to live and look out your front window on whatever. Anyway, Yeah, sorry, man,

255
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it drives me nuts. It's so unthinking. And then you know,

256
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never mind acting like you know, we could just live

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in air conditioning for the rest of our lives and

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be totally disconnected from the world around us. The water

259
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is always going to be there, of course, you can

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have a say in Augustine Lawn when it's one hundred

261
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degrees for eleven months out of the year, all you

262
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got to do is water it just turn on the irrigation, right, Well,

263
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what happens when the water runs out? Okay? Sorry, So

264
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moving forward when you I'm curious what happened when you

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brought this up to the city, because, as you would imagine,

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I think, especially when it comes to city employees or

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city leaders, it's hard to think a few people that

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are more disconnected, unfortunately, from biological and ecological reality. Right

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they went in, Yeah, they probably graduated with a business degree.

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Maybe they're a small business owner, maybe they maybe they're

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a lawyer or so. They have no idea about any thing. No,

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it's very possible they have no education about anything biological

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or ecological around him. So what what did you How

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did you go about this man?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so I started by seeking out the friendly moles

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in the system. So I tried to find people that

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would be receptive to these ideas or at least open

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to hearing them. And so thankfully a friend of mine,

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Anne Audrey, worked for what was at the time the

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city's Department of Sustainability, and so she was great, she

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was all in on this. So I talked with her,

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and then she knew more people on the inside she

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was working with the city, so she found others that

284
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could be potential allies. So then when she set up

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the first meeting we were we knew we had some

286
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allies there along with folks that definitely were not allies.

287
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They were very doubtful of it. So my first approach

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was actually kind of addressing the issues. You say, some

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people they think trees are a mess. So I wanted

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to address that kind of stuff by asking I mean,

291
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I didn't start by asking, hey, can we get curb cuts?

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Instead started to meet by asking the city officials what

293
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are your biggest issues along neighborhood streets? And they said, well,

294
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we've got the so called mess when we've got leaf

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drop and stuff. We've got potholes, we've got crime, it's

296
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excessive heat, we've got heat related illness, we've got speeding

297
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traffic and the resulting accidents and so forth. So I said, okay, well,

298
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that's that's good to hear. I experience all those in

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my neighborhood, and we're trying to address those that in

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a way that won't cost the city any money, but

301
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in a way that the citizens, the neighbors. We're doing

302
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the actions, we're doing the stewarding, so it doesn't cost

303
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a city any money, but it benefits everybody. So, first off,

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in terms of that's so called mess of leaf drop,

305
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by planting within these water harvesting basins, we create low

306
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spots and everything moves with gravity water leaf drop, So

307
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we create the spots where we want the leaves to gather.

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Leaves are called leaves because we're supposed to leave them

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so they can help build the soil and fertility. So

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they're not collecting on the path or the street. They're

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instead collecting within the basin. That creates that sponge like malt.

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It more rapidly absorbs the storm water and thereby we

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don't have puddles and since we don't have puddles, we

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don't have mosquitoes because the water infiltrates in twelve hours

315
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or less, and mosquitoes need three days of standing water

316
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to go from egg to adult, so we're addressing that issue.

317
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So then by shading the streets, we're reducing the vaporization

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of the asphalt, so we're reducing cracking and potholing of

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the asphalt. And then by pulling the storm water off

320
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the street, we're further reducing potholes because you don't have

321
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that water pouring through the cracks and whatnot. So we're

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getting it off the street where it's a liability, on

323
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the street side where it's an asset. And then we're

324
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getting neighbors out there doing this together, so then they

325
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get to know one another and they're not strangers anymore.

326
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So more people get to know one another, they become

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friends or at least acquaintances, and they look out for

328
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one another. So that helps to curb crime. And then

329
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when they're out there, you know, tending the trees or whatnot,

330
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they're also picking up litter, so and getting shade as

331
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they grow. That's helping cool things off. And we don't

332
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have as much heat island or sorry, heat island or

333
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heat related illnesses. So people started to open up.

334
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Speaker 1: Yeah, but we.

335
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Speaker 2: Still had a number of the traffic engineers that were

336
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very resistant because all their books that they had studied

337
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say you don't want water in the streets. So thankfully

338
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Frank Susa, who was at the time the head of

339
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the city stormwater Control department, before the meeting, he had

340
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gone around the city and taken all these photos of unconscious,

341
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unplanned stormwater harvesting curb cuts where maybe a road had

342
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been built and they stopped building the curb for some reason,

343
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or maybe it had been busted out in a car

344
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accident at some point, but water was coming off the

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street into these street side swales and it was growing vegetation,

346
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and these things had been in place for decades. And

347
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he said, look, there's no damage to the roads here.

348
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Everything's fine.

349
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Speaker 1: Wait wait, wait, I'm in fuse though, So what what

350
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is the thinking that Why does traffic engineers, why do

351
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they not want water on the road. That doesn't make

352
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any sense. Why are they worried about that?

353
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Speaker 2: So they're worried that if you if you're infiltrating storm

354
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water within the road or next to the road. That

355
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moisture is then going to migrate, migrate under the asphalt,

356
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and then you might get the compacted subsoil to subside

357
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or sink somewhat. You might get roots growing under the

358
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asphalt and then eventually heaving the asphalt. It's they're just

359
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worried about the integrity of the road base.

360
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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, how is the water going to get under there?

361
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I don't understand that by going through the side or what.

362
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Speaker 2: Well if so, when we when we make a hole

363
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in the street curb and pull water into a street

364
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side basin, it's lower than the street. All that soil

365
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within the basin fills, you know, get saturated with water

366
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storm So they're worried it's going to continue to migrate

367
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and saturate under the road base. And this is why

368
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we said, well, we're not just doing stormwater basins. We're

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creating a living system, and you have to have the

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plants as part of the system as the living pumps, so.

371
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Speaker 1: They use the water that's under there exactly.

372
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Speaker 2: So we're saying that's why this is hand in hand

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with our native tree planting program, so the tree will

374
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be pumping up the water. Bappo transpiring the water and

375
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also the bulk of the root growth is going to

376
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be where the bulk of the moisture is, which is

377
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not under the road, it's road side within these basins.

378
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So some started to consider that, and then with Frank

379
00:21:50,400 --> 00:21:56,000
Seussa's examples that were decades old, we got further along.

380
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So eventually it took three years. Not that it has

381
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to take this long, but they eventually legalized it after

382
00:22:03,880 --> 00:22:05,119
a whole series of meetings.

383
00:22:05,160 --> 00:22:07,359
Speaker 1: God, where I live, it would take a fucking decade. Man,

384
00:22:07,440 --> 00:22:10,640
I just feel like there's just so much resistance here.

385
00:22:10,640 --> 00:22:14,440
Its it's I mean, explain, that's a good angle too, explaining,

386
00:22:14,519 --> 00:22:20,079
like explaining how heating up asphalt leads to further degradation,

387
00:22:20,279 --> 00:22:22,359
Like when it's just out there and there's no shade

388
00:22:22,759 --> 00:22:24,680
covering the road, that means you have to repair the

389
00:22:24,759 --> 00:22:27,680
road more often than you would otherwise because you're essentially

390
00:22:27,759 --> 00:22:31,480
cooking all of that, leading to cracks and fractures and potholes.

391
00:22:33,079 --> 00:22:34,880
That's a new angle. I'm gonna try that. Thank you

392
00:22:34,960 --> 00:22:37,359
for helping me add that to my arsenal. But for me,

393
00:22:37,519 --> 00:22:39,759
it's just the heat. I mean, I will see these

394
00:22:39,839 --> 00:22:42,839
strips where I live, and I think, you know, you

395
00:22:42,880 --> 00:22:46,279
guys get individually hotter days. But where we live, where

396
00:22:46,279 --> 00:22:48,240
I live, I live on the border in South Texas.

397
00:22:48,240 --> 00:22:51,000
When Renosa has a garbage fire, which is every night,

398
00:22:51,400 --> 00:22:53,839
I can smell the burning plastic, Like that's how close

399
00:22:53,880 --> 00:22:57,799
I am, right, So, but where I live, it's I

400
00:22:57,799 --> 00:22:59,960
think it's hotter. Where I live. We have more cumuls

401
00:23:00,160 --> 00:23:02,559
of heat throughout the year. It was like eighty five

402
00:23:02,720 --> 00:23:07,759
on Christmas. It's ninety five today. You know, you guys

403
00:23:07,799 --> 00:23:10,839
actually get chili winters. It's for eleven months out of

404
00:23:10,880 --> 00:23:13,920
the year. It's one hundred degrees fahrenheit here, ninety five

405
00:23:13,960 --> 00:23:16,240
to one hundred. And we've got humidity because we're kind

406
00:23:16,240 --> 00:23:17,960
of close to the Gulf. I'm like two hours from

407
00:23:17,960 --> 00:23:20,880
the Gulf, and so try I will see these strips

408
00:23:20,920 --> 00:23:24,200
of road like God, the McKellen shopping district, it's when

409
00:23:24,240 --> 00:23:26,240
I get the Hell. That's gonna be one version. It's

410
00:23:26,240 --> 00:23:30,880
the most bleak, treeless. It's just asphalt and mode turf

411
00:23:30,960 --> 00:23:33,680
grass on the Hell strip. And it just you see

412
00:23:33,680 --> 00:23:35,920
this there and you see the bright sun, and you

413
00:23:36,400 --> 00:23:41,119
look at the thermometer and it's ninety eight degrees fahrenheit,

414
00:23:41,240 --> 00:23:44,000
and you realize, and you look at all these cars

415
00:23:44,039 --> 00:23:46,960
sitting in traffic because there's just too many cars here too,

416
00:23:47,400 --> 00:23:49,599
and all the windows are rolled up. And then those

417
00:23:49,640 --> 00:23:53,079
cars are space heaters too, essentially because they're generating heat

418
00:23:53,079 --> 00:23:56,039
from the AC and the engine. And you realize, wow,

419
00:23:56,079 --> 00:23:58,440
this is just a giant I'm just living on a

420
00:23:58,480 --> 00:24:01,200
space heater. This is insane, Like this is at a

421
00:24:01,240 --> 00:24:03,880
single bird in the sky. It's bleak as hell. It's

422
00:24:03,880 --> 00:24:09,359
just plastic science, commercialism, billboards and cars. And I realized, like,

423
00:24:10,000 --> 00:24:13,640
not only like the mental and psychological effects that living

424
00:24:13,720 --> 00:24:16,480
in a landscape like that has on a person, but

425
00:24:16,680 --> 00:24:19,599
just the physical effects too. Like we didn't evolve to

426
00:24:19,640 --> 00:24:24,640
spend our lives sitting trapped inside cars, right, We evolved

427
00:24:24,640 --> 00:24:28,799
to be running and chasing things and walking around, you know,

428
00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:33,559
And your body starts literally degrading when you're not using it.

429
00:24:33,559 --> 00:24:37,160
It does. You hit a certain age, your body starts degrading,

430
00:24:37,240 --> 00:24:39,000
and you know what, going to the gym for an

431
00:24:39,039 --> 00:24:41,440
hour is not going to do anything. Like it'll do

432
00:24:41,480 --> 00:24:43,279
a little bit, but that's not going to save you

433
00:24:43,359 --> 00:24:46,519
from heart disease. It's not going to save you from depression,

434
00:24:47,160 --> 00:24:49,359
you know. And a lot of people, especially men, when

435
00:24:49,400 --> 00:24:51,160
they go to the gym here, they don't do cardio.

436
00:24:51,240 --> 00:24:53,319
They just lift weights because they want to look tough,

437
00:24:53,359 --> 00:24:55,799
you know. So it's it's a very bleak. It's a

438
00:24:55,880 --> 00:25:00,839
very very bleak. But you know, what you're showing me

439
00:25:01,079 --> 00:25:03,400
is that it doesn't have to be like this. There's hope,

440
00:25:03,480 --> 00:25:07,160
like and it really does come down to just planting

441
00:25:07,200 --> 00:25:11,640
some fucking trees and using intelligent infrastructure. And it's crazy

442
00:25:11,680 --> 00:25:13,200
because where I live, you guys, what do you say

443
00:25:13,200 --> 00:25:14,480
eleven inches of rainy year?

444
00:25:14,799 --> 00:25:15,079
Speaker 2: Yeah?

445
00:25:15,160 --> 00:25:17,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, we get twenty two. Man, Like, we're not even

446
00:25:17,759 --> 00:25:21,720
a desert like the the you know, Peyote and starkeack.

447
00:25:21,759 --> 00:25:23,359
It's in all these cool cacti. I grow half an

448
00:25:23,400 --> 00:25:25,799
hour from where I live. But we're not even a desert.

449
00:25:25,839 --> 00:25:26,000
Speaker 2: Man.

450
00:25:26,039 --> 00:25:29,279
Speaker 1: We get enough rain. There's no excuse. And we you know,

451
00:25:29,359 --> 00:25:32,319
the thing, the way we've been doing things is just insane.

452
00:25:32,480 --> 00:25:36,400
It's insane. It's unthinking and it's insane, and it's just

453
00:25:36,759 --> 00:25:38,559
it's like this because it's just the way we've done

454
00:25:38,559 --> 00:25:39,960
It's just the way you do it. It's just the

455
00:25:39,960 --> 00:25:42,039
way it's always been. It's just the way you do it.

456
00:25:42,039 --> 00:25:45,160
There's no there's no like intellect, but apply a little

457
00:25:45,160 --> 00:25:49,000
bit of intellect and it'll go a long way. So yeah,

458
00:25:49,000 --> 00:25:50,880
this is really great to talk about. To see the

459
00:25:50,920 --> 00:25:53,799
thing that I'm I'm like, how do you work on

460
00:25:53,920 --> 00:25:56,880
people who who don't understand this yet? Because I was

461
00:25:56,920 --> 00:25:59,319
trying to plant street trees where I live and they

462
00:25:59,319 --> 00:26:01,720
told me I couldn't do it. I had to pull

463
00:26:01,960 --> 00:26:04,519
I had a nine person meeting with city hall just

464
00:26:04,559 --> 00:26:07,079
to plant the street tree across the street from my house.

465
00:26:07,640 --> 00:26:09,799
It took nine people. They even had a cop there.

466
00:26:09,799 --> 00:26:11,319
I don't know if they were intimidated by me or

467
00:26:11,359 --> 00:26:13,920
something or what, but it was like and I just

468
00:26:14,000 --> 00:26:16,960
I explained the heat island to them, and I explained

469
00:26:17,000 --> 00:26:19,039
why we need street trees, and I explained why we

470
00:26:19,119 --> 00:26:22,119
use natives because they they evolved here over millions of years.

471
00:26:22,119 --> 00:26:25,920
They were literally built and naturally selected for via evolution

472
00:26:26,640 --> 00:26:29,920
by the by the circumstances here, by the climate circumstance here.

473
00:26:30,400 --> 00:26:32,359
And uh and I got them, I think, just to

474
00:26:32,519 --> 00:26:34,079
you know, throw me a bone and get me out

475
00:26:34,079 --> 00:26:36,319
of there. They said, you can plant one tree and

476
00:26:36,359 --> 00:26:37,880
that's it. And I was like, I don't want to stop.

477
00:26:37,920 --> 00:26:40,279
I want to keep doing this. We need trees here,

478
00:26:40,400 --> 00:26:42,799
like we've this is the ugliest place I've ever lived.

479
00:26:42,839 --> 00:26:44,400
We need to do this. It doesn't need to be

480
00:26:44,519 --> 00:26:45,920
like this, you know.

481
00:26:46,319 --> 00:26:51,039
Speaker 2: So I would say that bleakness is your your hidden asset,

482
00:26:52,839 --> 00:26:56,799
so because you can't make it any worse. So anything

483
00:26:56,839 --> 00:26:58,920
you do, you going to make it better.

484
00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:02,640
Speaker 1: Don't underestimate South Texas. They can always I'm sure they

485
00:27:02,680 --> 00:27:06,160
could figure out a way like led the billboards, more

486
00:27:06,200 --> 00:27:08,519
billboards could make it where they could do that, you know.

487
00:27:09,480 --> 00:27:12,319
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you're not going to make it any worse, right,

488
00:27:12,400 --> 00:27:18,319
And so the where that was kind of our hidden

489
00:27:19,119 --> 00:27:22,759
asset as well. So the neighborhood that I live in.

490
00:27:22,920 --> 00:27:25,200
When my brother and I moved here in nineteen ninety four,

491
00:27:26,240 --> 00:27:29,119
it was a long forgotten neighborhood because this is one

492
00:27:29,160 --> 00:27:32,680
of the few neighborhoods in the Tucson area that was

493
00:27:32,759 --> 00:27:37,400
never redlined. So in the years of segregation, you could

494
00:27:37,400 --> 00:27:41,960
not own or rent property in the majority of Tucson

495
00:27:42,400 --> 00:27:45,599
if you were of color or weren't of the Christian faith.

496
00:27:46,960 --> 00:27:53,599
But in this neighborhood anyone could live, work, play, own, rent, pray.

497
00:27:53,759 --> 00:27:57,640
It didn't matter. So but as a result, though with

498
00:27:57,680 --> 00:28:02,359
those freedoms came the city not investing in this neighborhood,

499
00:28:02,839 --> 00:28:06,880
so we didn't have sidewalks for the most part, whereas

500
00:28:06,920 --> 00:28:13,279
the adjoining neighborhoods did, and we turned that into an asset.

501
00:28:13,880 --> 00:28:18,279
So when I cut the curbs, no one from the

502
00:28:18,319 --> 00:28:21,359
city noticed, even you know, I did it on Sunday morning.

503
00:28:21,400 --> 00:28:24,079
But then for years after, nobody noticed because nobody was

504
00:28:24,119 --> 00:28:28,400
watching this neighborhood like yeah, whatever, They didn't see value

505
00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:32,759
in it. So as a result, like going into what

506
00:28:32,880 --> 00:28:36,279
maybe some in the city considered an armpit of Tucson,

507
00:28:36,400 --> 00:28:40,440
but I considered a gem, we I think had more

508
00:28:40,519 --> 00:28:43,920
leeway to start. I think it might be harder to

509
00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:47,359
start in a place that's looking, I don't know, more,

510
00:28:47,799 --> 00:28:49,920
it's perceived to have more value.

511
00:28:50,319 --> 00:28:56,680
Speaker 1: There's more members of a square community, you mean, yeah, yeah, right, yeah, yeah, yeah,

512
00:28:56,680 --> 00:28:58,599
more to phrases and shit, yeah no, I get it,

513
00:28:58,640 --> 00:29:00,359
I get you. Yeah, And I think you know, where

514
00:29:00,400 --> 00:29:02,160
I live, it's kind of weird because it's it's an

515
00:29:02,200 --> 00:29:06,880
older neighborhood and there's you know, it's actually like middle

516
00:29:06,920 --> 00:29:11,359
class to lower income. It's not super fancy, but still,

517
00:29:11,519 --> 00:29:13,759
you know, I think there's we get busy bodies, and

518
00:29:13,799 --> 00:29:15,799
there's old people that just don't have to do and

519
00:29:15,839 --> 00:29:20,920
they're you know, they're grumpy and miserable, you know. I've

520
00:29:21,000 --> 00:29:22,920
just it's just the thing I've noticed in this neighborhood,

521
00:29:22,960 --> 00:29:24,599
like a lot of the older people are just not

522
00:29:24,720 --> 00:29:27,640
that happy and and so they just you know, they're

523
00:29:27,640 --> 00:29:29,920
out there peeking with the blinds and complaining to the

524
00:29:29,960 --> 00:29:32,160
city about stuff that doesn't matter. I don't know, but

525
00:29:32,480 --> 00:29:35,440
I'm definitely going to work this more. And you know,

526
00:29:35,759 --> 00:29:40,319
obviously requires code switching and working, you know, especially if

527
00:29:40,359 --> 00:29:43,319
you look like me, and uh, you know, but I

528
00:29:43,359 --> 00:29:45,079
think I think it can be done. But I'm the

529
00:29:45,119 --> 00:29:47,279
other thing I'm curious though, too, is so when you

530
00:29:47,319 --> 00:29:51,279
guys were doing this, the you were digging out basins,

531
00:29:51,319 --> 00:29:54,519
so you've got like a hell strip was you're saying

532
00:29:54,519 --> 00:29:56,839
there was a sidewalk there or wasn't, but the area

533
00:29:57,000 --> 00:30:00,160
was the whole area was below grade or at street light. Well,

534
00:30:00,200 --> 00:30:03,599
because a typical neighborhood the curb is what like eight

535
00:30:03,640 --> 00:30:05,960
to ten inches above street level, right.

536
00:30:06,400 --> 00:30:09,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's how it was here, So we did not

537
00:30:09,839 --> 00:30:14,440
have sidewalks, but everything was above the street by eight inches.

538
00:30:14,559 --> 00:30:16,440
Speaker 1: So you guys would dig the basins out or what.

539
00:30:17,559 --> 00:30:19,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we dug the basins deeper than the street.

540
00:30:20,400 --> 00:30:22,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, because that's that I mean, when I'm planting trees here,

541
00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:25,839
that's the thing I do is I'll dig out. It's

542
00:30:25,880 --> 00:30:28,200
like the opposite of what they teach you in like

543
00:30:28,240 --> 00:30:30,839
a you know, if you go to like a you know,

544
00:30:31,079 --> 00:30:34,839
a community college horticulture class and like a more northerly latitude,

545
00:30:34,880 --> 00:30:36,400
they're going to tell you, oh, you'll mound up the

546
00:30:36,440 --> 00:30:40,160
tree and make sure the root flare is above the

547
00:30:40,680 --> 00:30:42,519
Like no, no, no, where I live, you need to

548
00:30:42,519 --> 00:30:44,839
make sure that there's like a pit around there. You know,

549
00:30:44,920 --> 00:30:46,839
it's like kind of planted in a bowl so that

550
00:30:46,880 --> 00:30:50,000
the water actually infiltrates, because it might not be another

551
00:30:50,119 --> 00:30:52,279
month before you get a rain, two or three months

552
00:30:52,319 --> 00:30:55,720
before you get another rain. So so that you're talking

553
00:30:55,759 --> 00:30:57,400
about that's what you were doing as well, you were

554
00:30:57,440 --> 00:31:01,319
because you know, yeah, planting out basically.

555
00:31:01,680 --> 00:31:06,160
Speaker 2: We've since orfined it. So the key thing is to

556
00:31:06,160 --> 00:31:08,039
put the right plant in the right place and the

557
00:31:08,279 --> 00:31:13,359
right microclimate. So there are some species that you find

558
00:31:13,519 --> 00:31:18,880
growing in the arroyos and natural ephemeral waterways. Those can

559
00:31:19,039 --> 00:31:22,000
be in the bottom of the basin. But then there's

560
00:31:22,079 --> 00:31:25,559
other species you find might be on the banks but

561
00:31:25,680 --> 00:31:29,799
not in the arroyo, so those we put on the terrace.

562
00:31:29,839 --> 00:31:33,920
So we create three planting zones in our rain gardens.

563
00:31:34,200 --> 00:31:37,039
So we've got the bottom zone that's the most water

564
00:31:37,160 --> 00:31:41,640
tolerant and cold tolerant plants because cold air in the

565
00:31:41,640 --> 00:31:45,519
winter nights pools in the low spots. And then we

566
00:31:45,680 --> 00:31:50,680
plant the less water needy tolerant species on the terrace,

567
00:31:50,839 --> 00:31:54,119
so basically on the bank of the basin. And then

568
00:31:54,559 --> 00:31:57,440
the least water tolerant needy species we plant on the

569
00:31:57,480 --> 00:32:00,599
top so that's not in the basin but right next

570
00:32:00,599 --> 00:32:06,000
to it, and that way everything thrives. And when I've

571
00:32:06,039 --> 00:32:08,640
had the same thing that you've heard from the folks

572
00:32:09,000 --> 00:32:11,960
back east, saying you got everything mounded and don't cover

573
00:32:12,000 --> 00:32:15,960
the root flare, so to which I've just responded, I go, well, look,

574
00:32:15,960 --> 00:32:21,200
here's photographs of this tree species growing in in Arrolio

575
00:32:21,440 --> 00:32:24,200
where it's space, the tree is inundated with storm water.

576
00:32:24,319 --> 00:32:27,079
It's doing fine. It's been there for decades. Yeah, so

577
00:32:27,960 --> 00:32:32,279
you can refute those arguments with real life proof.

578
00:32:32,720 --> 00:32:36,559
Speaker 1: Yeah it's not Pennsylvania, buddy, Okay, it's a little different.

579
00:32:36,839 --> 00:32:39,640
You know. I could pour you know, forty gallons of

580
00:32:39,680 --> 00:32:42,559
water on this thing, and the top inch of soil

581
00:32:42,559 --> 00:32:45,519
will be dry in six hours, like the bone dry

582
00:32:45,559 --> 00:32:46,359
in six hours.

583
00:32:46,359 --> 00:32:46,640
Speaker 2: Like you know.

584
00:32:46,680 --> 00:32:48,519
Speaker 1: I've been doing this a while. Yeah. I was crazy

585
00:32:48,720 --> 00:32:50,640
when I posted a video of myself plant in a

586
00:32:50,680 --> 00:32:53,240
street tree and people were like, oh, you planted that

587
00:32:53,359 --> 00:32:56,960
way to wait too low, And I was like, okay, man, whatever,

588
00:32:57,079 --> 00:32:59,640
you know, just you know, we're not an Iwy anymore.

589
00:32:59,680 --> 00:33:01,759
This is this is like the border Lands. It's a

590
00:33:01,839 --> 00:33:05,039
totally different thing down here. But yeah, I mean that's

591
00:33:05,039 --> 00:33:07,119
the thing. I you know, because I would plant stuff

592
00:33:07,160 --> 00:33:11,680
and we have like a number of public gardens nearby

593
00:33:12,279 --> 00:33:14,279
where we planted stuff, and one is on a mild

594
00:33:14,359 --> 00:33:16,000
slope and you water it and you can see the

595
00:33:16,039 --> 00:33:19,240
water just run right off. I mean it's barren. So

596
00:33:19,400 --> 00:33:21,920
you go to the thorn forest here and it's barren soil,

597
00:33:22,039 --> 00:33:24,559
you know. I mean I think where you you know,

598
00:33:24,559 --> 00:33:26,240
because I spend a lot of time in Tucson, it's

599
00:33:26,240 --> 00:33:30,960
mostly like gravelly igneous soil there. Right Yeah, here it's

600
00:33:31,000 --> 00:33:36,319
all it's like clay and silt and you just see

601
00:33:36,440 --> 00:33:40,359
like fine particled clay and silt, calcareous silt, and there's

602
00:33:40,400 --> 00:33:45,799
no igneous like anywhere around here. And you'll see the water.

603
00:33:45,880 --> 00:33:47,559
I mean, you go out to the thorn scrub and

604
00:33:47,559 --> 00:33:50,279
you will see just literal barren patches of dirt where

605
00:33:50,279 --> 00:33:53,119
there's nothing growing there, maybe like a soil crust like

606
00:33:53,279 --> 00:33:58,160
this black bacteria forms the soil crust film, not nostock,

607
00:33:58,240 --> 00:34:00,759
it's another one. And then you'll see like likings. But

608
00:34:00,839 --> 00:34:04,079
it's it's crazy. I mean, it's so bizarre here. When

609
00:34:04,079 --> 00:34:06,640
I first came to the Rio Grande Valley in twenty fourteen,

610
00:34:07,240 --> 00:34:08,960
you know, I came here to check out some of

611
00:34:08,960 --> 00:34:11,039
the native cactus species, because you've got all these rare

612
00:34:11,039 --> 00:34:13,119
plants that don't grow anywhere else in the United States.

613
00:34:13,679 --> 00:34:15,440
How they don't grow anywhere else in the world except

614
00:34:15,519 --> 00:34:17,960
northern Mexico and South Texas. And I was so blown

615
00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:21,559
away at the habitat here, just it looked insane. All

616
00:34:21,559 --> 00:34:26,239
the cacti were growing under this canopy of legumes, mostly

617
00:34:26,320 --> 00:34:32,760
misquit or blackbrush Vichelia rigid doula, and it was just

618
00:34:32,840 --> 00:34:36,199
like clumps of mammalaria, clumps of paote, clumps of like

619
00:34:36,639 --> 00:34:39,320
all these cool but I had just never seen it

620
00:34:39,440 --> 00:34:41,800
cacti grow like that because I'd spent you know, the

621
00:34:42,239 --> 00:34:45,920
twenty years of my life in California and Arizona getting

622
00:34:46,000 --> 00:34:49,000
used to the deserts out there. It's so bizarre. But

623
00:34:49,320 --> 00:34:51,639
so the native trees you guys are planting, are they

624
00:34:51,679 --> 00:34:53,000
mostly legumes or what.

625
00:34:54,360 --> 00:34:56,480
Speaker 2: A number of them are, But they're not all legumes.

626
00:34:56,519 --> 00:35:01,920
Who've got a hackberry, you know, celtis, and we've got

627
00:35:03,480 --> 00:35:06,639
desert willow. It's not a true willow. So there's other

628
00:35:06,719 --> 00:35:11,320
varieties as well, but the majority are our legumes. And

629
00:35:11,400 --> 00:35:16,039
I want to just gonna build on what you were

630
00:35:16,079 --> 00:35:18,840
just saying too. I want the key thing too. With

631
00:35:18,920 --> 00:35:22,440
these bare soils, even if they're like barely draining water,

632
00:35:22,519 --> 00:35:28,599
sloping water away, we are cutting our available water rainfall

633
00:35:28,880 --> 00:35:31,519
in half or more. So we get eleven inches of

634
00:35:31,599 --> 00:35:35,320
rain a year. But most people and most landscapes in Tucson,

635
00:35:35,400 --> 00:35:38,159
they're lucky if they get five inches of rain a year,

636
00:35:38,440 --> 00:35:40,440
and where you are, we get twenty two inches of rain.

637
00:35:40,639 --> 00:35:44,840
Most people they're lucky if they're getting ten. Because the

638
00:35:44,960 --> 00:35:47,559
bulk of the rain, you know, in our good summer

639
00:35:47,639 --> 00:35:50,880
storms is running off, so you're not even getting the

640
00:35:50,920 --> 00:35:54,320
full eleven inches here in Tucson, or twenty two inches

641
00:35:54,320 --> 00:35:56,400
where you are of rain, because the bulk of it,

642
00:35:56,559 --> 00:35:59,800
at least half is running away. And then on top

643
00:35:59,840 --> 00:36:04,559
of that, if it's bare, you're losing whatever you did get,

644
00:36:04,880 --> 00:36:09,159
you're losing most of that to evaporation. So when you

645
00:36:09,360 --> 00:36:13,800
notice all that thriving life like the mammalarians and whatnot,

646
00:36:13,960 --> 00:36:16,719
under the canopy of other vegetation, it's the same thing

647
00:36:16,760 --> 00:36:19,559
here in the snor and desert. There's been some great

648
00:36:19,599 --> 00:36:23,960
studies which have shown that there's a much greater diversity

649
00:36:23,960 --> 00:36:27,239
and density of vegetation under the canopy of plants. And

650
00:36:27,320 --> 00:36:30,199
that canopy could be provided by tree, It could be

651
00:36:30,280 --> 00:36:34,039
by a choya cactus, but you'll see much more because

652
00:36:34,119 --> 00:36:38,920
that little bit of shade is dramatically reducing the evaporative loss,

653
00:36:39,519 --> 00:36:43,320
so more moisture is available, and you're also getting the

654
00:36:43,400 --> 00:36:46,679
nutrient fall from the leaf drop if it's a tree,

655
00:36:46,679 --> 00:36:49,360
that's the overstory. And then in a number of our

656
00:36:49,400 --> 00:36:51,960
tree species and number of the legims like the mesquite

657
00:36:52,039 --> 00:36:56,840
the desert ironwood, they have the ability to do hydrologic redistribution.

658
00:36:57,599 --> 00:37:02,039
So when there's time of wetness in the rains, the

659
00:37:02,280 --> 00:37:06,639
shallow roots absorb the water, transfer it to their deep

660
00:37:06,760 --> 00:37:10,199
tap roots, which send the water much deeper in the

661
00:37:10,239 --> 00:37:14,079
soil profile where it can't be lost to evaporation, and

662
00:37:14,119 --> 00:37:17,800
they bank the moisture there until the dry times. When

663
00:37:17,800 --> 00:37:21,280
the surface soils dry out, they pull the moisture back

664
00:37:21,360 --> 00:37:24,880
up through the two tap roots redistribute it to the

665
00:37:24,880 --> 00:37:29,719
surface roots, and that then creates a more humid, moist

666
00:37:29,800 --> 00:37:33,280
microclimate under the canopy before the tree itself, but it

667
00:37:33,360 --> 00:37:37,800
also benefits all its understory associates or understory.

668
00:37:37,880 --> 00:37:40,280
Speaker 1: Well, this is not I didn't know that le humanous

669
00:37:40,280 --> 00:37:43,760
trees can translocate water. They can basically store it and

670
00:37:43,800 --> 00:37:47,280
then pump it back up. Yes, God damn can you

671
00:37:47,320 --> 00:37:50,719
send me a paper on that later. That's that's pretty well.

672
00:37:51,920 --> 00:37:56,280
Speaker 2: So there they're living rain water tanks and they're living

673
00:37:56,480 --> 00:37:57,159
water pumps.

674
00:37:57,239 --> 00:38:01,000
Speaker 1: I feel like I've heard that before. But yeah, that's nuts, man.

675
00:38:01,079 --> 00:38:01,280
Speaker 2: I mean.

676
00:38:01,480 --> 00:38:05,199
Speaker 1: And also, you know the there is there's a mild

677
00:38:05,280 --> 00:38:11,280
microclimate of humidity under the canopy of a shrub or tree, right,

678
00:38:11,320 --> 00:38:16,880
because I mean, anyone who's harvested zilosabe mushrooms in California

679
00:38:17,079 --> 00:38:20,000
knows that you find them under the landscaping, under the

680
00:38:20,079 --> 00:38:22,880
landscaping of the shrubs. You don't find them out in

681
00:38:22,880 --> 00:38:24,519
the open. You find them on the mulch beds, under

682
00:38:24,519 --> 00:38:29,800
the landscaping or you know, you it's a covering over

683
00:38:29,880 --> 00:38:33,480
the ground. Basically, it's all about it's all about keeping

684
00:38:34,079 --> 00:38:36,760
that ground from getting beaten up by the sun, from

685
00:38:36,800 --> 00:38:40,400
getting heated up by the sun and then evaporating moisture.

686
00:38:42,239 --> 00:38:44,880
I just it's yeah, it's it's crazy, and it's I

687
00:38:44,880 --> 00:38:48,519
think what was interesting that you had mentioned. I'm not

688
00:38:48,519 --> 00:38:50,719
sure if it was in this conversation in the ted

689
00:38:50,719 --> 00:38:53,400
talk you gave, but you know, we were we basically

690
00:38:53,480 --> 00:38:55,199
you were saying that we went to nature to look

691
00:38:55,239 --> 00:38:57,320
at what was growing out there. The China berriers weren't

692
00:38:57,320 --> 00:38:59,159
doing well. We went to nature, we looked at what

693
00:38:59,239 --> 00:39:01,840
was out there. These things are doing fine and they're

694
00:39:01,880 --> 00:39:05,320
growing without any human assistance. Why don't we use those,

695
00:39:06,280 --> 00:39:08,480
you know, which is another thing I always explain to people, like,

696
00:39:08,519 --> 00:39:10,360
then you use the natives, not because it's like a

697
00:39:10,400 --> 00:39:12,840
feel good, pat your back, pat yourself on the back

698
00:39:12,920 --> 00:39:15,039
kind of thing, because that's what makes sense. The natives

699
00:39:15,079 --> 00:39:19,519
are adapted, they've got strategies, and they have morphological traits

700
00:39:19,679 --> 00:39:21,960
like leaf hairs to enable them to deal with the

701
00:39:22,199 --> 00:39:26,119
extreme heat. Because yeah, where we live, man, it's it's

702
00:39:26,400 --> 00:39:28,679
I don't think people understand the sun is something to

703
00:39:28,719 --> 00:39:32,239
be feared, both in Tucson and where I live. I mean,

704
00:39:32,280 --> 00:39:35,239
it's it's already and it's gonna get worse. You know

705
00:39:35,360 --> 00:39:37,519
it's gonna get worse. There's climate change, and then there's

706
00:39:37,519 --> 00:39:40,039
also just the heat island effect too. I mean, I

707
00:39:40,079 --> 00:39:43,800
look at these satellite maps of where I live sometimes

708
00:39:43,840 --> 00:39:46,039
and it gives me anxiety. I'm like, God, damn, it's

709
00:39:46,079 --> 00:39:49,559
just a giant black heat mat. It's just a giant

710
00:39:49,639 --> 00:39:51,920
heat mat. That's only the whole area. It's just a

711
00:39:52,039 --> 00:39:55,360
it's just a carpet of space heaters. These things become

712
00:39:55,639 --> 00:39:58,559
all that parking lot and asphalt just becomes space heaters.

713
00:39:59,079 --> 00:40:01,840
Once the sun goes down, they're reradiating heat at night.

714
00:40:01,920 --> 00:40:04,800
You can feel it when you walk on it, and

715
00:40:04,840 --> 00:40:08,880
we need shade. But so on your TED talk, you

716
00:40:08,960 --> 00:40:13,559
talked about going to Zimbabwe and that I guess could

717
00:40:13,559 --> 00:40:15,519
you talk about that a little bit because that was

718
00:40:15,559 --> 00:40:18,719
that seemed pretty instrumental, and you went there after you

719
00:40:18,719 --> 00:40:21,960
had already got into rainwater harvesting and plants, infrastructure and

720
00:40:21,960 --> 00:40:23,559
all this or what how'd you end up there?

721
00:40:23,639 --> 00:40:28,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I didn't. I didn't learn any of this

722
00:40:28,800 --> 00:40:34,400
stuff in my formal education. I started to become aware

723
00:40:34,400 --> 00:40:37,239
of this stuff after I took a permaculture class, which

724
00:40:37,280 --> 00:40:41,360
is a methodology of sustainable design that tries to mimic

725
00:40:41,440 --> 00:40:44,440
natural systems. But that class left me with way more

726
00:40:44,559 --> 00:40:48,880
questions than answers. And so after the class, I just

727
00:40:48,960 --> 00:40:52,199
happened to have the opportunity to travel to Southern Africa.

728
00:40:53,239 --> 00:40:57,599
My mom was originally from South Africa, so and where's

729
00:40:57,639 --> 00:41:00,199
my dad? He was from Kentucky and they met n India. Yeah,

730
00:41:00,280 --> 00:41:07,079
that's another story. So I was in Southern Africa because

731
00:41:07,119 --> 00:41:10,119
we're going to have a family reunion there. And I

732
00:41:10,159 --> 00:41:15,840
took the opportunity to backpack into Zimbabwe and I connected

733
00:41:15,880 --> 00:41:20,360
with the folks at the Permaculture Trust about Tswana. And

734
00:41:21,039 --> 00:41:26,079
while there, they told me stories about the water farmer,

735
00:41:26,519 --> 00:41:32,519
this indigenous farmer in the driest region of Zimbabwe, mister

736
00:41:32,800 --> 00:41:38,360
f and Iah Piri Maseco, who had taught himself how

737
00:41:38,400 --> 00:41:41,679
to plant the rain. And uh so I was like,

738
00:41:41,719 --> 00:41:43,519
all right, I got to check this out, you know,

739
00:41:43,719 --> 00:41:47,280
I in the class, I learned theory, I need to

740
00:41:47,440 --> 00:41:49,880
go meet the people that are doing this in practice.

741
00:41:50,480 --> 00:41:54,400
So I took a number of just rural buses, riding

742
00:41:54,440 --> 00:41:57,000
with the chickens and the goats, and I ended up

743
00:41:58,239 --> 00:42:04,199
in Zischabine where mister Pierry lived, found him and I

744
00:42:04,239 --> 00:42:06,840
spent a day with him checking out what he and

745
00:42:06,920 --> 00:42:11,199
his family had done. And they had converted a very eroded,

746
00:42:11,480 --> 00:42:16,480
non productive landholding into this lush oasis that became a

747
00:42:16,519 --> 00:42:20,840
demonstration site for the region. And when he started doing this,

748
00:42:21,400 --> 00:42:25,159
he was literally an ankle chains. So he had been

749
00:42:25,239 --> 00:42:29,960
politically active, striving for democratic reform in what was at

750
00:42:30,000 --> 00:42:33,400
the time called Rhodija. Rhodija used to be is what

751
00:42:33,599 --> 00:42:37,360
Zimbabwe used to be called, and it was led by

752
00:42:37,360 --> 00:42:39,199
an all white minority government.

753
00:42:39,320 --> 00:42:44,079
Speaker 1: Spook Spooky ah.

754
00:42:46,320 --> 00:42:52,880
Speaker 2: Go on sorry, So so he was. Since he was

755
00:42:52,960 --> 00:42:57,639
striving for democratic reform so that black Africans could have

756
00:42:57,719 --> 00:43:01,559
equal rights along with the whites. He he was blacklisted

757
00:43:02,039 --> 00:43:05,159
and jailed under house arrest, and he told he'd never

758
00:43:05,280 --> 00:43:07,559
work again in any capacity. So he had to figure

759
00:43:07,599 --> 00:43:10,159
out how he was going to support his family of

760
00:43:10,199 --> 00:43:14,599
eight with no job and no income. So he had

761
00:43:14,639 --> 00:43:18,159
to figure out how to make this eroded landholding productive,

762
00:43:19,199 --> 00:43:22,519
and he learned by observing what was happening in the

763
00:43:22,599 --> 00:43:26,079
natural world. He saw that when it rained in the areas,

764
00:43:26,519 --> 00:43:29,639
that water pooled or slowed down and had a chance

765
00:43:29,679 --> 00:43:33,480
to infiltrate. Maybe because there were some rocks perpendicular to

766
00:43:33,519 --> 00:43:36,599
the slope that acted like a speed hump and slowed

767
00:43:36,599 --> 00:43:39,119
down that flow of water and allowed more to infiltrate.

768
00:43:39,639 --> 00:43:42,719
That's where life grew. But where the water was too

769
00:43:42,840 --> 00:43:46,320
quickly flowing off the land, it would take the soil

770
00:43:46,440 --> 00:43:50,199
with it and nothing grew. So he decided, well, he

771
00:43:50,559 --> 00:43:55,079
started to transform things by trying to mimic that which

772
00:43:55,079 --> 00:43:58,239
he saw working, the slowing of the water, the infiltrating

773
00:43:58,280 --> 00:44:02,079
water through repair, that which wasn't working, the water flowing

774
00:44:02,119 --> 00:44:06,920
too fast and causing erosion. So over over decades he

775
00:44:07,679 --> 00:44:14,800
turned this eroded landholding into an oasis. And he by banking,

776
00:44:14,920 --> 00:44:19,119
by harvesting, by planting more rain in a year than

777
00:44:19,159 --> 00:44:22,519
he consumed of water in a year, he raised the

778
00:44:22,519 --> 00:44:28,800
groundwater level. So that's amazing, yeah, and this is something

779
00:44:28,840 --> 00:44:31,519
we can all do. So they had hand dug wells

780
00:44:32,480 --> 00:44:35,440
and the water levels came up. They Eventually the water

781
00:44:35,519 --> 00:44:38,840
came up to the roots, so he no longer needed

782
00:44:38,880 --> 00:44:44,800
to use the hand dug well and when so I

783
00:44:44,880 --> 00:44:47,119
was able to go back and visit him twenty years

784
00:44:47,159 --> 00:44:51,639
after my first visit, and I was afraid things were

785
00:44:52,400 --> 00:44:54,840
not going to be as good as I remembered, because

786
00:44:54,880 --> 00:44:57,360
he's a great storyteller, and I thought, you know, maybe

787
00:44:57,400 --> 00:45:00,840
I had just been mesprized by the magic of storytelling,

788
00:45:00,880 --> 00:45:03,280
and maybe it wasn't as good as I remember.

789
00:45:04,280 --> 00:45:06,400
Speaker 1: There you gone and find it. He was just like

790
00:45:06,440 --> 00:45:10,239
a master bullshit artist and like everything.

791
00:45:08,760 --> 00:45:13,239
Speaker 2: Read, yeah, that was my gear. But I got there

792
00:45:13,719 --> 00:45:16,840
and it was so much better than I remembered, in

793
00:45:16,920 --> 00:45:19,480
part because in the twenty years since I had last

794
00:45:19,480 --> 00:45:23,960
been there, he had continued to refine and evolve the system,

795
00:45:24,519 --> 00:45:28,239
and not just him, but all the other life forms there.

796
00:45:28,239 --> 00:45:31,119
They were working in concert to evolve it. So I

797
00:45:31,159 --> 00:45:34,480
got there and it smelled of rotting fruit. I was like,

798
00:45:34,519 --> 00:45:38,559
what the hell? And it was so productive. They're producing

799
00:45:38,599 --> 00:45:41,400
so many mangoes and other fruit they couldn't keep up,

800
00:45:41,960 --> 00:45:45,400
and so it was self mulching. And he had the

801
00:45:45,639 --> 00:45:50,480
zebra that was constantly doing laps around the property. So

802
00:45:51,239 --> 00:45:54,639
the area had become so there were so many subsistence

803
00:45:54,679 --> 00:45:59,599
farmers that the big wildlife they were gone because their

804
00:45:59,599 --> 00:46:03,119
habitat I had been eradicated by the agriculture, but the

805
00:46:03,760 --> 00:46:07,719
wildlife that knew at his place there was still life.

806
00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:11,360
And so that's how the zebra would still circle his

807
00:46:11,480 --> 00:46:13,960
land trying to get in. He's like, that's where the

808
00:46:14,000 --> 00:46:18,559
food is, that's where the good stuff is. So he

809
00:46:21,000 --> 00:46:26,039
So after spending that day with him, I was kind

810
00:46:26,039 --> 00:46:29,440
of depressed about the situation back home, and I said,

811
00:46:29,440 --> 00:46:31,320
you know, look, I don't I don't want to go

812
00:46:31,400 --> 00:46:36,639
back and because it's it's dismal back home, and I'm

813
00:46:36,679 --> 00:46:37,880
thinking of believing.

814
00:46:37,719 --> 00:46:39,440
Speaker 1: I've felt that so many times.

815
00:46:41,360 --> 00:46:43,280
Speaker 2: So I said, so, can you give me some advice,

816
00:46:43,400 --> 00:46:45,679
like where? How should I figure out where I should go?

817
00:46:46,239 --> 00:46:49,039
And he slapped me on the shoulder. He said, you

818
00:46:49,159 --> 00:46:51,800
need to go back home, and you need to set

819
00:46:51,880 --> 00:46:56,079
your roots deeper than you ever thought possible, because if

820
00:46:56,119 --> 00:47:00,480
you leave and you run away from your problems, problems

821
00:47:00,519 --> 00:47:02,920
are going to run with you. They're going to follow

822
00:47:03,000 --> 00:47:05,239
you wherever you go, and you're just going to plant

823
00:47:05,360 --> 00:47:09,599
problems and grow more problems everywhere you go. And that's

824
00:47:09,639 --> 00:47:13,360
going to keep happening until you're able to face your problems,

825
00:47:14,320 --> 00:47:17,639
solve those problems, and then you can go anywhere you want,

826
00:47:18,360 --> 00:47:23,840
because then you'll have the ability to plant and grow solutions.

827
00:47:24,960 --> 00:47:25,280
Speaker 1: Damn.

828
00:47:26,280 --> 00:47:29,719
Speaker 2: So with him saying that, I was like, Okay.

829
00:47:29,559 --> 00:47:34,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, he was basically like, fucking get to work. Yeah,

830
00:47:35,320 --> 00:47:37,880
and get to work. Stop whining and get to work.

831
00:47:38,840 --> 00:47:42,400
Speaker 2: Yeah. And that's that's exactly what I did. I didn't

832
00:47:42,440 --> 00:47:45,760
know how I was going to do it, but I

833
00:47:45,800 --> 00:47:48,880
knew it was possible because he and his family had

834
00:47:48,920 --> 00:47:52,239
done it and they have fewer seemingly had fewer resources

835
00:47:52,280 --> 00:47:56,599
available to them than I did to myself, and they

836
00:47:56,599 --> 00:48:02,400
didn't have hardware, store whatnot we could go. So I then,

837
00:48:03,079 --> 00:48:05,719
inspired by what I saw he and his family had

838
00:48:05,760 --> 00:48:07,559
done and others so I had had the chance to

839
00:48:07,639 --> 00:48:11,880
visit and learn from, I started to try and modify

840
00:48:12,039 --> 00:48:16,760
things to what to my unique conditions here in the

841
00:48:16,880 --> 00:48:20,239
urban environment. And along with that, it wasn't just him

842
00:48:20,239 --> 00:48:23,880
that inspired me, was also the indigenous farmers of the

843
00:48:23,920 --> 00:48:30,239
Snoring Desert. So after meeting mister Pierre and I had

844
00:48:30,320 --> 00:48:35,679
the opportunity to meet Clifford Pablo, who is Autumn and

845
00:48:36,239 --> 00:48:40,440
he was taught how to do the traditional runoff farming

846
00:48:40,639 --> 00:48:46,159
by his grandfather. So they would just grow abundant crops

847
00:48:46,239 --> 00:48:52,480
just using storm water that they would divert some of

848
00:48:52,519 --> 00:48:55,519
that out of the arroyo, the ephemeral waterway, and they

849
00:48:55,559 --> 00:48:58,760
plant right next to the arroyo out in the open desert.

850
00:48:58,920 --> 00:49:02,880
And so I realized, in talking with him and walking

851
00:49:03,280 --> 00:49:09,239
around his family's old farm, that I too lived on

852
00:49:09,760 --> 00:49:14,360
an arroyo or an ephemeral waterway, except mine was paved

853
00:49:14,400 --> 00:49:18,400
with asphalt and the banks were lined with concrete the

854
00:49:18,440 --> 00:49:24,400
street curb. So I realized I could apply the traditional

855
00:49:24,400 --> 00:49:29,039
aucchin runoff farming to my street side if I considered

856
00:49:29,079 --> 00:49:32,599
it an arroyo side or an ephemeral waterway side. I

857
00:49:32,760 --> 00:49:36,880
just had to reconnect the floodplain of the bank of

858
00:49:36,920 --> 00:49:40,159
the arroyo the street side bank of the Hell Strip,

859
00:49:40,719 --> 00:49:44,519
with the water flowing down the arroyo or the street

860
00:49:44,199 --> 00:49:47,519
and the street curb cuts and curb cores. That was

861
00:49:47,559 --> 00:49:53,119
the means of reconnecting the once segregated water and soil.

862
00:49:55,079 --> 00:49:58,199
Speaker 1: How would you go about doing that in an area

863
00:49:58,239 --> 00:50:04,400
where the street was below gray.

864
00:50:02,280 --> 00:50:04,119
Speaker 2: Uh you mean lower than Hellstrip?

865
00:50:04,480 --> 00:50:06,679
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, well you the Hell Strip is like eight

866
00:50:06,719 --> 00:50:08,599
to ten inches, and so cut the curve and then

867
00:50:08,639 --> 00:50:10,519
you would just end up into the soil. Would you

868
00:50:10,559 --> 00:50:11,840
have to dig that out then? Or what?

869
00:50:12,480 --> 00:50:15,400
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, because that's our situation and that's what we do.

870
00:50:15,639 --> 00:50:17,559
Speaker 1: Uh huh. So you dig it out a little bit

871
00:50:17,599 --> 00:50:19,920
and the water runs in there, and doesn't it it's

872
00:50:21,039 --> 00:50:23,719
and then at some point once the water runs in,

873
00:50:24,360 --> 00:50:26,760
I mean, don't you get erosion of the soil on

874
00:50:27,679 --> 00:50:30,880
the above you know, above the street then or what?

875
00:50:31,719 --> 00:50:38,280
Speaker 2: No? So well, if we have a gradual slope, you know,

876
00:50:38,280 --> 00:50:40,840
we have enough room for gradual slopes of the banks

877
00:50:40,880 --> 00:50:44,760
of the basins. You don't need any stabilization. You just

878
00:50:44,800 --> 00:50:48,639
get that angle of repose, the natural slope that doesn't erode.

879
00:50:49,679 --> 00:50:53,119
And then when we've got tighter areas we don't have

880
00:50:53,199 --> 00:50:56,280
as much room. We can't go as gradual with our slopes.

881
00:50:56,320 --> 00:50:59,760
We have to go more vertical. Then we stabilize those

882
00:51:00,440 --> 00:51:03,800
with any number of materials. It can be rock, it

883
00:51:03,800 --> 00:51:09,960
can be prunings from storm storm downed tree branches. It

884
00:51:10,000 --> 00:51:13,079
can be urbanite, you know, broken up sidewalk chunks that

885
00:51:13,119 --> 00:51:16,960
we just carefully put in place so it actually looks good.

886
00:51:17,000 --> 00:51:18,880
It does look like broken up sidewalks.

887
00:51:18,920 --> 00:51:21,519
Speaker 1: What'd you call it? That's pretty that's pretty cool.

888
00:51:21,559 --> 00:51:27,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a very abundant urban geologic formation. Uh. And

889
00:51:29,079 --> 00:51:32,000
so yeah, you only have to stabilize the steep bank.

890
00:51:32,039 --> 00:51:35,199
You never put any rock on the bottom of the base.

891
00:51:35,239 --> 00:51:38,039
And if you do that, you're going to impede the infiltration, right,

892
00:51:38,280 --> 00:51:42,559
you want to maximize the infiltration. So and just doing

893
00:51:42,599 --> 00:51:44,000
that it works great.

894
00:51:44,320 --> 00:51:46,440
Speaker 1: Is there a is there a you got a YouTube channel?

895
00:51:46,480 --> 00:51:46,639
Speaker 2: Right?

896
00:51:46,719 --> 00:51:50,159
Speaker 1: Is there a place where people could see this, like

897
00:51:50,159 --> 00:51:52,119
what it looks like, like how the process is done,

898
00:51:52,159 --> 00:51:55,480
because the curb cutting. Forget where I saw it, but it, man,

899
00:51:55,559 --> 00:51:57,719
it was amazing, and it was you know, it was

900
00:51:57,840 --> 00:51:59,840
during it was a video. I think it must have been.

901
00:52:00,159 --> 00:52:02,519
It was in Tucson where someone had done it and

902
00:52:02,559 --> 00:52:06,719
they had like this little channel cut basically into their yard.

903
00:52:06,760 --> 00:52:09,559
It looked like a mini arroyo and it just kind

904
00:52:09,559 --> 00:52:12,920
of emptied into the yard and then and the water

905
00:52:13,039 --> 00:52:14,559
was just going right in. I mean, I think of

906
00:52:14,800 --> 00:52:17,039
you know, because the same thing happens to my street

907
00:52:17,039 --> 00:52:19,000
when we get a hard rain and all that water

908
00:52:19,239 --> 00:52:21,719
just goes right into the fucking storm drain and it

909
00:52:21,880 --> 00:52:25,280
just wasted. It's just wasted it. It's crazy. We live

910
00:52:25,320 --> 00:52:27,559
in an area with water shortages and we're just pouring

911
00:52:27,639 --> 00:52:32,119
water into storm drains to you know, instead of onto

912
00:52:32,159 --> 00:52:34,920
the land. So yeah, so.

913
00:52:34,920 --> 00:52:37,400
Speaker 2: Folks can they can get all the info on how

914
00:52:37,440 --> 00:52:41,920
to do this. The majority of the information is in

915
00:52:41,960 --> 00:52:45,559
my books Rainwater Harvesting for dry Lands and Beyond, especially

916
00:52:45,599 --> 00:52:48,719
the full color edition of volume two. I've got a

917
00:52:48,719 --> 00:52:52,719
whole chapter dedicated to this. And then if they just

918
00:52:52,800 --> 00:52:57,119
search Brad Lancaster at YouTube, they'll find my channel and

919
00:52:57,199 --> 00:53:00,559
they'll see the videos of all this stuff. And I

920
00:53:00,760 --> 00:53:03,519
just want to point out that here in our desert community,

921
00:53:03,559 --> 00:53:07,000
and it'll be the same in your community. More rain

922
00:53:07,440 --> 00:53:11,000
falls on the surface area of Tucson, Arizona, and an

923
00:53:11,039 --> 00:53:14,400
average year of rain than the entire population of over

924
00:53:14,480 --> 00:53:19,800
a half million people consume of municipal water. So if

925
00:53:19,840 --> 00:53:24,159
we recognize rain as a water source, not something to

926
00:53:24,199 --> 00:53:28,519
get rid of, we can provide all the water we

927
00:53:28,639 --> 00:53:31,079
need just with the rain. We don't have to import

928
00:53:31,199 --> 00:53:33,119
water from elsewhere, we don't have to pump it from

929
00:53:33,119 --> 00:53:36,559
the ground water. But that requires us to manage the

930
00:53:36,599 --> 00:53:39,280
water differently. And so we're trying to show folks how

931
00:53:39,280 --> 00:53:39,880
to do that.

932
00:53:39,840 --> 00:53:42,440
Speaker 1: And using I mean using plants. I mean, people just

933
00:53:42,519 --> 00:53:45,159
need more plants in general. I mean the fact that

934
00:53:45,239 --> 00:53:49,800
so many of the hell strips and street side landscapes

935
00:53:49,880 --> 00:53:52,679
are just mode turf grass. I mean, that's fucking insane.

936
00:53:52,760 --> 00:53:54,880
That shit has to stop. Yeah, that doesn't make it.

937
00:53:55,000 --> 00:53:57,199
If you live in England or something, maybe that makes

938
00:53:57,239 --> 00:53:59,519
sense in a cool, mild climate where it doesn't get

939
00:53:59,519 --> 00:54:02,679
too high e ample rain. Maybe it doesn't work done here.

940
00:54:02,800 --> 00:54:06,039
That's that's insanity. That is complete. I mean, it's either

941
00:54:06,039 --> 00:54:08,679
stupidity or insanity. I don't know, maybe a blend of both.

942
00:54:09,119 --> 00:54:12,320
If you just for anybody listening, if you just google

943
00:54:12,400 --> 00:54:17,400
curb cut rainwater harvesting, you get a plethora of images.

944
00:54:18,280 --> 00:54:22,119
But basically you do have to dig out the yard

945
00:54:22,280 --> 00:54:24,559
side of the street a little bit. You have to

946
00:54:24,599 --> 00:54:26,960
dig it out a little bit, and then you just

947
00:54:27,039 --> 00:54:31,599
create like a little bowl or a basin, and and

948
00:54:31,639 --> 00:54:33,360
then I guess if it you know, and you prevent

949
00:54:33,440 --> 00:54:36,000
the slopes from eroding. I mean you're saying they don't

950
00:54:36,000 --> 00:54:37,840
erode that much anyway, but you can also prevent them

951
00:54:37,840 --> 00:54:41,320
from eroding with rocks or especially I mean, if you

952
00:54:41,320 --> 00:54:44,159
have native vegetation growing on the slopes. Boom, there you go.

953
00:54:44,239 --> 00:54:46,360
That's what a bioswale is. It's not it's not going

954
00:54:46,440 --> 00:54:50,039
to erode. But yeah, I can see how if you

955
00:54:50,320 --> 00:54:53,239
were like a genteel or something, you had no idea

956
00:54:53,280 --> 00:54:55,440
about plants, you'd see this and you would go, oh

957
00:54:55,480 --> 00:54:59,639
my god, you know, like it just it doesn't it

958
00:54:59,679 --> 00:55:02,760
doesn't make immediate sense until you actually see it. But

959
00:55:02,960 --> 00:55:06,119
all the pictures I'm seeing, I mean, these look like humane,

960
00:55:06,280 --> 00:55:10,440
livable landscapes full of plants, you know, And it's this

961
00:55:10,519 --> 00:55:12,440
is the kind of cultural change that we need to

962
00:55:12,480 --> 00:55:16,360
happen all across the US, where plants aren't seen as messy,

963
00:55:16,400 --> 00:55:19,320
but they're seen as essential pieces of infrastructure. And I

964
00:55:19,400 --> 00:55:22,800
talk about this in presentations too, because I think, you know,

965
00:55:22,960 --> 00:55:26,360
part of the I hate most of modern horticulture. I'm

966
00:55:26,360 --> 00:55:28,119
not going to lie. I think it's disgusting. It's just

967
00:55:28,119 --> 00:55:29,719
as bad as the lawn. You know, you go to

968
00:55:29,800 --> 00:55:32,920
like the bank or the post office and the stuff

969
00:55:32,960 --> 00:55:35,719
you see is just garbage, and it reinforces this idea.

970
00:55:35,760 --> 00:55:38,400
It's non native garbage. First off, it's most often dead

971
00:55:38,440 --> 00:55:41,639
because it's not adapted to this climate. They still plant

972
00:55:41,679 --> 00:55:43,719
crape myrtles where I live, which evolved in a place

973
00:55:43,719 --> 00:55:46,000
where you get forty to sixty inches of rainy year,

974
00:55:46,119 --> 00:55:49,800
not twenty. And also in a forest where it's you know,

975
00:55:49,880 --> 00:55:52,199
where it's like eighty degrees, not one hundred and five.

976
00:55:52,920 --> 00:55:55,599
And so of course they always die and so but

977
00:55:55,639 --> 00:55:58,719
modern horticulture kind of reinforces the idea that plants are

978
00:55:58,719 --> 00:56:01,880
just supposed to be pretty. That's all they're supposed to do, right,

979
00:56:01,880 --> 00:56:04,199
They're either they give you fruit or they're pretty. They're not.

980
00:56:04,800 --> 00:56:07,559
It's never seen as oh wow, they actually help mitigate flooding,

981
00:56:07,599 --> 00:56:09,760
which I want to talk about here in a minute,

982
00:56:09,960 --> 00:56:12,039
because a lot of people that flies right over their head.

983
00:56:12,039 --> 00:56:14,440
They don't understand how having roots break up the soil

984
00:56:14,519 --> 00:56:18,480
actually helps the water infiltrate and mitigates flooding, you know,

985
00:56:18,639 --> 00:56:21,239
or the plants prevent the heat from baking the shit

986
00:56:21,280 --> 00:56:23,119
out of the whole landscape and creating a heat out

987
00:56:23,119 --> 00:56:24,519
in the first place. So this is kind of like

988
00:56:24,559 --> 00:56:26,159
what we have to change. So that's why I've just

989
00:56:26,199 --> 00:56:28,960
been saying, you know, plants are infrastructure. Their plants, trees

990
00:56:29,000 --> 00:56:32,519
are infrastructure. They're not like a feel good things. It

991
00:56:32,559 --> 00:56:35,920
does feel good, but their infrastructure. Without them, you have

992
00:56:35,960 --> 00:56:38,679
a shitty place to live, right, Having them creates a

993
00:56:38,719 --> 00:56:41,360
better quality of life and has a number of practical

994
00:56:41,360 --> 00:56:46,519
and pragmatic services that they provide. And so yeah, and

995
00:56:46,599 --> 00:56:47,840
what's go ahead.

996
00:56:48,480 --> 00:56:51,679
Speaker 2: I'll also say what's awesome about well, using the right plants,

997
00:56:51,760 --> 00:56:54,519
using native plants, plants that are the best adapted to

998
00:56:54,559 --> 00:56:59,760
your local climate, soils and wildlife. That's it's not just infrastructure,

999
00:57:00,119 --> 00:57:04,199
living infrastructure. And because it's living infrastructure, it has the

1000
00:57:04,239 --> 00:57:09,440
ability to naturally repair itself. It's not you don't require

1001
00:57:10,039 --> 00:57:12,360
maintenance crew to come in and repair. It can do

1002
00:57:12,400 --> 00:57:17,280
that itself. It can reproduce itself. So it's it's so

1003
00:57:17,480 --> 00:57:20,639
much more regenerative and vibrant in the fact that it's alive,

1004
00:57:20,920 --> 00:57:25,559
not dead concrete infrastructure. So it's green infrastructure. It's living.

1005
00:57:25,639 --> 00:57:29,840
It's not gray, dead concrete infrastructure, which has so many

1006
00:57:29,840 --> 00:57:30,480
other backits.

1007
00:57:30,599 --> 00:57:32,679
Speaker 1: Have you seen that guy. There's some dude that's like

1008
00:57:32,719 --> 00:57:35,039
planting natives in the La River.

1009
00:57:36,280 --> 00:57:37,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, wood and stuff.

1010
00:57:37,800 --> 00:57:41,360
Speaker 1: I can't think of a more fucking bleak landscape than

1011
00:57:41,400 --> 00:57:43,719
the La River. Like, what were they thinking? When was

1012
00:57:43,719 --> 00:57:44,880
the La River concrete?

1013
00:57:44,920 --> 00:57:45,000
Speaker 2: It?

1014
00:57:45,000 --> 00:57:46,920
Speaker 1: I don't know, like sixties or something.

1015
00:57:47,159 --> 00:57:49,599
Speaker 2: C seven before that, I think before that.

1016
00:57:49,719 --> 00:57:52,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's I mean it seems like such a shit

1017
00:57:52,559 --> 00:57:56,519
for brained. I mean, that's insane. Why would you do that, Like,

1018
00:57:56,719 --> 00:58:00,679
why would you just create a giant concrete ditch? And

1019
00:58:00,880 --> 00:58:03,039
we've got a number of those in San Antonio two.

1020
00:58:03,159 --> 00:58:06,360
And they there was actually a plan down here, some

1021
00:58:06,559 --> 00:58:09,400
fucking goofball you know, one of these suited pencil neck

1022
00:58:09,440 --> 00:58:13,119
goofball politicians down here, had this idea that he was

1023
00:58:13,159 --> 00:58:17,440
gonna they were going to concrete all the irrigation canals here, right,

1024
00:58:17,480 --> 00:58:20,559
that they were just gonna drain the water out, temporarily

1025
00:58:20,719 --> 00:58:25,400
redirect it, and then lay concrete, which is just insanity

1026
00:58:25,480 --> 00:58:28,000
to me. So, I mean, he's obviously working for you know,

1027
00:58:28,039 --> 00:58:30,360
his nephew runs a concrete company or something that's going

1028
00:58:30,440 --> 00:58:33,079
to get the contract. That's the way it normally goes.

1029
00:58:33,159 --> 00:58:36,800
But but that's just it's crazy, man, It's just insane.

1030
00:58:36,800 --> 00:58:40,559
Because they were worried about water seeping into the ground. Well, okay,

1031
00:58:40,599 --> 00:58:43,159
but when water seeps into the ground, then it eventually

1032
00:58:43,159 --> 00:58:46,920
recharges the aquafer. Yeah, and it's thick clay here anyway,

1033
00:58:47,199 --> 00:58:49,719
not that much water is receeping into the ground. You're

1034
00:58:49,760 --> 00:58:52,840
just this giant infrastructure project and waste of eighty plus

1035
00:58:52,880 --> 00:58:56,679
million dollars or however much. But the La River thing,

1036
00:58:56,760 --> 00:58:59,079
I mean, that is like there's a reason they've filmed

1037
00:58:59,119 --> 00:59:03,400
so many, like, you know, so many post apocalypse movies there,

1038
00:59:03,559 --> 00:59:06,880
you know, because it looks terrible. But now there's these

1039
00:59:06,880 --> 00:59:09,599
areas where there's they weren't they either weren't able to

1040
00:59:09,639 --> 00:59:12,239
cement it or the cement has you know, broken up,

1041
00:59:12,280 --> 00:59:14,360
and there's native plants growing there. There's like a native

1042
00:59:14,360 --> 00:59:17,679
baccarat species. What is that solicifolia I think is the

1043
00:59:17,679 --> 00:59:20,000
one you get down there, you know, a native coyote bush.

1044
00:59:20,039 --> 00:59:22,880
All these plants and and it's slowing the flow down,

1045
00:59:22,920 --> 00:59:25,719
and it's creating bird habitat, and it's creating an actual

1046
00:59:25,880 --> 00:59:30,239
nice place to look at and be. It's it's crazy

1047
00:59:30,280 --> 00:59:32,760
to think about. Man, did they do that? They did

1048
00:59:32,760 --> 00:59:35,199
that in Tucson A bunch too, did because I lived

1049
00:59:35,199 --> 00:59:38,360
there a lot. Yeah, they had concreted the concrete irrigation

1050
00:59:38,440 --> 00:59:39,599
ditch or drainage ditch.

1051
00:59:40,360 --> 00:59:42,800
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, there's still a bunch of that. And there's

1052
00:59:42,840 --> 00:59:47,360
a cool little project. This was actually done in La

1053
00:59:47,840 --> 00:59:52,159
where some activists they did a bunch of native plant

1054
00:59:52,199 --> 00:59:56,360
plantings on the banks of the La River next to

1055
00:59:56,599 --> 00:59:59,760
the concreted channel. But what they did is they went

1056
00:59:59,840 --> 01:00:03,679
up stream of the plantings and they put in a

1057
01:00:03,800 --> 01:00:08,079
pipe that pulled the nuisance flow in the La River,

1058
01:00:08,440 --> 01:00:11,760
or the urban drool flow. So the La River is

1059
01:00:11,840 --> 01:00:15,679
always flowing because of all the car washing in the

1060
01:00:15,719 --> 01:00:22,320
streets and broken pipes and stuff, so it's always flowing

1061
01:00:22,480 --> 01:00:25,000
a little bit, and then in the big storms it flows.

1062
01:00:25,079 --> 01:00:27,480
It floods, you know, it flows bank to bank. So

1063
01:00:27,599 --> 01:00:32,920
this pipe it grabbed that urban drool flow and way upstream,

1064
01:00:33,320 --> 01:00:36,480
and then it had that pipe going at a very

1065
01:00:36,559 --> 01:00:39,519
gradual drop, so it moved the water via gravity, but

1066
01:00:39,559 --> 01:00:42,480
it was a more gradual slope in the pipe than

1067
01:00:42,519 --> 01:00:46,280
it was in the La concreted channel. And so then

1068
01:00:46,320 --> 01:00:50,000
they outleted it where they had planted these native plants

1069
01:00:50,360 --> 01:00:53,400
on the bank up above the channel, and they just

1070
01:00:53,480 --> 01:00:57,199
created a little natural neandering waterway through which the urban

1071
01:00:57,280 --> 01:01:01,679
drool flowed. And that became the three negation source of

1072
01:01:01,760 --> 01:01:05,719
all those plantings on the upper bank, and they then

1073
01:01:05,880 --> 01:01:09,920
became the seed source, the living gene bank, the living

1074
01:01:10,000 --> 01:01:15,719
seed bank that would then scatter its seed via gravity, animals,

1075
01:01:15,760 --> 01:01:20,199
water flow and wind into the cracks of the concreted

1076
01:01:20,320 --> 01:01:24,519
channel below. And so this way that gene bank, that

1077
01:01:24,719 --> 01:01:26,840
seed bank that they had planted on the banks, it

1078
01:01:26,920 --> 01:01:29,480
never got scoured out in the flood flows. It was

1079
01:01:29,559 --> 01:01:30,400
always there.

1080
01:01:31,559 --> 01:01:34,760
Speaker 1: And where what where did you? Where can people read

1081
01:01:34,800 --> 01:01:36,679
about this more? I want to go? I want to

1082
01:01:36,679 --> 01:01:37,440
go learn about this.

1083
01:01:38,159 --> 01:01:41,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, so just go to my website Harvesting Rainwater dot

1084
01:01:41,360 --> 01:01:44,320
com and then just click the blog page. And this

1085
01:01:44,440 --> 01:01:47,519
is one of my early blogs. So go scroll down

1086
01:01:47,559 --> 01:01:50,000
to one of the earlier posts and you'll find that.

1087
01:01:50,559 --> 01:01:53,039
Speaker 1: And who was doing this? Who did this? On the

1088
01:01:53,159 --> 01:01:54,000
on the who did this?

1089
01:01:54,079 --> 01:01:56,960
Speaker 2: In l a man, it's been so long since I

1090
01:01:56,960 --> 01:01:59,280
wrote that blog, I got to look it up myself.

1091
01:01:59,280 --> 01:02:02,480
Speaker 1: You can look at it, I can.

1092
01:02:03,679 --> 01:02:08,519
Speaker 2: I also wanted to mention too that, you know, the

1093
01:02:08,559 --> 01:02:12,599
way we got this stuff started and when people were

1094
01:02:12,639 --> 01:02:17,480
not open to this is just with one simple little

1095
01:02:17,519 --> 01:02:22,559
gorilla installation pilot project. And then we kept working it

1096
01:02:22,880 --> 01:02:25,480
and I manicured it, you know. I continue to get

1097
01:02:25,519 --> 01:02:27,440
out there and care for it, steward prune it to

1098
01:02:27,480 --> 01:02:30,880
make sure the plants aren't growing into the pathway. Because

1099
01:02:30,880 --> 01:02:34,760
I wanted it to look good enough that people wouldn't

1100
01:02:34,760 --> 01:02:38,239
be repelled but would rather be lured in. And I

1101
01:02:38,280 --> 01:02:41,880
wanted it wild enough so it suited my aesthetic and

1102
01:02:41,920 --> 01:02:45,519
also that of the wildlife, so it would work for all.

1103
01:02:45,599 --> 01:02:49,559
But we were so successful working alongside the street that

1104
01:02:49,760 --> 01:02:53,239
now we're actually working in the street. So now we're

1105
01:02:53,320 --> 01:02:58,719
creating in streets, not street side, but in street stormwater harvesting,

1106
01:02:58,760 --> 01:03:03,400
traffic calming like roundabouts or traffic circles and chicanes that

1107
01:03:03,719 --> 01:03:08,800
narrow the street. So we're now literally planting the native

1108
01:03:08,960 --> 01:03:14,239
rein irrigated food forests in the streets themselves. And that's

1109
01:03:14,599 --> 01:03:17,639
now shifting that our neighborhood was the first to do that,

1110
01:03:18,280 --> 01:03:21,679
so now that's shifting city policy. The city now has

1111
01:03:22,920 --> 01:03:26,599
development standards allow other neighborhoods to do this. And if

1112
01:03:26,599 --> 01:03:31,320
folks go to the Neighborhood Foresters dot org website that's

1113
01:03:31,360 --> 01:03:35,239
my sister website, that'll show a lot of the stuff

1114
01:03:35,280 --> 01:03:37,519
we've been doing in the neighborhood. And if they go

1115
01:03:37,599 --> 01:03:41,440
to the gallery page at Neighborhood Foresters dot org, they'll

1116
01:03:41,480 --> 01:03:44,239
see the before and after side by side photos of

1117
01:03:44,400 --> 01:03:47,599
before we had the n street waterhoves, scene and then

1118
01:03:47,679 --> 01:03:51,559
after and now we've got literal food forests, native food

1119
01:03:51,559 --> 01:03:56,400
forests growing in the street, and it's you know, so

1120
01:03:56,599 --> 01:04:00,280
often people don't know what's possible, and they don't know

1121
01:04:00,320 --> 01:04:03,119
that change is possible. So we also make a point

1122
01:04:03,360 --> 01:04:07,800
of putting before and after signs at these installations. So

1123
01:04:07,840 --> 01:04:10,280
we take a photograph before we do the work, and

1124
01:04:10,320 --> 01:04:14,840
then we put a bilingual sign that shows people, hey,

1125
01:04:14,880 --> 01:04:17,559
this is what it looked like before we did the work,

1126
01:04:17,880 --> 01:04:20,360
and then people coming through today are like, what this

1127
01:04:20,480 --> 01:04:23,679
used to look like? That used to be barren. My

1128
01:04:23,920 --> 01:04:27,159
place looks barren. I could change my place, man.

1129
01:04:28,559 --> 01:04:30,920
Speaker 1: It's I mean everybody, because I've been doing the killer

1130
01:04:31,000 --> 01:04:34,199
long thing for for a long time now, Like I

1131
01:04:34,239 --> 01:04:36,239
don't know five or six, you're not a long time.

1132
01:04:36,280 --> 01:04:38,000
I'm going to be doing it till I croak. But

1133
01:04:38,840 --> 01:04:42,519
but you know the thing I always hear from people

1134
01:04:42,559 --> 01:04:44,840
because I'm on a fucking mission, this is the you know,

1135
01:04:45,079 --> 01:04:47,920
I realized the change this has on people's lives. I

1136
01:04:47,920 --> 01:04:51,000
have not met a single person where I've done this too,

1137
01:04:51,239 --> 01:04:53,400
or I show them how to do it, who's ridden

1138
01:04:53,400 --> 01:04:55,280
me and been like, Y know what this sucks. I

1139
01:04:55,320 --> 01:04:59,320
don't like it like, everyone's like, man, you wouldn't believe

1140
01:04:59,320 --> 01:05:01,519
what I saw in my yard. Oh my god, it's

1141
01:05:01,559 --> 01:05:04,000
such a nice place. I spend time in my front yard.

1142
01:05:04,079 --> 01:05:07,320
Now I saw these cool birds come by. It feels

1143
01:05:07,360 --> 01:05:11,039
really good. Thank you so much. I've never had anything

1144
01:05:11,239 --> 01:05:13,719
but that. I mean, I've never even had just like,

1145
01:05:14,079 --> 01:05:17,119
that's all right, Like I've never had. Everyone's excited about

1146
01:05:17,159 --> 01:05:20,159
it because plants make people feel good, no shit, because

1147
01:05:20,199 --> 01:05:23,920
we involved with them, we evolved, nurtured in this nest

1148
01:05:24,199 --> 01:05:27,400
of living, of the living world, and so you know,

1149
01:05:28,599 --> 01:05:31,599
I think a lot of people, especially a lot of kids, Man,

1150
01:05:31,639 --> 01:05:34,360
they don't realize, you know, Like when I was a teenager,

1151
01:05:34,400 --> 01:05:36,760
I was everything where I grew up. It was just

1152
01:05:36,880 --> 01:05:40,679
concrete and shit and plastic signs and commercialism and it.

1153
01:05:41,400 --> 01:05:43,360
You know, it made me feel terrible and I didn't

1154
01:05:43,760 --> 01:05:45,920
I didn't realize it until a couple of years in

1155
01:05:45,960 --> 01:05:47,880
when I started thinking about it, and I was like, god,

1156
01:05:47,920 --> 01:05:50,400
I just I hate going to that area, you know,

1157
01:05:50,639 --> 01:05:52,360
Like my mom would take me to go run errands

1158
01:05:52,360 --> 01:05:54,239
with her and I'd be like, God, you know, I

1159
01:05:54,320 --> 01:05:56,760
hate going there. It's so ugly and it makes me

1160
01:05:56,800 --> 01:05:59,079
feel terrible, and it's hot and there's no trees. And

1161
01:05:59,119 --> 01:06:01,960
it was because of that. I mean, imagine going out

1162
01:06:02,000 --> 01:06:04,800
into a neighborhood that felt good to be in, that

1163
01:06:04,960 --> 01:06:08,000
looked nice, that was shady, that had people out, that

1164
01:06:08,079 --> 01:06:11,119
had birds chirping. You know, all this shit that people

1165
01:06:11,199 --> 01:06:15,039
take for granted or worse, they never had to begin with,

1166
01:06:15,119 --> 01:06:18,599
and they don't know how nice it is to, you know,

1167
01:06:19,079 --> 01:06:23,079
have a shady street filled with birds and cool shit

1168
01:06:23,159 --> 01:06:26,400
and cool plants and butterflies everywhere and cool insects, and

1169
01:06:27,199 --> 01:06:32,039
you know, it's the whole idea that going outside into

1170
01:06:32,039 --> 01:06:35,280
the world doesn't have to suck is new to people.

1171
01:06:35,400 --> 01:06:38,079
It's like, it doesn't have to make you feel like dying,

1172
01:06:38,599 --> 01:06:40,559
right because of where I live. I mean, I'll be

1173
01:06:40,599 --> 01:06:43,079
astray with you. Man, where I live, I've got a

1174
01:06:43,199 --> 01:06:45,599
native My whole yard is now. You can't see the

1175
01:06:45,639 --> 01:06:49,360
street from my front door or from my house, and

1176
01:06:49,440 --> 01:06:50,840
I like it that way because I don't want to

1177
01:06:50,840 --> 01:06:52,840
have to see the world around me because it's hideous.

1178
01:06:52,920 --> 01:06:57,400
It's hideous. I mean, it's treeless, it's concrete, it smells

1179
01:06:57,440 --> 01:07:00,360
like auto fumes. It's just shitty, and no one going

1180
01:07:00,440 --> 01:07:03,039
out unless they're like, no one's you never see people

1181
01:07:03,079 --> 01:07:07,360
walking unless they're forced to and because they're poor or something, right,

1182
01:07:07,440 --> 01:07:10,440
I mean, it's some dude from Turkey just came here

1183
01:07:10,480 --> 01:07:15,280
and did a video on where I live on McCallan,

1184
01:07:15,360 --> 01:07:18,239
Texas and the title of the video was the fattest

1185
01:07:18,280 --> 01:07:22,039
city in North America and he mentions and it is

1186
01:07:22,079 --> 01:07:25,159
it's I mean, it's obesity is a huge problem here.

1187
01:07:25,280 --> 01:07:27,559
And it's a huge industry too, Like the healthcare is

1188
01:07:27,559 --> 01:07:29,280
a big industry down here. It's like one of the

1189
01:07:29,280 --> 01:07:31,920
few jobs you can get besides border patrol that pays

1190
01:07:31,960 --> 01:07:35,280
really well. And it's you know, it's a sickness industry.

1191
01:07:35,320 --> 01:07:37,559
It's not a health industry. It's profiting off of people

1192
01:07:37,639 --> 01:07:42,960
being sick and metabolically ill. But but you know, it's

1193
01:07:43,079 --> 01:07:45,920
in the video was interesting because he shows, you know,

1194
01:07:45,960 --> 01:07:48,079
he's like, why are there so many fat people here?

1195
01:07:48,079 --> 01:07:50,239
As well? The food's garbage. It's like what a burger

1196
01:07:50,320 --> 01:07:53,440
and you know, really greasy tacos and taco bell But

1197
01:07:53,639 --> 01:07:57,679
most importantly, like everything is just auto dependent and the

1198
01:07:57,719 --> 01:08:00,360
few places where their ice are sidewalks. And then he

1199
01:08:00,440 --> 01:08:04,199
shows a strip of the McCallen shopping district, which makes

1200
01:08:04,239 --> 01:08:06,679
me feel like dying every time I think about it.

1201
01:08:06,760 --> 01:08:08,880
And he shows a sort of McCallen shopping district and

1202
01:08:08,920 --> 01:08:11,199
it's just a sidewalk just roasting in the sun with

1203
01:08:11,280 --> 01:08:14,239
no tree cover for you know, no trees in sight.

1204
01:08:14,360 --> 01:08:17,319
Like it's looking down the street. You know, it's like,

1205
01:08:17,880 --> 01:08:20,880
why why go outside when there's no shade? Right, there's

1206
01:08:21,039 --> 01:08:23,520
why go for a walk and when there's no shade,

1207
01:08:25,399 --> 01:08:28,239
you know. So it's this. This gives me a lot

1208
01:08:28,239 --> 01:08:34,279
of hope, and I just hope people start listening to it.

1209
01:08:34,000 --> 01:08:38,800
Speaker 2: God, I just wanted to add one thing about that, hope. So, man,

1210
01:08:38,880 --> 01:08:43,319
I certainly, uh have my fair share of depression when

1211
01:08:43,960 --> 01:08:48,279
I see it could be one of the neighborhood apartment

1212
01:08:48,319 --> 01:08:54,159
complexes cutting down trees because they turned off the irrigation

1213
01:08:54,319 --> 01:08:58,479
system and stuff starts dying, you know, and stuff like that.

1214
01:08:59,000 --> 01:09:03,640
We've got our fair bleak too. But rather than wallow

1215
01:09:03,760 --> 01:09:06,399
in that depression, which would be too easy to do,

1216
01:09:07,760 --> 01:09:12,159
that's when I start doing more planting. So I've been

1217
01:09:12,159 --> 01:09:15,680
doing a lot of gorilla planting with neighbors too. So

1218
01:09:16,600 --> 01:09:21,359
in one of these apartment complexes, after they cut down

1219
01:09:21,399 --> 01:09:24,560
the trees and turned off the irrigation, we went back

1220
01:09:24,600 --> 01:09:29,640
in we replanted. So during the summer monsoon season, we

1221
01:09:29,720 --> 01:09:34,720
transplanted some little seedlings. After we first changed the topography

1222
01:09:35,239 --> 01:09:38,720
of their like landscape medium strips in the parking lot

1223
01:09:39,039 --> 01:09:41,439
which used to just be mounded and drained all the

1224
01:09:41,439 --> 01:09:44,159
water to the parking lot, we flipped it so then

1225
01:09:44,199 --> 01:09:48,720
we created basins so the water would collect where our

1226
01:09:48,800 --> 01:09:49,520
seedling went.

1227
01:09:49,680 --> 01:09:51,520
Speaker 1: How did you did you do that with Did you

1228
01:09:51,560 --> 01:09:53,039
have like a back home or you just doing it

1229
01:09:53,039 --> 01:09:53,760
by hand or what?

1230
01:09:54,479 --> 01:09:56,159
Speaker 2: Yeah? I just doing it by hand. So I just

1231
01:09:56,199 --> 01:10:00,000
go in summer, there's not many people in the apartment

1232
01:10:00,079 --> 01:10:02,119
and a complex, and I go on super early on

1233
01:10:02,199 --> 01:10:04,760
Sunday mornings, so I start work at four am, so

1234
01:10:04,840 --> 01:10:10,399
nobody's out and about, and we just go out with picks,

1235
01:10:10,479 --> 01:10:14,600
shovels and digging bars and a wheelbarrow and started going

1236
01:10:14,680 --> 01:10:17,239
at it. So I don't need a gym membership. That

1237
01:10:17,399 --> 01:10:18,439
is my gym membership.

1238
01:10:18,560 --> 01:10:20,279
Speaker 1: Nay Man, I need to come over there and do

1239
01:10:20,359 --> 01:10:21,840
a video. I'm going to come over there and do

1240
01:10:21,880 --> 01:10:23,359
a video in the next couple.

1241
01:10:23,479 --> 01:10:25,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, by all needs christ I love this.

1242
01:10:25,520 --> 01:10:28,520
Speaker 1: This is just fascinating stuff and what you guys are

1243
01:10:28,520 --> 01:10:31,119
doing can really lead the way for other people to

1244
01:10:31,399 --> 01:10:33,600
hopefully pick up on man, because it's I mean even

1245
01:10:33,640 --> 01:10:37,119
in Austin, which is Austin's still kind of chilly right now,

1246
01:10:37,239 --> 01:10:38,920
you know, whereas where I am, it's already ninety two.

1247
01:10:39,000 --> 01:10:41,960
Like even in Austin, I mean, it's so fucking hot

1248
01:10:42,000 --> 01:10:44,359
there in the summer, it's crazy. And they could I'm

1249
01:10:44,359 --> 01:10:46,439
sure they could learn a lot there from what you

1250
01:10:46,479 --> 01:10:47,079
guys are doing.

1251
01:10:48,319 --> 01:10:51,319
Speaker 2: Well. Yeah, And and it gives when I then see

1252
01:10:51,359 --> 01:10:54,840
those seedlings grow over time, that's giving me hope because

1253
01:10:54,840 --> 01:10:56,920
they're just they're growing on their own at that point.

1254
01:10:56,960 --> 01:10:58,479
Now I do have to bring in a bucket of

1255
01:10:58,560 --> 01:11:01,279
water for the for a little while to get that

1256
01:11:01,399 --> 01:11:04,359
root system grown and established before it can just take

1257
01:11:04,399 --> 01:11:07,239
off on rain alone. But one of these trees, the

1258
01:11:07,279 --> 01:11:12,640
desert ironwood, the alienia to soda, it's got edible flowers

1259
01:11:12,680 --> 01:11:15,920
and seed it's amazing keystone species under which you know,

1260
01:11:16,079 --> 01:11:21,000
all kinds of life grows. I planted one on the

1261
01:11:21,000 --> 01:11:25,479
street side, and we occasionally get tree killers in the neighborhood.

1262
01:11:25,640 --> 01:11:30,079
So he had this one older neighbor who was he

1263
01:11:30,199 --> 01:11:34,279
was having some mental challenges, and he took it upon

1264
01:11:34,359 --> 01:11:38,119
himself to cut that tree down, and so he just

1265
01:11:38,199 --> 01:11:40,760
cut it down on the ground and he buried the stump,

1266
01:11:41,279 --> 01:11:45,239
and I was so angry, and I I had a

1267
01:11:45,239 --> 01:11:47,840
conversation with him, tried my heart, isting to be real

1268
01:11:47,920 --> 01:11:50,399
diplomatic and trying to understand where he was coming from.

1269
01:11:50,880 --> 01:11:53,239
But he just threw a kitchen sink at me of

1270
01:11:54,359 --> 01:11:56,520
that had of just things that had nothing to do

1271
01:11:56,560 --> 01:11:59,880
with the tree. So I just realized, Okay, we're we're

1272
01:12:00,119 --> 01:12:03,359
different universes in our perspective in the world, so I'm

1273
01:12:03,399 --> 01:12:07,399
just gonna let this sit. And I just left by saying, hey, Don,

1274
01:12:08,439 --> 01:12:10,800
next time, you know, I'd really like to collaborate with

1275
01:12:10,840 --> 01:12:13,640
you somehow. I don't know how we'll go about it,

1276
01:12:13,880 --> 01:12:16,079
but next time, can you talk to me first so

1277
01:12:16,119 --> 01:12:19,239
we can maybe come to something that works for everyone.

1278
01:12:20,079 --> 01:12:24,399
And he didn't respond, So I thought I was depressed

1279
01:12:24,399 --> 01:12:27,880
for a good while for nine months, just seeing no

1280
01:12:28,039 --> 01:12:32,960
life there. And then I don't know if it's karma, Don,

1281
01:12:33,479 --> 01:12:35,560
he kind of got ill and he was having a

1282
01:12:35,560 --> 01:12:38,720
hard time getting around. About the time that happened, I

1283
01:12:38,880 --> 01:12:43,279
noticed these a few little stems, a little new growth

1284
01:12:43,359 --> 01:12:46,279
coming up from the base of this iron lid trunk,

1285
01:12:46,880 --> 01:12:49,560
and so it had been nine months of nothing, and

1286
01:12:49,600 --> 01:12:51,760
then all of a sudden a little bit of emerging growth.

1287
01:12:51,760 --> 01:12:53,439
I'm like, oh, man, is don going to see this?

1288
01:12:54,079 --> 01:12:58,760
And it kept growing, it kept growing, and then in

1289
01:12:58,800 --> 01:13:02,680
a matter of two years it was almost back to

1290
01:13:02,720 --> 01:13:07,239
the original size it was before he before he had cut.

1291
01:13:07,039 --> 01:13:12,399
Speaker 1: It down and then died. And now, yeah, what happened?

1292
01:13:12,439 --> 01:13:12,880
What happened?

1293
01:13:12,880 --> 01:13:18,760
Speaker 2: Actually he did eventually pass away. Well you know, you.

1294
01:13:18,720 --> 01:13:20,840
Speaker 1: Guys like he ever saw the light anyway, So it's

1295
01:13:20,880 --> 01:13:23,039
okay to joke about it. No one knows he is

1296
01:13:23,079 --> 01:13:24,880
hopefully sorry.

1297
01:13:26,279 --> 01:13:30,600
Speaker 2: But the it was amazing resilience of that native tree,

1298
01:13:30,880 --> 01:13:35,960
and so they are known as good compassing trees. Where uh,

1299
01:13:36,399 --> 01:13:39,720
there's many parts on the north side of Tucson where

1300
01:13:39,720 --> 01:13:43,520
there's massive ironwood stumps where people had cut the trees

1301
01:13:43,600 --> 01:13:48,960
down to fuel the kilns and whatnot for early construction materials.

1302
01:13:49,560 --> 01:13:54,199
And now there's big trees again that have regrown from

1303
01:13:54,239 --> 01:13:58,359
those massive stumps. And so we were just experiencing an

1304
01:13:58,359 --> 01:14:01,319
example of that right here in our nameihborhood. And so

1305
01:14:01,960 --> 01:14:04,800
what that was The other big hope that that gave

1306
01:14:04,840 --> 01:14:09,199
me and made me realize, is well two things. So one,

1307
01:14:09,640 --> 01:14:12,920
if we plant these native species and they're vandalized by

1308
01:14:13,720 --> 01:14:18,720
city hired maintenance crews or neighborhood tree killers, there's a

1309
01:14:18,800 --> 01:14:21,439
really good chance that they are going to come back,

1310
01:14:22,079 --> 01:14:26,520
and especially if we plant them within or beside these

1311
01:14:26,560 --> 01:14:31,720
water harvesting earthworks. So also at this apartment complex parking

1312
01:14:31,720 --> 01:14:35,880
lot area, where the parking lot was draining all its water,

1313
01:14:36,880 --> 01:14:41,800
I did some plantings and so called maintenance crew came

1314
01:14:41,840 --> 01:14:45,600
in clear cut it, but didn't matter. It's all since

1315
01:14:45,960 --> 01:14:50,239
regrown from the rootstock because there's ample moisture there to

1316
01:14:50,520 --> 01:14:55,079
fuel that regenerative regrowth. So we can put a lot

1317
01:14:55,079 --> 01:14:57,880
of it's more energy to put in this planting of

1318
01:14:57,920 --> 01:15:01,039
the rain the water oversing earthworks initially, but once you've

1319
01:15:01,079 --> 01:15:06,720
got that beneficial water harvesting topography, then everything's easier after

1320
01:15:06,760 --> 01:15:10,039
that and the plants regrow themselves.

1321
01:15:10,239 --> 01:15:12,640
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, so read the rain. So what you're doing

1322
01:15:12,720 --> 01:15:15,319
changing the topography is basically just site prep. It's like

1323
01:15:15,399 --> 01:15:18,279
setting it up so that it actually gets water. And

1324
01:15:18,479 --> 01:15:20,600
when I cause I've been I started, I was doing

1325
01:15:20,720 --> 01:15:23,720
a lot of gorilla tree planting, you know, fifteen years

1326
01:15:23,760 --> 01:15:27,119
ago in Oakland when I lived out there, and I

1327
01:15:27,159 --> 01:15:29,479
would just say, you know, all right, yeah, shit dies

1328
01:15:29,600 --> 01:15:32,000
or someone vandalized it. When whatever, I'll just go harder.

1329
01:15:32,039 --> 01:15:34,880
I'll do five more next time and I'll plant it's

1330
01:15:34,880 --> 01:15:36,720
super dense. I don't give a shit. I got you know,

1331
01:15:36,800 --> 01:15:38,600
this is I get off on this. This is joy

1332
01:15:38,640 --> 01:15:40,560
to me. This isn't work, you know.

1333
01:15:41,039 --> 01:15:43,760
Speaker 2: And the cac die are great for that because when

1334
01:15:44,199 --> 01:15:46,840
I notice people will vandalize the prickly pair and stuff

1335
01:15:46,840 --> 01:15:49,479
that we plant, and there's just pieces all over. It's

1336
01:15:49,479 --> 01:15:53,039
like the broomsticks of Fantasia. I then plant every piece

1337
01:15:53,520 --> 01:15:57,199
and then we've got a dozens more prickly pair than

1338
01:15:57,239 --> 01:16:00,000
we did pre vandalism, because every little piece has been

1339
01:16:00,119 --> 01:16:02,880
planted and is rooted as growing more pads.

1340
01:16:03,199 --> 01:16:05,439
Speaker 1: What was Don's reasoning? I mean, I know you said

1341
01:16:05,439 --> 01:16:07,800
he was nuts, but like everyone's fucking nuts. Look at

1342
01:16:07,840 --> 01:16:09,560
look at the society we live in. How could you

1343
01:16:09,600 --> 01:16:09,840
not be?

1344
01:16:10,000 --> 01:16:10,079
Speaker 2: Like?

1345
01:16:10,119 --> 01:16:13,279
Speaker 1: What was his issue when he was complaining about the tree?

1346
01:16:13,319 --> 01:16:16,079
Was it messy or was it like literally schizo.

1347
01:16:16,640 --> 01:16:20,359
Speaker 2: Uh iran, Yeah, unfortunately it was really schitzo. I couldn't

1348
01:16:20,439 --> 01:16:21,840
I couldn't make any sense of it.

1349
01:16:21,960 --> 01:16:25,760
Speaker 1: Damn that sucks, poor bastard. Well, all right, p Don

1350
01:16:26,039 --> 01:16:28,720
and uh the tree can be dedicated to him now.

1351
01:16:28,880 --> 01:16:32,640
But imagine having only a test Sooda, the fucking iron wood.

1352
01:16:32,640 --> 01:16:35,039
That's one of my favorite trees because it's a like him,

1353
01:16:35,079 --> 01:16:37,920
but it's not a mimosoid like you know, uh, like

1354
01:16:38,000 --> 01:16:41,119
mesquites or or lukena or any of those. It's an

1355
01:16:41,159 --> 01:16:45,680
actual like pea subfamily. You know. It's got those papollionaceous

1356
01:16:45,680 --> 01:16:48,880
flowers with the banner petal. They're fucking beautiful flowers. Imagine

1357
01:16:48,880 --> 01:16:53,159
having that and planting china berries Like that's that's crazy, man,

1358
01:16:53,239 --> 01:16:55,439
Like you live in a spot where that thing comes

1359
01:16:55,479 --> 01:16:58,119
with the land. One of the most gorgeous trees in

1360
01:16:58,159 --> 01:17:01,159
the desert comes with the land, and you're planting china

1361
01:17:01,159 --> 01:17:04,479
berry trees right like this thing that needs way more

1362
01:17:04,600 --> 01:17:07,920
rain and is from nine thousand miles away. It's crazy.

1363
01:17:09,159 --> 01:17:12,560
Speaker 2: And those china berries are relative dead zones because the

1364
01:17:13,000 --> 01:17:15,359
I don't know, if you've seen the book by Douglas Talamay,

1365
01:17:15,520 --> 01:17:16,800
you should get him on your show.

1366
01:17:16,920 --> 01:17:19,239
Speaker 1: Oh I had him on, yeah, yeah, yeah, oh Cole

1367
01:17:19,399 --> 01:17:21,439
years ago. I was surprised he came on because he's

1368
01:17:21,520 --> 01:17:23,840
kind of, you know, high and tight. He's like a

1369
01:17:23,920 --> 01:17:26,319
he's very wholesome, but he was down to come on here,

1370
01:17:26,359 --> 01:17:29,640
and yeah, he didn't approve of the of the term

1371
01:17:29,720 --> 01:17:31,800
killer lawn though. He's like, I don't like that. We

1372
01:17:32,039 --> 01:17:35,760
just say it's like, hey man, we're different people, Doug.

1373
01:17:35,920 --> 01:17:38,600
We're different people, different audiences.

1374
01:17:39,800 --> 01:17:42,960
Speaker 2: He opened my eyes too. He just said, you like

1375
01:17:43,199 --> 01:17:46,319
you like native songbirds, like yeah, I love native songbirds, Like, well,

1376
01:17:46,319 --> 01:17:49,920
then you got to have caterpillars because that's what they

1377
01:17:49,960 --> 01:17:53,279
feed their young. And he's like, we've got all these

1378
01:17:53,439 --> 01:17:58,640
non native mesquites, which unfortunately is now the dominant tree

1379
01:17:58,720 --> 01:18:02,159
and the Tucson area in the landscape trade. What is

1380
01:18:02,279 --> 01:18:06,840
South American it's the South American hybrids. Oh, you're on

1381
01:18:06,920 --> 01:18:11,119
the species name on it. Well it's changed Prosopis. But

1382
01:18:11,359 --> 01:18:17,159
the Argentinia and the Chileanensis are two of them. But

1383
01:18:17,159 --> 01:18:22,079
there's others. And so our native butterflies and moths they

1384
01:18:22,159 --> 01:18:28,680
can't eat it, and so whereas our native mesquite they can.

1385
01:18:28,960 --> 01:18:31,840
So you get great caterpillars with the natives, but it's

1386
01:18:31,840 --> 01:18:33,479
just a dead zone with the non natives.

1387
01:18:35,439 --> 01:18:38,359
Speaker 1: I just why why do people do that? And they

1388
01:18:38,359 --> 01:18:40,920
do that everywhere. It's all over the world. Like you

1389
01:18:41,000 --> 01:18:44,000
have amazing you have an amazing palette of native trees,

1390
01:18:44,560 --> 01:18:49,039
and then you plant something that's essentially the same genus

1391
01:18:49,119 --> 01:18:53,560
or family, but it's from It's from like three thousand

1392
01:18:53,600 --> 01:18:57,359
miles away. It's like intentionally intentional stupidity. Like when I

1393
01:18:57,399 --> 01:18:59,720
lived in Oakland, they would do that. We have ass

1394
01:18:59,760 --> 01:19:03,600
kel Fornica native California buckeye. Don't fucking plant it's drout.

1395
01:19:03,680 --> 01:19:06,800
It's drout dormant, right, it goes dormant, the leaves fall

1396
01:19:06,840 --> 01:19:10,039
off in August, and then it's got these incredible sprays

1397
01:19:10,079 --> 01:19:13,840
of flowers and these the fucking morons like that, you know,

1398
01:19:14,039 --> 01:19:18,680
behind whatever city agency would plant European buckeyes from a

1399
01:19:18,720 --> 01:19:21,239
climate that gets summer rain. It just doesn't make any sense.

1400
01:19:21,279 --> 01:19:23,239
It's like, yo, you've got which is the same genus

1401
01:19:23,239 --> 01:19:25,359
you have? You already have one that works while you're

1402
01:19:25,359 --> 01:19:28,039
doing this, you know, Yeah, it's crazy.

1403
01:19:28,199 --> 01:19:34,319
Speaker 2: Well, I find that, in my opinion, the unethical nursery

1404
01:19:34,399 --> 01:19:38,319
growers that are planting that are selling the non natives.

1405
01:19:38,960 --> 01:19:42,399
They like the South American hybrid mesquites because they grow

1406
01:19:42,479 --> 01:19:46,319
faster so they can sell more plants, and that they

1407
01:19:46,359 --> 01:19:50,119
grow into bigger size. But then people who plant them

1408
01:19:50,439 --> 01:19:53,840
they find that those non native mesquites are susceptible to

1409
01:19:53,920 --> 01:19:58,119
storm blowover, so you lose your tree.

1410
01:19:58,399 --> 01:20:00,560
Speaker 1: So yeah, it doesn't pay off in the long term.

1411
01:20:00,680 --> 01:20:03,279
And also it's just not tied into the ecology there.

1412
01:20:03,319 --> 01:20:05,119
I see. This is all stuff that like I love

1413
01:20:05,199 --> 01:20:07,960
ridiculing it because it's fun, but also I think it's

1414
01:20:08,279 --> 01:20:11,079
it can change because it's just a practicality issue. It's like,

1415
01:20:11,880 --> 01:20:15,399
you know, it's like intentionally doing things that are stupid boy,

1416
01:20:15,479 --> 01:20:18,479
because no one has shown you that there's a better way.

1417
01:20:18,520 --> 01:20:21,119
And then once someone shows you a better way, you

1418
01:20:21,159 --> 01:20:25,039
would have to intentionally be going against what makes sense

1419
01:20:25,600 --> 01:20:28,359
to not take that better way. So I most people

1420
01:20:28,399 --> 01:20:30,439
take the better way. They realize, oh yeah, the native

1421
01:20:30,479 --> 01:20:32,279
stuff is if I plant this, I'm gonna get all

1422
01:20:32,319 --> 01:20:34,800
the cool birds, and it's it's evolved here and there's

1423
01:20:34,800 --> 01:20:38,279
actually practicality to it, so yeah, I'm gonna do this instead.

1424
01:20:38,319 --> 01:20:42,600
And so I think that change. I mean, Tucson's light

1425
01:20:42,680 --> 01:20:45,840
years ahead of where I live culturally speaking as well,

1426
01:20:45,920 --> 01:20:48,800
so I think it's gonna it's especially there it can change,

1427
01:20:48,840 --> 01:20:51,279
but but here it can change as well. I think

1428
01:20:51,279 --> 01:20:53,319
it's you know, again, it's just showing people like, hey, man,

1429
01:20:53,359 --> 01:20:55,720
this is what makes sense, and this is what's what's

1430
01:20:55,760 --> 01:20:59,840
the best, uh the best thing to do. But then

1431
01:21:00,159 --> 01:21:02,279
the miscuits you have, I mean, it's what is it?

1432
01:21:02,279 --> 01:21:07,319
It's volutna, it's persopus or nowavolutna, and then you guys

1433
01:21:07,319 --> 01:21:13,439
get pussens to screwbeanscups, and then parkinsonia it's florida, And

1434
01:21:13,439 --> 01:21:15,279
then do you get prey coox there too.

1435
01:21:16,880 --> 01:21:20,960
Speaker 2: Uh that's more to the south, other side of the

1436
01:21:20,960 --> 01:21:23,920
border that that's gone, but it's in the landscape trade.

1437
01:21:23,960 --> 01:21:26,560
But yeah, yeah, yeah.

1438
01:21:26,279 --> 01:21:27,760
Speaker 1: But those things are amazing.

1439
01:21:27,840 --> 01:21:32,000
Speaker 2: What about the microphyllum and the floridum, those ones are

1440
01:21:32,119 --> 01:21:38,760
native Calabernese. What about go ahead. I was just saying,

1441
01:21:38,800 --> 01:21:43,600
they have edible flowers and seed. So the other way

1442
01:21:43,680 --> 01:21:46,880
that we're trying to get people to recognize the value

1443
01:21:46,960 --> 01:21:50,560
of the native plants isn't just through the wildlife habitat

1444
01:21:50,600 --> 01:21:52,840
and how you you don't have to water it so

1445
01:21:52,880 --> 01:21:56,399
it's lower maintenance and all that. But were we also

1446
01:21:56,600 --> 01:22:00,840
draw our plant lists from the local ethnopotana records to

1447
01:22:00,880 --> 01:22:05,880
see what did the indigenous and the early immigrant cultures,

1448
01:22:06,760 --> 01:22:10,079
how did they utilize these plants? So then it becomes

1449
01:22:10,119 --> 01:22:14,239
this great connection to the history of the various peoples

1450
01:22:14,479 --> 01:22:17,439
rooted to this place. So it's it's like a whole

1451
01:22:17,840 --> 01:22:21,520
history lesson and tie to the various cultures of place.

1452
01:22:22,119 --> 01:22:26,439
And we're just looking for excuses or invitations for people

1453
01:22:26,520 --> 01:22:31,199
to have additional, deeper layers of relationship with the plants.

1454
01:22:31,720 --> 01:22:34,359
So it's the hope that you know, they won't just

1455
01:22:34,479 --> 01:22:37,560
extract from them, won't just harvest from them, but they'll

1456
01:22:37,600 --> 01:22:41,479
want to actually give back and collaborate with those plants in.

1457
01:22:41,399 --> 01:22:44,479
Speaker 1: Respect them and have reverence for them. Yeah.

1458
01:22:44,560 --> 01:22:49,359
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we and going further in that direction. We

1459
01:22:49,600 --> 01:22:53,560
started are you know, I started my tree planting and

1460
01:22:53,600 --> 01:22:57,479
water harvesting with our street side plantings, but we now

1461
01:22:57,560 --> 01:23:00,880
don't just plant trees. Initially that's all we did, but

1462
01:23:00,960 --> 01:23:04,920
now we try and plant forests with every planting many forests.

1463
01:23:05,479 --> 01:23:09,279
So we've created the water harvesting basin. We make it

1464
01:23:09,359 --> 01:23:11,439
bigger than we used to when it was just trees,

1465
01:23:11,920 --> 01:23:15,479
and then we're planting just five gallon sized tree that's

1466
01:23:15,520 --> 01:23:17,720
the biggest school plant. We don't plant any bigger than

1467
01:23:17,720 --> 01:23:22,960
that because we find that the smaller nursery stock it

1468
01:23:23,000 --> 01:23:28,479
grows much faster than the bigger plants, and you save money,

1469
01:23:28,640 --> 01:23:32,000
so and you don't have to dig holes as deep,

1470
01:23:32,039 --> 01:23:33,000
so it's easier work.

1471
01:23:33,119 --> 01:23:35,239
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it hasn't been tortured in a pot for

1472
01:23:35,359 --> 01:23:38,119
however many years. I tell people that all the time,

1473
01:23:38,399 --> 01:23:41,840
it's way better to plant one gallons or tubes and

1474
01:23:41,880 --> 01:23:44,199
then just yeah, because they get established so much faster,

1475
01:23:44,319 --> 01:23:46,399
especially with all the legumes. Man, because all the legumes

1476
01:23:46,399 --> 01:23:48,319
are free out of fhytes, they all send down really

1477
01:23:48,359 --> 01:23:51,000
deep roots, which is another great thing why they're such

1478
01:23:51,000 --> 01:23:53,960
great street trees, because the roots don't go out, you know,

1479
01:23:54,199 --> 01:23:56,960
like say like a sycamore or something, would they actually

1480
01:23:57,039 --> 01:23:57,479
go down.

1481
01:23:58,399 --> 01:24:03,720
Speaker 2: Yeah. So we're planting those deep rooted legumes and other

1482
01:24:03,880 --> 01:24:07,560
native trees, and then we plant the understory plants, all

1483
01:24:07,600 --> 01:24:10,079
the various layers at the same time. They're all going

1484
01:24:10,159 --> 01:24:12,359
to look the same size when we plant them. They're

1485
01:24:12,359 --> 01:24:16,680
all one gallon pots. But we're planting the larger shrubs,

1486
01:24:16,720 --> 01:24:19,880
which I also call bush trees because they don't grow

1487
01:24:19,960 --> 01:24:23,720
so tall that they grow into the overhead power lines.

1488
01:24:24,039 --> 01:24:26,760
So we'll plant those under the overhead power lines. Then

1489
01:24:26,800 --> 01:24:30,199
we have our smaller shrubs, and then the even smaller groundcovers.

1490
01:24:30,199 --> 01:24:33,720
We got the vines, we've got the tuberous rooted plants,

1491
01:24:34,279 --> 01:24:37,520
the cacti, so we plant all that at once, because

1492
01:24:38,199 --> 01:24:42,199
the people have to water these native plantings the first

1493
01:24:42,319 --> 01:24:46,399
one to three years to get them established, to get

1494
01:24:46,439 --> 01:24:50,000
those small root balls from the potted plants from the

1495
01:24:50,079 --> 01:24:53,600
nursery to grow wider, and it's one to three years

1496
01:24:53,600 --> 01:24:56,760
depending on the weather. So if we're in a real

1497
01:24:56,960 --> 01:25:00,960
droughty dry time, might have to water three years, but

1498
01:25:01,000 --> 01:25:04,560
if we're getting average rains, one year can suffice and

1499
01:25:04,600 --> 01:25:07,399
then it'll just be the passively harvested rain water and

1500
01:25:07,439 --> 01:25:09,760
stormwater doing all the irrigation. You don't have to water.

1501
01:25:10,319 --> 01:25:13,960
But since the people are already water in the tree,

1502
01:25:14,000 --> 01:25:15,159
it's like, well, let's get them to do all the

1503
01:25:15,239 --> 01:25:17,439
understory at the same time. And it's not going to

1504
01:25:17,479 --> 01:25:20,399
take any more time from the people. They're already out there,

1505
01:25:20,880 --> 01:25:26,199
and let's get way more diversity and vegetation and density.

1506
01:25:26,279 --> 01:25:29,520
Vegetation will have much better habitat, and we'll have all

1507
01:25:29,560 --> 01:25:33,239
these other food bearing and medicinal bearing plants that it's

1508
01:25:33,520 --> 01:25:38,159
really a living farmer's market and pharmacy. It's not just

1509
01:25:38,960 --> 01:25:44,319
a single outlet. And so that's been really successful and

1510
01:25:44,399 --> 01:25:46,199
I wish we had started that way, but at least

1511
01:25:46,199 --> 01:25:48,279
we figured that out and are now doing it that way.

1512
01:25:48,359 --> 01:25:51,319
Speaker 1: Yeah, the density, the density thing is really important. That's

1513
01:25:51,399 --> 01:25:54,199
you know, it's like a keeping with the whole Milwaukee

1514
01:25:54,239 --> 01:25:57,640
tiny forest meth Yeah, which is what I mean. That's

1515
01:25:57,640 --> 01:25:59,760
something cool that people did here. You know, a friend,

1516
01:26:00,239 --> 01:26:02,640
a friend of mine, John Brush, and a couple other

1517
01:26:02,640 --> 01:26:05,760
people that work at this place called Keita, Mazatlan and

1518
01:26:06,239 --> 01:26:10,319
McCallen have been doing that, planting tiny forests, and you know,

1519
01:26:10,479 --> 01:26:15,119
just unlike areas that would otherwise just be barren barren dirt.

1520
01:26:15,319 --> 01:26:17,319
You know, they still mow it, like they still there's

1521
01:26:17,359 --> 01:26:19,800
still some guy out there every week driving around with

1522
01:26:19,840 --> 01:26:22,720
a mower just kicking up clouds of dust. But because

1523
01:26:22,760 --> 01:26:25,600
there's little patches of dead burm mudigrass that they feel

1524
01:26:25,640 --> 01:26:27,119
they have to most still, you know, it gives them

1525
01:26:27,119 --> 01:26:30,600
a sense of purpose. It's important for their psychology. But

1526
01:26:31,840 --> 01:26:34,720
they but they did one near the park here in McAllen,

1527
01:26:34,840 --> 01:26:37,039
and like you know, it's just it's just dense planting.

1528
01:26:37,079 --> 01:26:40,199
And I'm sure again to the uninitiated, to anybody who's

1529
01:26:40,199 --> 01:26:42,840
spent their life living and air conditioning and doesn't go

1530
01:26:42,960 --> 01:26:46,079
hiking or spend time in nature. They maybe they think

1531
01:26:46,079 --> 01:26:48,520
it's weedy at first, but eventually it grows in and

1532
01:26:48,560 --> 01:26:51,880
it makes the whole area again filled with birds, mitigates

1533
01:26:51,920 --> 01:26:54,960
flooding and keeps the heat off the ground. The flooding

1534
01:26:55,000 --> 01:26:58,520
thing is really really important because that's something I think

1535
01:26:58,560 --> 01:27:02,199
a lot of people don't think about and don't realize.

1536
01:27:02,439 --> 01:27:04,880
You know, because I made these stickers it said lawns

1537
01:27:04,920 --> 01:27:08,680
cause flooding. Because they do. They literally do. That's why

1538
01:27:08,760 --> 01:27:12,720
sod is a thing. Because roots don't go deep. SOD

1539
01:27:12,840 --> 01:27:15,520
works because lawn roots don't go deep. They don't need

1540
01:27:15,560 --> 01:27:18,880
to because there's only a couple inches of leaves. If

1541
01:27:18,920 --> 01:27:20,479
you've only got a couple of inches of leaves, you

1542
01:27:20,520 --> 01:27:22,600
don't need deep roots. You only have a couple inches

1543
01:27:22,640 --> 01:27:26,760
of of or you don't produce deep roots unless you're

1544
01:27:26,840 --> 01:27:30,039
like a desert plant that's adapted to it. So you know,

1545
01:27:30,119 --> 01:27:33,000
these these lawns, but if you keep it perpetually mode

1546
01:27:33,039 --> 01:27:34,880
and then you've got to water it all the time

1547
01:27:35,079 --> 01:27:37,079
because it's stressed out and in the I mean where

1548
01:27:37,159 --> 01:27:39,920
you live, it's I don't think many people even still

1549
01:27:39,960 --> 01:27:42,720
have lawns, do they. I mean it's it's completely idiotic.

1550
01:27:42,760 --> 01:27:45,159
I mean, most people, even if they don't like native plants,

1551
01:27:45,199 --> 01:27:47,560
realize having a lawn out there doesn't make sense. And

1552
01:27:47,640 --> 01:27:49,039
you still do. You see a lot of lawns where

1553
01:27:49,039 --> 01:27:49,279
you are.

1554
01:27:50,479 --> 01:27:52,399
Speaker 2: There's nowhere near as many as there used to be,

1555
01:27:52,439 --> 01:27:53,960
but there's still some out there.

1556
01:27:54,239 --> 01:27:56,600
Speaker 1: That's That's a nice thing about southern Arizona is you're

1557
01:27:56,640 --> 01:27:58,359
kind of like it or not. You're kind of forced

1558
01:27:58,399 --> 01:28:01,079
to use native or at least droll tolerant plants right

1559
01:28:01,119 --> 01:28:02,880
the land the climate is not going to let you

1560
01:28:02,880 --> 01:28:06,680
do anything else. But anyway, you know, since the lawn

1561
01:28:06,760 --> 01:28:10,159
routes don't go very deep, the soil beneath it is

1562
01:28:10,239 --> 01:28:14,359
essentially dead because you need roots for microbes to live on.

1563
01:28:14,439 --> 01:28:18,239
They are the scaffolding that holds the life. And then

1564
01:28:18,319 --> 01:28:20,720
it's compacted as well, and so the water just hits

1565
01:28:20,720 --> 01:28:23,039
it and runs right off. And so explaining this to people,

1566
01:28:23,039 --> 01:28:25,399
it's like, well, it's a lawn is really just like

1567
01:28:25,439 --> 01:28:28,880
a parking lot for when it comes to runoff and water, right,

1568
01:28:28,920 --> 01:28:32,039
Whereas if you have perennial shrubs or trees breaking up

1569
01:28:32,079 --> 01:28:34,720
that soil, making it more like a sponge as opposed

1570
01:28:34,720 --> 01:28:37,840
to a brick. Now the water can infiltrate and it

1571
01:28:37,880 --> 01:28:42,399
actually absorbs. I mean when you guys were explaining that

1572
01:28:42,439 --> 01:28:44,680
to people, because I meant, you're a desert, but still

1573
01:28:44,680 --> 01:28:47,359
when you get high monsoon rains, you still get flooding

1574
01:28:47,359 --> 01:28:50,319
out there. Right, Oh yeah. And so when you were

1575
01:28:50,359 --> 01:28:53,479
explaining this to like city hall or people that were

1576
01:28:53,520 --> 01:28:56,359
in positions of authority, did they were they able to

1577
01:28:56,439 --> 01:28:58,800
grasp this when you broke when you broke it down

1578
01:28:58,800 --> 01:29:00,600
to them or what so.

1579
01:29:01,960 --> 01:29:04,159
Speaker 2: I don't know if they were first grasping it when

1580
01:29:04,159 --> 01:29:07,279
we had the meetings, but they definitely grasped it when

1581
01:29:07,319 --> 01:29:08,920
a number of the folks that we were having the

1582
01:29:08,960 --> 01:29:12,159
meetings with from the city, they started showing up when

1583
01:29:12,640 --> 01:29:15,199
the summer monsoons came in all of a sudden. I

1584
01:29:15,239 --> 01:29:18,039
saw them in their vehicles. Sometimes they'd be out of

1585
01:29:18,039 --> 01:29:21,840
their vehicles on our block checking out our installations, and

1586
01:29:21,880 --> 01:29:24,159
they were seeing all the storm water that we were

1587
01:29:24,199 --> 01:29:27,159
pulling off the street into these street side basins, and

1588
01:29:27,159 --> 01:29:30,920
they were also seeing how quickly that water was infiltrating,

1589
01:29:31,439 --> 01:29:35,479
so unlike a rain water tank that fills up in

1590
01:29:35,520 --> 01:29:37,600
a storm and then you can't get any more water.

1591
01:29:38,079 --> 01:29:40,800
The Great thing about harvesting water in the soil or

1592
01:29:40,840 --> 01:29:44,479
planting the rain is it's continually absorbing water, so it's

1593
01:29:45,000 --> 01:29:49,119
continually increasing its capacity throughout the storm. And that's when

1594
01:29:49,760 --> 01:29:52,520
the light bulb went off. That's when they saw it like, oh,

1595
01:29:52,920 --> 01:29:58,680
this works. And then and we too, our light bulbs

1596
01:29:58,720 --> 01:30:03,600
have been continually going off. So I mentioned that when

1597
01:30:03,640 --> 01:30:05,960
we started, our basins were too small, and then we

1598
01:30:06,000 --> 01:30:08,199
made them bigger, and then we connected them to collect

1599
01:30:08,239 --> 01:30:10,840
the water off the street. Well, that was working, but

1600
01:30:10,880 --> 01:30:13,279
then we realized, wow, we still need to make them bigger.

1601
01:30:13,640 --> 01:30:16,840
So we've continually been growing the size of our basins.

1602
01:30:16,920 --> 01:30:20,119
And when we first started, everything we did was done

1603
01:30:20,159 --> 01:30:24,279
by volunteer labor, just hand shovels, picks. Now we've got

1604
01:30:24,319 --> 01:30:28,479
an annual program where we hire and helped train up

1605
01:30:28,800 --> 01:30:32,520
local contractors and then they'll dig out the stuff with

1606
01:30:32,560 --> 01:30:38,119
a baco and they'll set the rock so they'll do

1607
01:30:38,159 --> 01:30:41,560
the hard work, and then we come in with the

1608
01:30:41,560 --> 01:30:46,720
neighborhood volunteers to do the planting. So everyone gets that

1609
01:30:46,840 --> 01:30:50,640
experience of literally planting their roots with the roots of

1610
01:30:50,680 --> 01:30:53,560
the plants in this community. And it's a great chance.

1611
01:30:53,680 --> 01:30:55,920
I want to talk and get to know one another

1612
01:30:56,039 --> 01:30:59,800
and learn about this program and spread the word on this.

1613
01:31:00,640 --> 01:31:04,560
So it's a lot of this is really community building

1614
01:31:04,600 --> 01:31:08,359
work too. For the long run, it all, it's all.

1615
01:31:08,840 --> 01:31:11,399
It's culture change, that's ultimately what we're trying to do.

1616
01:31:11,479 --> 01:31:15,920
It's changed the from the dominant, dead, concreted culture to

1617
01:31:16,199 --> 01:31:20,560
a more life embracing life, collaborating culture in a way

1618
01:31:20,600 --> 01:31:23,800
that doesn't extract from our aquifer and kill our rivers,

1619
01:31:23,840 --> 01:31:26,640
but actually replenishes our aquifer and the flow of our

1620
01:31:26,760 --> 01:31:31,520
rivers just by using what's freely at hand, as opposed

1621
01:31:31,520 --> 01:31:35,079
to becoming ever more dependent on imported things you buy.

1622
01:31:35,640 --> 01:31:39,079
We're just working with the free. Yeah.

1623
01:31:39,119 --> 01:31:42,720
Speaker 1: Man, it's so uh, it's really inspiring to hear about.

1624
01:31:43,439 --> 01:31:46,199
I mean it's because again it's we get more accumulative

1625
01:31:46,199 --> 01:31:48,960
heat throughout the year, but you guys have hotter days.

1626
01:31:49,039 --> 01:31:51,520
I don't think we've ever had one hundred and fifteen

1627
01:31:51,560 --> 01:31:53,560
one hundred and twenty degree fahrenheit day here.

1628
01:31:56,439 --> 01:31:59,199
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're getting hotter every year.

1629
01:31:59,479 --> 01:32:02,359
Speaker 1: A believe it. And you've created this, I mean you've

1630
01:32:02,399 --> 01:32:06,920
created a yeah, I mean a fucking desert oasis. You've

1631
01:32:06,920 --> 01:32:10,119
created an oasis, and it's got to feel good to

1632
01:32:10,119 --> 01:32:12,680
be around and also just get getting to be out

1633
01:32:12,680 --> 01:32:14,880
there and get other people into it, you know, having

1634
01:32:14,920 --> 01:32:18,359
those like community work days. It's obesome, man, God, I

1635
01:32:18,399 --> 01:32:21,239
wish we could do something like that here, you know, Yeah,

1636
01:32:21,279 --> 01:32:24,800
you can, just takes time. When did you start doing this?

1637
01:32:24,960 --> 01:32:27,560
Like when? When when did everything start? Like when was

1638
01:32:27,600 --> 01:32:29,079
your first curveb what year?

1639
01:32:30,000 --> 01:32:33,000
Speaker 2: Well, we started the tree planting in nineteen ninety six.

1640
01:32:33,199 --> 01:32:35,359
I think I was twenty seven years old or something

1641
01:32:35,399 --> 01:32:38,239
like that at the time. And then and I want

1642
01:32:38,239 --> 01:32:40,680
to point out that all it takes to do this

1643
01:32:41,199 --> 01:32:44,159
is two people, one shovel in one tree. That's all

1644
01:32:44,199 --> 01:32:47,079
you need to start, and that's a community planting project.

1645
01:32:48,039 --> 01:32:51,279
And then if you got the energy, keep going. So

1646
01:32:52,640 --> 01:32:56,119
the key for me, the hardest thing is just starting.

1647
01:32:56,920 --> 01:32:59,920
So don't go crazy, big and way. That's going to

1648
01:33:00,079 --> 01:33:03,279
intimidate you to the point you never get off the couch.

1649
01:33:03,880 --> 01:33:08,720
So just just start. And so we started with just

1650
01:33:08,800 --> 01:33:11,479
the tree planting, planting in those small three foot diameter

1651
01:33:11,560 --> 01:33:16,279
six inch deep basins, and then the curb cutting curb coreing.

1652
01:33:17,119 --> 01:33:19,560
I think we did our first one in two thousand

1653
01:33:19,560 --> 01:33:23,479
and three. So it took a while before we got

1654
01:33:23,520 --> 01:33:27,000
brave enough to do the pre legal action.

1655
01:33:27,479 --> 01:33:30,840
Speaker 1: Okay, and you were just the curb cutting. I mean,

1656
01:33:31,399 --> 01:33:33,319
was there a certain way you were cutting it or

1657
01:33:33,359 --> 01:33:36,119
was it just two vertical cuts and literally removing a

1658
01:33:36,199 --> 01:33:36,720
section of.

1659
01:33:38,399 --> 01:33:42,119
Speaker 2: Curb. Yeah, so you can if you just go to

1660
01:33:42,159 --> 01:33:46,319
my website Harvesting Rainwater dot com and then you put

1661
01:33:46,359 --> 01:33:50,560
in curb cuts, you'll see the section I show how

1662
01:33:50,560 --> 01:33:55,439
to do DIY curb cuts. So we cut forty five

1663
01:33:55,479 --> 01:33:59,960
degree angle sides and then we did a horizontal cut

1664
01:34:00,600 --> 01:34:03,039
on the dirt side of the street curb because we

1665
01:34:03,039 --> 01:34:05,039
could make a basin and make room for the saw,

1666
01:34:05,520 --> 01:34:08,560
and then we sledge hammered out the last bit. Uh.

1667
01:34:08,760 --> 01:34:11,520
And then you just you grind it out, you smooth

1668
01:34:11,520 --> 01:34:12,960
it out with the grinder, like.

1669
01:34:13,359 --> 01:34:16,199
Speaker 1: A horizontal cut on the on the soil side of

1670
01:34:16,239 --> 01:34:18,399
the curb. Yeah.

1671
01:34:18,640 --> 01:34:21,359
Speaker 2: And we've since changed that. We don't. We rarely do

1672
01:34:21,479 --> 01:34:26,159
curb cuts anymore because we again we're always learning, evolving

1673
01:34:26,239 --> 01:34:28,680
because you know, evolve or die, so we're trying to evolve,

1674
01:34:28,720 --> 01:34:32,119
so we keep going. We realized we could do it

1675
01:34:32,159 --> 01:34:35,279
a lot cheaper and with less work, So now we're

1676
01:34:35,279 --> 01:34:40,000
doing curb cores. So with a hammer, drill and a

1677
01:34:40,039 --> 01:34:46,960
minimum four inch diameter diamond carbide drill bit. We make

1678
01:34:47,039 --> 01:34:51,560
four inch diameter holes that we angle down from the

1679
01:34:51,560 --> 01:34:55,560
street to the basin and somewhat in the direction of flow.

1680
01:34:55,920 --> 01:34:59,640
Speaker 1: Oh shit, this is so you're just like drilling holes

1681
01:34:59,680 --> 01:35:02,119
in the curbs so water can get That's amazing.

1682
01:35:02,920 --> 01:35:07,159
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's already being done by the municipality, but

1683
01:35:07,239 --> 01:35:11,079
they typically are doing those holes to drain storm water

1684
01:35:11,159 --> 01:35:13,800
from rus for joining buildings to the street. We're just

1685
01:35:13,840 --> 01:35:14,560
reversing it.

1686
01:35:14,640 --> 01:35:17,239
Speaker 1: What's the diameter of the drill bit? I mean, does

1687
01:35:17,279 --> 01:35:19,880
it look like one of those circular saws that you

1688
01:35:19,960 --> 01:35:21,880
used to cut a doorknob hole in a door or

1689
01:35:21,960 --> 01:35:23,399
is it just literally a drill bit?

1690
01:35:24,399 --> 01:35:27,239
Speaker 2: Uh No. If it's it's a whole saw. So if

1691
01:35:27,279 --> 01:35:32,399
you just go to my website, Harvesting Rainwater dot com,

1692
01:35:32,439 --> 01:35:34,880
and then in the search bar on my website put

1693
01:35:34,880 --> 01:35:35,920
in curb core.

1694
01:35:36,800 --> 01:35:41,720
Speaker 1: Search bar, I'm okay, the little magnifying glass at the bottom, okay, yeah.

1695
01:35:40,920 --> 01:35:44,560
Speaker 2: And then it'll pop up pages where I've got photos

1696
01:35:44,600 --> 01:35:49,800
showing showing us doing the curb coring. You can see

1697
01:35:49,840 --> 01:35:54,359
the drill and everything, and you can either rent it

1698
01:35:54,439 --> 01:35:57,920
do it yourself, or you can hire a local contractor.

1699
01:35:57,960 --> 01:36:00,920
There's many they specialize in curb corn. In curb cutting,

1700
01:36:01,560 --> 01:36:05,399
we typically use a father son team. They're fantastic, the

1701
01:36:05,439 --> 01:36:08,000
Sun's He's built like a linebacker, so you can really

1702
01:36:08,039 --> 01:36:10,039
hold that drill. But if you don't want to hold

1703
01:36:10,079 --> 01:36:15,399
that drill. A great colleague of mine, Van Clothier, He's

1704
01:36:15,399 --> 01:36:19,319
got a company called Stream Dynamics in Silver City, New Mexico.

1705
01:36:19,720 --> 01:36:22,840
And if you go to my YouTube page, just search

1706
01:36:22,880 --> 01:36:26,880
Brad Lancaster on YouTube you'll find the latest video I

1707
01:36:26,960 --> 01:36:31,239
just posted is of his work in Silver City, New Mexico,

1708
01:36:31,760 --> 01:36:35,560
that shows him doing early curb cuts. And then if

1709
01:36:35,600 --> 01:36:37,800
you watch the video to the end, you see his

1710
01:36:37,920 --> 01:36:41,600
latest evolution where now he's not doing four inch diameter

1711
01:36:41,800 --> 01:36:46,119
curb course, he's doing six inch diameter curb course. And

1712
01:36:46,199 --> 01:36:50,399
he worked with a local metal worker to custom build

1713
01:36:50,439 --> 01:36:54,560
this little jig that clamps onto the street curb so

1714
01:36:54,760 --> 01:36:59,560
he doesn't have to muscle that drill through the and

1715
01:36:59,640 --> 01:37:03,359
the to drill through the curb. Instead, he just sits

1716
01:37:03,680 --> 01:37:07,199
casually on this little stool and just with a single

1717
01:37:07,279 --> 01:37:11,760
finger he is able to move this little wheel to

1718
01:37:11,880 --> 01:37:15,359
move the drill forward through the curb. So you know,

1719
01:37:15,399 --> 01:37:18,600
he's in his early sixties and this work is no

1720
01:37:18,760 --> 01:37:21,920
problem for him thanks to that jig. And then since

1721
01:37:21,960 --> 01:37:25,199
he's doing the six inch diameter curb cores as opposed

1722
01:37:25,199 --> 01:37:28,479
to the four he's able to grab more water in

1723
01:37:28,560 --> 01:37:32,079
the real short duration but intense monsoon summer.

1724
01:37:32,119 --> 01:37:36,239
Speaker 1: So does but it's still a basin on the other side.

1725
01:37:36,319 --> 01:37:38,199
Or does it just go into the soil.

1726
01:37:39,319 --> 01:37:41,800
Speaker 2: No, it's a basin you got. If you just have soil,

1727
01:37:41,880 --> 01:37:44,239
the thing's going to clog up real quick with roots.

1728
01:37:44,640 --> 01:37:46,920
So you've got to have an open basin. You have

1729
01:37:46,960 --> 01:37:51,279
to have that surface topography that creates a temporary puddle

1730
01:37:51,840 --> 01:37:53,439
that then rapidly infiltrates.

1731
01:37:53,479 --> 01:37:55,000
Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna go I'm gonna try to do

1732
01:37:55,079 --> 01:37:58,000
the curb core because you know, it's too hot where

1733
01:37:58,000 --> 01:37:59,960
I live. The city would see what the cut curve

1734
01:38:00,079 --> 01:38:03,000
and then complain about it, So yeah, maybe I'll.

1735
01:38:04,520 --> 01:38:06,199
Speaker 2: I think they'd go for the core. It looks a

1736
01:38:06,199 --> 01:38:11,439
lot more municipal. And so this year, inspired by Van's work,

1737
01:38:11,560 --> 01:38:16,359
we're gonna increase the diameter of the cores that we're doing.

1738
01:38:16,800 --> 01:38:20,000
Speaker 1: So where do you get the diamond holesaw?

1739
01:38:21,560 --> 01:38:24,359
Speaker 2: So a typical rent center will rent that out to you.

1740
01:38:24,760 --> 01:38:27,439
Speaker 1: And they're mostly used for what again, just cutting holes

1741
01:38:27,439 --> 01:38:28,199
in concrete.

1742
01:38:28,760 --> 01:38:30,399
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly what they're for.

1743
01:38:31,079 --> 01:38:33,840
Speaker 1: Damn. Yeah, that's what I need. Man, that's amazing. Do

1744
01:38:33,840 --> 01:38:36,159
you guys get really this is unrelated, but I'm looking

1745
01:38:36,159 --> 01:38:38,920
at one of the photos. Do you guys get guyacon out?

1746
01:38:38,960 --> 01:38:39,199
Speaker 2: There?

1747
01:38:39,319 --> 01:38:42,000
Speaker 1: Is there a native Sonoran desert guyacon species? I should

1748
01:38:42,119 --> 01:38:44,159
know this. I think there is, but it may not

1749
01:38:44,159 --> 01:38:44,760
grow there and.

1750
01:38:45,520 --> 01:38:47,600
Speaker 2: I don't know if we've got one native to the basin,

1751
01:38:47,720 --> 01:38:48,920
but certainly in Sonora.

1752
01:38:49,520 --> 01:38:52,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's we get guya come in gust the folium here.

1753
01:38:52,640 --> 01:38:54,479
I don't know if there's a I think there's a

1754
01:38:54,520 --> 01:39:00,159
Sonoran desert species, but anyway, it's neither here nor there.

1755
01:39:00,239 --> 01:39:04,119
But uh yeah, man, this is this is changing everything

1756
01:39:04,159 --> 01:39:06,119
for me. God, next time, I cause I will see

1757
01:39:06,520 --> 01:39:08,279
I will look out on my street and I will

1758
01:39:08,319 --> 01:39:12,000
just see a river gushing during high rainfall events, all

1759
01:39:12,039 --> 01:39:14,239
just wasting, you know, all just going out to the

1760
01:39:14,960 --> 01:39:18,920
going out to the source. It's like such a waste man.

1761
01:39:19,039 --> 01:39:22,279
It's uh, it's so much water. Now I want to

1762
01:39:22,319 --> 01:39:24,000
capture it. I just got to dig out a little

1763
01:39:24,000 --> 01:39:25,840
basin first. That's the only thing I need to fail

1764
01:39:26,039 --> 01:39:28,520
to like do a little bit. How for like a

1765
01:39:28,560 --> 01:39:32,399
front yard, how how far in towards the house do

1766
01:39:32,439 --> 01:39:33,680
you normally have the basins go?

1767
01:39:35,439 --> 01:39:38,279
Speaker 2: Uh, it all depends, you know, everything site specific, but

1768
01:39:39,359 --> 01:39:43,039
I typically don't come closer than ten feet from the

1769
01:39:43,079 --> 01:39:50,039
house just to avoid any uh water conflicts with the building.

1770
01:39:50,399 --> 01:39:53,119
Right right, But I mean, now there are how much

1771
01:39:53,279 --> 01:39:53,600
is that?

1772
01:39:53,760 --> 01:39:55,560
Speaker 1: How much do you how much do you how much

1773
01:39:55,600 --> 01:39:57,520
space do you need to bring it in so that

1774
01:39:57,680 --> 01:40:00,319
the water can actually infiltrate and doesn't just back up

1775
01:40:00,359 --> 01:40:03,920
and out and start like taking out parts of the bank.

1776
01:40:04,119 --> 01:40:04,359
You know.

1777
01:40:05,119 --> 01:40:08,279
Speaker 2: Oh okay, Well, here's the way we set up our

1778
01:40:08,319 --> 01:40:12,720
typical basins street side basins is I call them Eddie basins.

1779
01:40:12,880 --> 01:40:16,640
So again on my website Harvesting Rainwater dot com, search

1780
01:40:17,159 --> 01:40:21,600
Eddie basin, eddy basin and you'll see some of the schematics.

1781
01:40:22,039 --> 01:40:26,800
So we have the inlet doubles as the quote unquote outlet.

1782
01:40:27,199 --> 01:40:29,159
You always have to have an overflow. So I have

1783
01:40:30,199 --> 01:40:34,359
a number of universal water harvesting guidelines in my books,

1784
01:40:34,399 --> 01:40:36,239
and one of those is you always have to have

1785
01:40:36,279 --> 01:40:40,079
an overflow and utilize it as a resource, because if

1786
01:40:40,119 --> 01:40:42,560
you don't plan that overflow you're going to have a

1787
01:40:42,600 --> 01:40:46,880
flood you don't want. So the water's flown down the street.

1788
01:40:46,960 --> 01:40:49,439
It comes in via the curb cut or the curb core.

1789
01:40:49,760 --> 01:40:52,119
That's the inlet fills the basin once it's filled, and

1790
01:40:52,119 --> 01:40:53,880
you got to put that on the high side, not

1791
01:40:53,920 --> 01:40:56,600
the low side of the basin, so you maximize your capacity.

1792
01:40:57,119 --> 01:41:02,159
And then once the basin's filled up, then the surplus

1793
01:41:02,239 --> 01:41:04,720
water that's coming in, it won't come in anymore because

1794
01:41:04,760 --> 01:41:08,119
it's going to meet pooled water. So the surplus continues

1795
01:41:08,159 --> 01:41:12,399
down the gutter to the next street side basin. And

1796
01:41:13,840 --> 01:41:16,560
I will make the basin as big as I can,

1797
01:41:16,800 --> 01:41:19,439
based on how much room I have. Sometimes the hell

1798
01:41:19,560 --> 01:41:22,840
strip is so narrow, I don't have much space, but

1799
01:41:22,920 --> 01:41:25,039
I just make it fit the space.

1800
01:41:26,039 --> 01:41:27,920
Speaker 1: You were saying, you put what on the high side,

1801
01:41:28,039 --> 01:41:29,279
not the low side.

1802
01:41:29,479 --> 01:41:32,359
Speaker 2: The inlet, the curb cut, or the right right.

1803
01:41:32,319 --> 01:41:35,640
Speaker 1: Right, so it's kind of like kidney shaped or paisley shaped,

1804
01:41:36,119 --> 01:41:39,399
whereas the bigger end is on the low side. So

1805
01:41:39,520 --> 01:41:42,760
like the water will pull up on the low side.

1806
01:41:43,159 --> 01:41:45,239
Speaker 2: Well, actually the water will pull up through the entire

1807
01:41:45,319 --> 01:41:46,720
section if you do it right.

1808
01:41:46,760 --> 01:41:49,359
Speaker 1: Right, But I mean, but the main area where most

1809
01:41:49,399 --> 01:41:52,680
of the like a curved like a curved beam where

1810
01:41:52,439 --> 01:41:55,920
the head of the bean is on the high side

1811
01:41:55,960 --> 01:41:59,000
and the actual like bottom of the curve is on

1812
01:41:59,079 --> 01:42:03,840
the low side. I'm describing this terribly, but hopefully, I mean, yeah,

1813
01:42:03,840 --> 01:42:05,840
I'm not sure I have the same picture in my head.

1814
01:42:05,880 --> 01:42:07,920
People really need to just I'm looking at your website.

1815
01:42:07,920 --> 01:42:09,800
People need to just go to your website and type

1816
01:42:09,840 --> 01:42:11,880
in any base and they'll see what They'll see what

1817
01:42:11,920 --> 01:42:12,840
you got lined up.

1818
01:42:13,159 --> 01:42:13,640
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1819
01:42:13,720 --> 01:42:14,560
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1820
01:42:14,840 --> 01:42:20,199
Speaker 2: And so let's say if I'm lucky and I've got

1821
01:42:20,239 --> 01:42:23,920
a twenty foot wide public right of way, I'll main

1822
01:42:24,159 --> 01:42:28,720
I always maintain a five foot wide walking path because

1823
01:42:28,760 --> 01:42:33,680
I want to encourage people walking wheeling through the forest,

1824
01:42:34,239 --> 01:42:36,560
and I want people to appreciate it, not to be

1825
01:42:36,640 --> 01:42:39,520
pissed off about it walking way.

1826
01:42:39,760 --> 01:42:40,119
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1827
01:42:40,199 --> 01:42:45,199
Speaker 2: Yeah, So and I push the path to the property line,

1828
01:42:45,600 --> 01:42:49,880
so I maximize my planting space between path and street

1829
01:42:49,960 --> 01:42:51,960
where I got the bulk of the water available from

1830
01:42:52,000 --> 01:42:55,760
the street, and then that the vegetation then grows both

1831
01:42:55,800 --> 01:42:59,960
street and street side pathway, so we're getting maximum benefit.

1832
01:43:00,159 --> 01:43:02,880
And it creates a physical barrier between the pedestrians and

1833
01:43:02,920 --> 01:43:09,359
the cars, so that's a benefit too. And then we

1834
01:43:09,479 --> 01:43:14,840
did not start pulling street runoff into private property. We

1835
01:43:14,880 --> 01:43:17,920
didn't start that because we're afraid the city would freak

1836
01:43:18,000 --> 01:43:20,720
out that we're taking public waters and putting them on

1837
01:43:20,760 --> 01:43:24,960
private property. So we tried to do what we thought

1838
01:43:24,960 --> 01:43:27,600
would be easier to get approved, and so we kept

1839
01:43:27,640 --> 01:43:32,319
all storm water in the public right of way. But

1840
01:43:32,479 --> 01:43:36,039
now the law has been changed so we can pull

1841
01:43:36,159 --> 01:43:39,399
water from the street onto private property as well, as

1842
01:43:39,520 --> 01:43:46,119
long as it cannot overflow to adjoining properties and flood them.

1843
01:43:47,000 --> 01:43:51,279
So if I've got the space, I will make the

1844
01:43:51,319 --> 01:43:56,640
basins as big as I can so that I don't

1845
01:43:56,680 --> 01:44:01,199
lose any water in a big flow event. And you

1846
01:44:01,239 --> 01:44:03,439
don't have to do one massive basin. You can have

1847
01:44:03,479 --> 01:44:06,640
a bunch of smaller ones into which I'll say, think

1848
01:44:06,960 --> 01:44:09,960
like a tree. So a lot of times people think

1849
01:44:10,399 --> 01:44:13,359
they need to plant a tree and then have one

1850
01:44:13,439 --> 01:44:17,640
massive water i'veseen basin around it. You don't. So I've

1851
01:44:17,640 --> 01:44:21,800
got some great diagrams in my volume two book that

1852
01:44:21,960 --> 01:44:26,960
show how our dry land trees they uptake the majority

1853
01:44:27,079 --> 01:44:31,520
of their water through their root zone that's beyond the

1854
01:44:31,640 --> 01:44:37,680
drip edge of the canopy. So they'll go, you know,

1855
01:44:37,720 --> 01:44:44,239
many times past the canopy with their root systems. So

1856
01:44:44,279 --> 01:44:47,960
we can have multiple small basins where we've got space

1857
01:44:48,039 --> 01:44:50,119
to make a basin, and then we just let the

1858
01:44:50,199 --> 01:44:52,840
roots go and find those basins. It doesn't have to

1859
01:44:52,920 --> 01:44:55,800
be one big, massive one. And so all those small

1860
01:44:55,880 --> 01:44:57,680
ones tend to be the way you have to go

1861
01:44:57,720 --> 01:45:00,319
in the built environment where you've got all these obstructions

1862
01:45:00,359 --> 01:45:03,760
of driveway, streets, walkways, buildings and so forth.

1863
01:45:04,000 --> 01:45:06,840
Speaker 1: Got the Yeah, the man, the photos on your site

1864
01:45:06,920 --> 01:45:10,039
are super helpful. It's got It looks so cool, it

1865
01:45:10,039 --> 01:45:13,239
looks so nice. It's like such a it's such a

1866
01:45:13,279 --> 01:45:16,920
pleasant idea. I want to do this all over my neighborhood. Now.

1867
01:45:17,880 --> 01:45:22,560
It's so basically the basin fills up and then it does.

1868
01:45:22,640 --> 01:45:26,479
You know, it's just the worst case scenario, just whatever

1869
01:45:26,520 --> 01:45:28,960
access water there is just ends up continuing on down

1870
01:45:29,000 --> 01:45:29,399
the street.

1871
01:45:30,600 --> 01:45:33,840
Speaker 2: Yeah. So what's great is you're just using the existing

1872
01:45:34,279 --> 01:45:41,640
infrastructure as you're stabilized overflow. So this whole eddy basin concept,

1873
01:45:41,680 --> 01:45:46,840
it really minimizes maintenance, it minimizes the chance of erosion

1874
01:45:46,920 --> 01:45:51,600
or whatnot. It's a super easy way to go, and

1875
01:45:51,640 --> 01:45:53,960
again you're working with what exists. You're not having to

1876
01:45:54,000 --> 01:45:55,479
recreate everything.

1877
01:45:57,359 --> 01:46:00,479
Speaker 1: And most of them basically just relying on morel and

1878
01:46:00,640 --> 01:46:04,159
rocks to hold the to hold the side of the

1879
01:46:04,479 --> 01:46:07,079
little banks of this basin, which are only what like

1880
01:46:07,119 --> 01:46:09,560
ten inches in most cases ten inches.

1881
01:46:09,359 --> 01:46:11,920
Speaker 2: Deep ten to twelve inches. We try to go for

1882
01:46:11,960 --> 01:46:16,560
twelve inches so we get more capacity. The mault actually

1883
01:46:16,640 --> 01:46:21,000
does not help stabilize the banks, that's justortaining moisture.

1884
01:46:21,199 --> 01:46:21,760
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1885
01:46:21,960 --> 01:46:28,359
Speaker 2: But the rock or we can use urbanite or logs,

1886
01:46:28,880 --> 01:46:31,039
that all works great. The logs are better than the

1887
01:46:31,119 --> 01:46:35,159
rock and urbanite because they're superior wildlife habitat, So we

1888
01:46:35,199 --> 01:46:40,960
get more of the wood burying, burrowing beetles and so forth. Yeah,

1889
01:46:41,000 --> 01:46:42,119
and the lizards love that.

1890
01:46:42,520 --> 01:46:45,199
Speaker 1: So yeah. So basically, if you dig out a basin,

1891
01:46:45,279 --> 01:46:48,199
you just have to support the sides with like rocks

1892
01:46:48,279 --> 01:46:51,760
or logs or some sort of material. Yeah, so that

1893
01:46:51,840 --> 01:46:53,960
the banks don't eroad. But you haven't had have you

1894
01:46:54,039 --> 01:46:56,840
had issues where the banks of these basins eroad at all,

1895
01:46:57,319 --> 01:46:59,239
or where one turns into a blowout or what.

1896
01:47:00,680 --> 01:47:02,800
Speaker 2: No, not when we do it right. And that's why

1897
01:47:02,960 --> 01:47:06,319
you know, I'm real careful on giving they're all simple

1898
01:47:06,560 --> 01:47:10,119
that I make sure I give all the specifications in

1899
01:47:10,640 --> 01:47:14,439
my books, just so people don't have to recreate the wheel.

1900
01:47:14,680 --> 01:47:17,720
I've already made the mistakes, so you don't have to yourself.

1901
01:47:17,800 --> 01:47:20,479
Speaker 1: When you were making those mistakes, Like what were before

1902
01:47:20,520 --> 01:47:22,000
you learn the correct way to do it? What were

1903
01:47:22,039 --> 01:47:23,439
some examples of what went wrong?

1904
01:47:24,239 --> 01:47:26,640
Speaker 2: Okay, So one example would be I would make a

1905
01:47:26,680 --> 01:47:32,479
basin on a somewhat steep sloped road too long, paralleling

1906
01:47:32,520 --> 01:47:36,319
the street. So I'd pull the water in at the

1907
01:47:36,439 --> 01:47:40,600
upstream side of the basin and with the intention that

1908
01:47:40,640 --> 01:47:44,399
it would overflow at the inlet, you know, once the

1909
01:47:44,439 --> 01:47:47,359
basin filled up, But since I made it too long

1910
01:47:47,600 --> 01:47:51,159
and this was a more steep street, the water just

1911
01:47:51,199 --> 01:47:54,920
spilled out on the downstream side of the basin and

1912
01:47:55,000 --> 01:48:01,239
went down the dirt. And so then I figured out, like, oh,

1913
01:48:01,279 --> 01:48:04,359
it's just super simple to either get a laser level

1914
01:48:04,439 --> 01:48:08,119
or you can make a simple water level bunyip level.

1915
01:48:08,640 --> 01:48:10,439
Show how to do that in my books and stuff,

1916
01:48:11,439 --> 01:48:13,000
and then you never make that mistake again.

1917
01:48:13,079 --> 01:48:15,159
Speaker 1: And so you would if you'd use the level to

1918
01:48:15,399 --> 01:48:18,880
what just know that the grade wasn't too steep.

1919
01:48:19,640 --> 01:48:23,239
Speaker 2: So would I would take an elevation reading at the

1920
01:48:23,239 --> 01:48:25,640
inlet where I'm going to do the curb core or

1921
01:48:25,680 --> 01:48:28,760
the curb cut, and then I'd take another elevation reading

1922
01:48:29,000 --> 01:48:31,520
at the downstream end of the basin to make sure

1923
01:48:31,560 --> 01:48:34,520
I've got at least a four inch difference, so the

1924
01:48:35,039 --> 01:48:39,119
water will back up to the street not spill out

1925
01:48:39,399 --> 01:48:44,720
over the lower side of the basin, if that makes sense.

1926
01:48:44,920 --> 01:48:47,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, ok, so you want you want to make sure

1927
01:48:47,920 --> 01:48:52,600
that the lower side of the basin is high enough basically, yeah, exactly, Yeah,

1928
01:48:52,680 --> 01:48:55,520
and also higher than the street, and also probably come

1929
01:48:55,560 --> 01:49:00,199
in more horizontally, like perpendicular to the road than long

1930
01:49:00,680 --> 01:49:01,800
then parallel to the road.

1931
01:49:02,880 --> 01:49:05,520
Speaker 2: It depends. If you don't have a steeply slope street,

1932
01:49:05,640 --> 01:49:07,039
you can have a very long basin.

1933
01:49:07,119 --> 01:49:10,600
Speaker 1: It's no problem, but one must one must take into account.

1934
01:49:10,720 --> 01:49:12,039
Slope is what you're saying.

1935
01:49:12,399 --> 01:49:16,560
Speaker 2: And yes, so the steeper the street, the shorter your basins.

1936
01:49:16,840 --> 01:49:19,560
Speaker 1: Uh huh. Yeah, I see. I've never operated a level before,

1937
01:49:19,880 --> 01:49:22,439
like a laser one, at least like a surveyor's level,

1938
01:49:22,560 --> 01:49:27,000
you know, Like, so that would be something to consider.

1939
01:49:28,640 --> 01:49:30,399
Speaker 2: But pretty fun once you get to hang out it.

1940
01:49:30,560 --> 01:49:32,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm looking at the I see you guys with

1941
01:49:32,319 --> 01:49:34,399
the pictures on the website. You know you could do

1942
01:49:34,520 --> 01:49:35,960
this with you know, if the guy was wearing a

1943
01:49:36,000 --> 01:49:37,439
hard hat or something that, you.

1944
01:49:37,399 --> 01:49:38,439
Speaker 2: Know, you don't need that.

1945
01:49:38,800 --> 01:49:42,399
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I'm just saying you could get away with anything.

1946
01:49:42,520 --> 01:49:46,279
You know, it's pretty put on a hard head and

1947
01:49:46,319 --> 01:49:49,479
the vest he belongs out there that he's supposed to be.

1948
01:49:49,840 --> 01:49:51,680
Don't worry about it. Go eat your lunch.

1949
01:49:52,960 --> 01:49:56,880
Speaker 2: But well, and that's the thing. When I do the

1950
01:49:56,920 --> 01:50:02,079
gorilla planting, I wear the uniform, so I got all

1951
01:50:02,119 --> 01:50:06,720
my my Dicky's shirts and pants. I've got my boots,

1952
01:50:07,800 --> 01:50:11,880
so I dress like the landscape crewise And.

1953
01:50:13,760 --> 01:50:16,000
Speaker 1: Do you guys, You guys maultch when you plant street

1954
01:50:16,000 --> 01:50:18,000
trees out there, you maultch generally right or do not

1955
01:50:18,079 --> 01:50:18,399
need to?

1956
01:50:19,479 --> 01:50:23,560
Speaker 2: Yeah? So we want to malt because the impacted urban

1957
01:50:23,600 --> 01:50:29,159
soil is so lacking in organic matter. So will you

1958
01:50:29,399 --> 01:50:33,800
use compost. We've got Nigerian dwarf goats, so we compost

1959
01:50:33,840 --> 01:50:37,680
their bedding. So we'll use that typically as the free

1960
01:50:38,039 --> 01:50:43,600
malts compost for our community planting projects. And then that's

1961
01:50:43,720 --> 01:50:48,159
like our first application. Then anytime we're pruning the trees

1962
01:50:48,319 --> 01:50:52,439
and other vegetation on that block, we cut up the

1963
01:50:52,479 --> 01:50:55,960
prunings into four inch or shorter sections and just drop

1964
01:50:56,000 --> 01:50:58,760
them into the basin, so it's chop and drop. Now

1965
01:50:58,840 --> 01:51:02,279
I don't I make sure I do never longer than

1966
01:51:02,359 --> 01:51:06,399
six inch lengths because if it's longer than that, I'm

1967
01:51:06,399 --> 01:51:11,720
not getting the soil puning contact and I need I

1968
01:51:11,760 --> 01:51:14,680
want to maximize that contact with the organic matter to

1969
01:51:14,760 --> 01:51:19,359
speed up its decomposition and also to maximize its effectiveness

1970
01:51:19,760 --> 01:51:26,119
at being a soil cover, to increase soil stormwater infiltration

1971
01:51:26,199 --> 01:51:30,960
and minimize stormwater and ground moisture loss. And if people do,

1972
01:51:31,720 --> 01:51:33,399
I find when people get lazy, they just kind of

1973
01:51:33,439 --> 01:51:37,560
throw in branches. Then that becomes a fuel load for wildfires,

1974
01:51:38,119 --> 01:51:41,399
and it becomes a pack rat nest and it's just

1975
01:51:41,439 --> 01:51:46,319
a problem. So you've got to maintain a certain aesthetic

1976
01:51:46,319 --> 01:51:46,760
and function.

1977
01:51:46,840 --> 01:51:48,880
Speaker 1: Well, you guys, probably where you live, where I you know,

1978
01:51:48,960 --> 01:51:51,800
chip drop dot com is super useful, and where you live,

1979
01:51:51,840 --> 01:51:54,479
I mean Tucson probably has enough of a you know,

1980
01:51:54,479 --> 01:51:57,279
they've got a network there, like there's enough people using it.

1981
01:51:57,319 --> 01:51:59,800
But where I live, you know, chip drop doesn't do anything.

1982
01:52:00,039 --> 01:52:02,039
No one uses chip drop down here because it's just

1983
01:52:02,079 --> 01:52:04,199
worth two in the boonies down here in South Texas.

1984
01:52:04,479 --> 01:52:07,520
But I've also just if I see a tree company.

1985
01:52:07,600 --> 01:52:09,640
Like I saw a tree company that got a contract

1986
01:52:09,680 --> 01:52:11,479
to work on the power lines. I hit those guys

1987
01:52:11,560 --> 01:52:13,880
up and I was like immediately, I was like walking

1988
01:52:13,920 --> 01:52:15,720
to the coffee place and I was like, hey man,

1989
01:52:15,760 --> 01:52:17,600
you guys need to spot the dump afterwards. I could

1990
01:52:17,600 --> 01:52:20,159
really use the mulch. Come dump in this you know

1991
01:52:20,279 --> 01:52:23,399
spot near my house. And uh, and so that's because

1992
01:52:23,439 --> 01:52:26,399
mulch I've just found. I wasn't sure when I first

1993
01:52:26,399 --> 01:52:30,039
moved here whether mulch would help because of uh, you know,

1994
01:52:30,279 --> 01:52:32,560
just just the different plants and whatever. But mulch is

1995
01:52:32,560 --> 01:52:36,279
like so essential and mainly in keeping the sun from

1996
01:52:36,359 --> 01:52:39,359
baking the shit out of the ground, you know, yeah,

1997
01:52:39,399 --> 01:52:41,399
preventing that it means you have to water less. And

1998
01:52:41,439 --> 01:52:44,399
also roots don't really like being hot, at least when

1999
01:52:44,439 --> 01:52:46,399
you've done newly planted stuff. You know.

2000
01:52:47,399 --> 01:52:52,319
Speaker 2: Well, I see that mulch as being the the early

2001
01:52:52,560 --> 01:52:57,399
step preceding you know, getting that overstory. We've just done

2002
01:52:57,479 --> 01:52:59,720
these new plantings. All the plants are really small. We

2003
01:52:59,720 --> 01:53:04,319
don't have an overstory plant that's giving us that natural microclimate.

2004
01:53:04,399 --> 01:53:06,760
So the mulch gives it to us, you know, right

2005
01:53:06,800 --> 01:53:09,680
off the bang. While we're waiting for that vegetation grow

2006
01:53:09,720 --> 01:53:12,159
bigger and create its own canopy and mulch.

2007
01:53:12,439 --> 01:53:16,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly right. Yeah, that's it's it is.

2008
01:53:16,319 --> 01:53:18,720
It's like I always talk about like ecological secession, like

2009
01:53:18,760 --> 01:53:21,840
you have a landslide of fire or a bulldozing event,

2010
01:53:21,960 --> 01:53:24,319
human bulldozing event. Right now, you're starting from square one.

2011
01:53:24,359 --> 01:53:27,279
You get the pioneer species and they end up creating

2012
01:53:27,840 --> 01:53:30,800
the micro climate for other you know, slower growing things

2013
01:53:30,800 --> 01:53:32,840
that can't take full sun when they're young to grow.

2014
01:53:32,880 --> 01:53:35,399
And so that's if you want to skip that step, Yeah,

2015
01:53:35,399 --> 01:53:38,079
you can partially do it by using things like mulch

2016
01:53:38,159 --> 01:53:40,800
or you know, some way to just prevent that ground

2017
01:53:40,840 --> 01:53:44,079
from just getting baked to shit. If if somebody wants

2018
01:53:44,119 --> 01:53:45,640
to go, if they're in two cent, I want to

2019
01:53:45,680 --> 01:53:48,880
see some of the what's a good street or intersection

2020
01:53:49,000 --> 01:53:50,640
to check out some of the work you've done.

2021
01:53:51,279 --> 01:53:55,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, So again, I'd send them to the Harvesting Rainwater

2022
01:53:55,960 --> 01:53:58,880
dot com website and then in the menu bar they'll

2023
01:53:58,880 --> 01:54:02,600
see resources and if they click on resources, one of

2024
01:54:02,640 --> 01:54:06,039
the sub pages is self guided water Tours of Tucson.

2025
01:54:06,600 --> 01:54:10,159
So I give a little description of the site, the address,

2026
01:54:10,199 --> 01:54:13,000
how to get there by bicycle, foots, bus or car,

2027
01:54:14,279 --> 01:54:17,880
and so depending on what kind of water harvesting they

2028
01:54:17,920 --> 01:54:21,880
want to check out, they can, you know, go to

2029
01:54:21,920 --> 01:54:26,920
what they're desiring. And then on my neighborhood block, which

2030
01:54:26,960 --> 01:54:30,520
is at University Boulevard and Ninth Avenue just on the

2031
01:54:30,520 --> 01:54:35,880
north side of downtown Tucson, we've got a bunch of educational, bilingual,

2032
01:54:36,000 --> 01:54:41,680
multi lingual signage within a one block radius of that intersection,

2033
01:54:43,600 --> 01:54:45,199
and people will see, you know, a lot of the

2034
01:54:45,279 --> 01:54:49,239
examples of all this stuff and including we've got other

2035
01:54:49,319 --> 01:54:52,319
signage there that shows additional sites that they can walk

2036
01:54:52,319 --> 01:54:55,560
a little further out to that have public art as

2037
01:54:55,600 --> 01:54:58,600
well that tell some of the water harvesting story and

2038
01:54:58,640 --> 01:55:04,439
how we've expanded our neighborhood rain irrigated food forest planting

2039
01:55:04,760 --> 01:55:10,079
to upstream neighborhoods which are in our there are water

2040
01:55:10,159 --> 01:55:14,079
hood you know, so the larger watershed is our water hood,

2041
01:55:14,600 --> 01:55:18,600
the larger neighborhood, and so trying to show everyone how

2042
01:55:18,640 --> 01:55:23,520
we need to work together as a community within the

2043
01:55:23,560 --> 01:55:27,560
same watershed to help each other out. So they can

2044
01:55:27,640 --> 01:55:30,159
check that out, and of course they can check tons

2045
01:55:30,199 --> 01:55:34,239
of virtual stuff out on my YouTube channel to search

2046
01:55:34,279 --> 01:55:38,239
Brad Lancaster on YouTube, and my books Rainwater Harvesting for

2047
01:55:38,319 --> 01:55:40,439
dry Lands Beyond have tons of examples.

2048
01:55:40,560 --> 01:55:41,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to ask you, if you want

2049
01:55:41,920 --> 01:55:43,800
to do a trade later, I'll send you the I'll

2050
01:55:43,800 --> 01:55:45,880
send you my book that just came out, and send

2051
01:55:45,920 --> 01:55:48,279
me yours a mechanic because I yeah, yeah, I love

2052
01:55:48,319 --> 01:55:49,680
that and.

2053
01:55:49,640 --> 01:55:54,239
Speaker 2: I'm curious too. So I created these books in part

2054
01:55:54,840 --> 01:55:59,520
because I used to have just like stacks of books

2055
01:55:59,520 --> 01:56:04,039
and journals that filled my room when I was trying

2056
01:56:04,039 --> 01:56:07,159
to write this book. And I wrote the book because

2057
01:56:07,239 --> 01:56:09,680
I'd look at all these piles, I go, nobody's going

2058
01:56:09,720 --> 01:56:14,119
to be this insane and have all these piles and

2059
01:56:14,159 --> 01:56:16,119
things where there's just a little bit of information in

2060
01:56:16,159 --> 01:56:18,479
each one of these things. Got to put it all

2061
01:56:18,479 --> 01:56:22,239
in something where it's way more easily digestible and it's

2062
01:56:22,279 --> 01:56:26,399
not such dry writing. It's you know, it's more more inviting.

2063
01:56:26,800 --> 01:56:30,000
Hopefully it's got a better story and some pull to it.

2064
01:56:30,119 --> 01:56:34,520
So I wrote the book the books that I wanted

2065
01:56:34,600 --> 01:56:37,560
and that I couldn't find elsewhere. But I not just

2066
01:56:37,600 --> 01:56:40,880
for myself. I realized when working with the city, working

2067
01:56:40,880 --> 01:56:45,319
with neighbors, a lot of them they weren't that receptive

2068
01:56:45,399 --> 01:56:48,920
when we're having one on one conversations or in public meetings.

2069
01:56:49,359 --> 01:56:51,479
But if I could give them a resource that they

2070
01:56:51,479 --> 01:56:54,319
could just absorb in the privacy of their own home,

2071
01:56:55,000 --> 01:56:57,800
not you know, with the stress of anyone else checking

2072
01:56:57,840 --> 01:57:01,960
them out, they could slowly absorb information, ponder it, and

2073
01:57:02,039 --> 01:57:06,199
consider a different way. And I found that was really

2074
01:57:06,239 --> 01:57:10,479
instrumental in bringing about the change. So we were able

2075
01:57:10,520 --> 01:57:13,199
to accomplish a lot before my books came out, but

2076
01:57:13,239 --> 01:57:17,319
once they came out, things started changing way faster, in

2077
01:57:17,319 --> 01:57:20,760
a way more dynamic way. And so I'm curious, you know,

2078
01:57:20,800 --> 01:57:23,720
that's some of the reasons why I wrote the books,

2079
01:57:24,920 --> 01:57:28,159
But I'm curious, like, why did you write yours? You know,

2080
01:57:28,239 --> 01:57:30,640
what was your aim or mission with your book?

2081
01:57:31,039 --> 01:57:35,159
Speaker 1: I mean, I think the main thing, I mean, the

2082
01:57:35,199 --> 01:57:37,960
main thing for me has always been how people view plants,

2083
01:57:38,600 --> 01:57:40,840
and you know, and I would always get whether it

2084
01:57:40,960 --> 01:57:44,359
was I'd be telling someone something about a plant that

2085
01:57:44,600 --> 01:57:49,479
was exciting as hell, like it evolved to mimic the

2086
01:57:49,520 --> 01:57:53,640
shape of a female wasp because it duped the male

2087
01:57:53,840 --> 01:57:56,720
wasp into trying to mate with the pedal and then

2088
01:57:57,239 --> 01:58:00,680
pollinating in which I think was just fascinating completely fucking

2089
01:58:00,960 --> 01:58:05,199
I mean, that's insane. That's yeah, natural selection, and it explains,

2090
01:58:05,439 --> 01:58:08,439
you know, that method how that happened, explains how everything

2091
01:58:08,479 --> 01:58:10,880
around us it's alive, came to be. It's all natural

2092
01:58:10,920 --> 01:58:15,199
selection by the environment and how much the environment affects

2093
01:58:15,760 --> 01:58:18,159
what grows there and how they look and how they

2094
01:58:18,199 --> 01:58:22,319
grow and what chemistry they have, et cetera. And I

2095
01:58:22,319 --> 01:58:24,199
would be explaining these people and then they ask me, well,

2096
01:58:24,439 --> 01:58:26,880
could you eat it? Or like, you know, which is like,

2097
01:58:27,079 --> 01:58:29,479
I get it, that's a basic thing people want to know,

2098
01:58:29,520 --> 01:58:31,920
but that is just so uninspiring and boring to me

2099
01:58:32,560 --> 01:58:36,119
compared to this stuff, you know. Or they would ask like, oh,

2100
01:58:36,159 --> 01:58:38,319
what does it do you know? And it's like and

2101
01:58:38,399 --> 01:58:41,399
I just realized at some point the entire way that

2102
01:58:41,479 --> 01:58:45,279
people that we're all indoctrinated to view plants. It's just

2103
01:58:45,319 --> 01:58:47,880
so disconnected. You know. Our technology has allowed us to

2104
01:58:47,920 --> 01:58:50,560
get so disconnected from the living world and so cocky

2105
01:58:50,680 --> 01:58:52,760
is to think we don't need it. And the way

2106
01:58:52,760 --> 01:58:55,680
that we're doing things because of this mentality, in this

2107
01:58:55,720 --> 01:58:58,199
paradigm we have is killing us and it's killing everything.

2108
01:58:58,239 --> 01:58:59,960
It's this It's that we're in the six mass ex State,

2109
01:59:00,920 --> 01:59:04,199
right and so I just was like, and modern horticulture

2110
01:59:04,239 --> 01:59:06,359
reinforces this. I mean, the plants you see if you

2111
01:59:06,399 --> 01:59:08,199
go to the bank or some bleak strip mall, they're

2112
01:59:08,199 --> 01:59:11,760
all non native garbage. They've all been planted in uniform rows.

2113
01:59:11,800 --> 01:59:16,479
They look horrific, you know, it's all tied in. And

2114
01:59:16,520 --> 01:59:20,479
then I thought of, you know, I used to do

2115
01:59:20,520 --> 01:59:22,920
graffiti as a kid, and I would ride freight trains

2116
01:59:22,960 --> 01:59:25,319
and I had this really like young mischievous life that

2117
01:59:25,439 --> 01:59:28,399
was fun as hell and also, you know, not really

2118
01:59:28,520 --> 01:59:33,199
unethical either. That's debatable, I guess, but it wasn't you know,

2119
01:59:33,239 --> 01:59:36,439
it wasn't like I wasn't like shooting heroin or in it,

2120
01:59:36,560 --> 01:59:39,279
you know, yeah, fucking robbing people or anything like that.

2121
01:59:39,319 --> 01:59:42,640
It was just like young, young, mischievous fun. And while

2122
01:59:42,640 --> 01:59:45,000
I was doing that, I'd be out in these abandoned

2123
01:59:45,000 --> 01:59:47,359
city scapes, were on the edge of a train yard,

2124
01:59:47,399 --> 01:59:49,479
and I would notice the things that were growing there,

2125
01:59:49,880 --> 01:59:52,279
and a lot of it was like invasive species and

2126
01:59:52,319 --> 01:59:54,920
a handful of native pioneer species that were able to

2127
01:59:54,920 --> 01:59:57,279
grow there. But it just looked so much cooler. It

2128
01:59:57,319 --> 01:59:59,920
looked all over grown. The plants were spilling over the fence,

2129
02:00:00,840 --> 02:00:02,520
and I was like, why does that look so much

2130
02:00:02,600 --> 02:00:05,880
nicer to me when it would look messy to other people?

2131
02:00:05,880 --> 02:00:07,680
Why does that look so much nicer to me than

2132
02:00:07,680 --> 02:00:10,279
the plants that I see planted in landscaping and like

2133
02:00:10,359 --> 02:00:13,840
bank landscaping or something like, why is looking at bank

2134
02:00:13,960 --> 02:00:16,159
landscaping and the stuff planted in front of the drug

2135
02:00:16,199 --> 02:00:19,720
store make me want to die? Only being only half

2136
02:00:19,800 --> 02:00:22,840
joking there too, by the way. Yeah, and the landscapes

2137
02:00:22,880 --> 02:00:26,520
we create in modern consumer America are hellish. They're just

2138
02:00:26,560 --> 02:00:31,720
they're sinfully ugly. And why when I look at this,

2139
02:00:31,960 --> 02:00:33,520
like if I see a plant growing out of an

2140
02:00:33,520 --> 02:00:35,800
abandoned loading dock, growing out of the concrete, why does

2141
02:00:35,840 --> 02:00:37,600
that look so much cooler to me? If I see

2142
02:00:37,640 --> 02:00:39,920
like a fern growing out of a brick wall in

2143
02:00:39,960 --> 02:00:43,239
New Orleans? Why is that so? What is it about

2144
02:00:43,239 --> 02:00:47,159
that that has me so fascinated and admiring it? You know?

2145
02:00:47,720 --> 02:00:49,239
And I thought more about it, and I was like,

2146
02:00:49,239 --> 02:00:51,199
because this is what we evolved in, Like, we didn't

2147
02:00:51,239 --> 02:00:56,359
evolve in these these tilled, manicured English garden landscapes that

2148
02:00:56,520 --> 02:01:00,399
just look terrible, you know. And I think what it

2149
02:01:00,479 --> 02:01:03,239
tied down to was a whole societal problem of how

2150
02:01:03,319 --> 02:01:06,520
people viewed plants, and it was something that because they're

2151
02:01:06,600 --> 02:01:10,000
endless sources of fascination for me, and then I see

2152
02:01:10,000 --> 02:01:14,079
people just either butchering the hell out of them, disrespecting them,

2153
02:01:14,239 --> 02:01:17,800
or just like looking for the lowest common denominator, you know,

2154
02:01:18,239 --> 02:01:22,720
uh metric to rate their value on, Whereas to me,

2155
02:01:22,760 --> 02:01:24,119
it was like, man, these things are the base of

2156
02:01:24,159 --> 02:01:26,600
the food chain. This is everything. Without these, life on

2157
02:01:26,720 --> 02:01:29,760
land isn't possible. Like there's no terrestrial life if you

2158
02:01:29,840 --> 02:01:34,319
don't have you know, plants, plant life on there, and

2159
02:01:34,319 --> 02:01:36,600
they're so and they're just so cool, they're so they're

2160
02:01:36,640 --> 02:01:39,760
so endlessly varied. You know, there might be three species

2161
02:01:39,760 --> 02:01:42,920
of a genus of animal, but there's like eight hundred

2162
02:01:42,960 --> 02:01:46,760
species of a genus of a plant. So yeah, so

2163
02:01:46,800 --> 02:01:48,079
I think it would just came down to that. I

2164
02:01:48,119 --> 02:01:49,399
was like, man, I just I want to show people

2165
02:01:49,439 --> 02:01:51,600
how cool this is and also point out how weird

2166
02:01:51,960 --> 02:01:55,399
the status quo is, like weird and dangerous. It's really

2167
02:01:55,439 --> 02:01:57,880
bad for us. It's like it's literally killing the world.

2168
02:01:57,920 --> 02:01:59,640
And so that was kind of where it came from.

2169
02:01:59,720 --> 02:02:01,479
But I didn't know I was going into it like that.

2170
02:02:01,600 --> 02:02:03,199
I just had a bunch of shit to say in

2171
02:02:03,279 --> 02:02:07,960
rent and whatever. So that's how I and I just

2172
02:02:08,159 --> 02:02:11,600
liked I was curious about the plants that grew in cities.

2173
02:02:11,600 --> 02:02:13,520
I did a number of videos on like, oh, the

2174
02:02:13,560 --> 02:02:15,439
plants growing on the side of the train tracks in

2175
02:02:15,479 --> 02:02:17,520
Oakland or on the La River. I did an La

2176
02:02:17,640 --> 02:02:21,000
River video, you know, and yeah, it was just it

2177
02:02:21,039 --> 02:02:23,199
was just interesting to me. And so that's how I

2178
02:02:23,319 --> 02:02:26,560
kind of ended up there. But yeah, that was That

2179
02:02:26,680 --> 02:02:29,920
was the non abbreviated version of that answer.

2180
02:02:31,239 --> 02:02:36,079
Speaker 2: So how did you make this transition from now you're

2181
02:02:36,159 --> 02:02:40,960
able to support yourself by pursuing your passions, So how

2182
02:02:41,000 --> 02:02:44,920
were you able to shift from that not being the

2183
02:02:45,039 --> 02:02:51,119
case because you've taken you haven't taken typical pathways, You've

2184
02:02:51,199 --> 02:02:54,760
taken very unique pathways, it seems to me. So how

2185
02:02:54,800 --> 02:02:58,399
how did you make that trans that transition, that transformation?

2186
02:02:59,119 --> 02:03:03,119
Speaker 1: Uh, I think early on I learned college wasn't for me,

2187
02:03:03,239 --> 02:03:06,000
and more so, I went to college for two years

2188
02:03:06,039 --> 02:03:07,760
and then it just became apparent to me that it

2189
02:03:07,800 --> 02:03:10,279
was a joke and that these kids are getting milked

2190
02:03:11,680 --> 02:03:13,840
and really that's what it came down to. And that's

2191
02:03:13,880 --> 02:03:16,079
only been and that was like twenty years ago, and

2192
02:03:16,079 --> 02:03:19,199
that's I feel like, especially where America is at now,

2193
02:03:19,319 --> 02:03:22,439
that case has only further been proved correct. You know,

2194
02:03:22,600 --> 02:03:25,520
Like I had so many friends graduate that had degrees

2195
02:03:25,560 --> 02:03:28,439
they couldn't use, and it was just, you know, the

2196
02:03:28,479 --> 02:03:32,279
fucking money it cost to go to some of these schools,

2197
02:03:32,319 --> 02:03:34,680
to just be around a bunch of prestigious cunts. For

2198
02:03:34,760 --> 02:03:37,840
lack of a better word, you know, it was just

2199
02:03:38,239 --> 02:03:40,640
I just realized it was a scam. I just felt like,

2200
02:03:40,680 --> 02:03:43,600
this is a hustle man, this is crazy. And so

2201
02:03:44,079 --> 02:03:48,479
then I dropped out and I traveled around the country

2202
02:03:48,479 --> 02:03:51,000
for three years basically for free. But I was still

2203
02:03:51,039 --> 02:03:54,000
hanging out in libraries and I was really avoiding, you know,

2204
02:03:55,640 --> 02:03:59,680
you know, behavior that was too hedonistic or stupid, and

2205
02:04:00,560 --> 02:04:02,840
always wanted to you know, was still drawing. I keep

2206
02:04:02,840 --> 02:04:05,760
a journal everywhere I go. I was really I knew

2207
02:04:05,840 --> 02:04:07,920
learning felt good, and I was still dedicated to my

2208
02:04:07,960 --> 02:04:08,680
own education.

2209
02:04:08,800 --> 02:04:09,119
Speaker 2: And so.

2210
02:04:10,760 --> 02:04:13,239
Speaker 1: Because that's what it's all about. You got this mine,

2211
02:04:13,319 --> 02:04:15,399
you can do amazing things with it, fucking use it.

2212
02:04:15,439 --> 02:04:18,840
And so I did that. And then I after three

2213
02:04:18,920 --> 02:04:20,720
years of that, I wanted to put roots down somewhere.

2214
02:04:20,760 --> 02:04:23,359
And then I went to community college. But not because

2215
02:04:23,359 --> 02:04:25,000
I wanted to get a degree, and not because I

2216
02:04:25,039 --> 02:04:28,560
wanted to exist in academia. I literally just wanted the knowledge.

2217
02:04:28,600 --> 02:04:31,880
I wanted to know, you know, about geology. I wanted

2218
02:04:31,880 --> 02:04:33,920
to know what those squiggly lines in the side of

2219
02:04:33,960 --> 02:04:37,600
a road cut were. Therefore, I wanted to know, you know,

2220
02:04:37,680 --> 02:04:40,039
I just realized I was ignorant, and so I did

2221
02:04:40,079 --> 02:04:41,479
that for a while and then hired out with the

2222
02:04:41,560 --> 02:04:43,319
railroad just on a whim. And then I was like,

2223
02:04:43,399 --> 02:04:45,760
this is cool, this is great. I'll do this for

2224
02:04:45,800 --> 02:04:47,000
a while, because it was you know, it's one of

2225
02:04:47,079 --> 02:04:51,279
the few jobs you can get that pays well. And

2226
02:04:51,279 --> 02:04:53,239
and you know, but we always hated the company. And

2227
02:04:53,279 --> 02:04:55,359
that was fun too, because I grew up, you know,

2228
02:04:55,439 --> 02:05:02,399
with a pension for hating authority, because authorities just people.

2229
02:05:02,600 --> 02:05:05,000
It's just phonies. It's just people faking it right, It's

2230
02:05:05,039 --> 02:05:07,560
just people pretending they've got the answers and trying not

2231
02:05:07,560 --> 02:05:10,399
to look stupid in front of each other. And so,

2232
02:05:11,760 --> 02:05:14,119
you know, that was fun. The railroad was fun. I said,

2233
02:05:14,119 --> 02:05:16,000
I'll do it till it sucks, and right around just

2234
02:05:16,079 --> 02:05:18,239
I just lucked out. By the time it started sucking.

2235
02:05:18,560 --> 02:05:22,039
The botany stuff was picking up and people seemed to

2236
02:05:22,199 --> 02:05:26,439
like what I do. Not everybody, of course, and uh

2237
02:05:27,319 --> 02:05:31,359
and so and so uh yeah, So I don't know,

2238
02:05:31,399 --> 02:05:33,039
I just lucked out and do it. And I'll do

2239
02:05:33,119 --> 02:05:35,319
this for a while till it sucks, uh and then

2240
02:05:35,479 --> 02:05:36,880
maybe I'll go on to someone else. But I don't

2241
02:05:36,880 --> 02:05:39,520
think this. I mean this, You could study plants and

2242
02:05:40,279 --> 02:05:43,159
science natural sciences for your whole life and I don't

2243
02:05:43,199 --> 02:05:47,399
think it would ever suck. You know, it's never gets tiring.

2244
02:05:47,520 --> 02:05:49,960
So but there's definitely other stuff I want to learn too,

2245
02:05:50,000 --> 02:05:51,399
and so yeah, I don't know, I just lucked out.

2246
02:05:51,439 --> 02:05:55,239
I just fell into it. Nice but it works. But

2247
02:05:55,319 --> 02:05:57,279
I think that, you know, definitely, Like people will ask

2248
02:05:57,319 --> 02:05:59,479
me like, oh, should I go into a botany program,

2249
02:05:59,520 --> 02:06:01,319
and echo mean I was like fuck no, I was like,

2250
02:06:01,359 --> 02:06:05,319
go to community college, take a couple basic natural science classes,

2251
02:06:05,359 --> 02:06:07,720
but only ones that you want to learn. Don't focus

2252
02:06:07,760 --> 02:06:10,680
on getting good grades, Just focus on actually understanding and

2253
02:06:10,720 --> 02:06:14,600
comprehending the material, right, and don't you're not a show dog,

2254
02:06:14,800 --> 02:06:17,079
but don't look. It's not about jumping through hoops and

2255
02:06:17,720 --> 02:06:20,680
you know, it's about actually understanding the material. If you

2256
02:06:20,680 --> 02:06:23,359
don't understand the material, don't fake like you do, ask

2257
02:06:23,479 --> 02:06:26,199
questions until you understand it, you know, and then get

2258
02:06:26,199 --> 02:06:28,239
go to go to a fucking trade school, like learn

2259
02:06:28,279 --> 02:06:31,159
to be an electrician or a fucking plumber or something,

2260
02:06:31,800 --> 02:06:34,159
you know, and do that, but make sure you keep

2261
02:06:34,239 --> 02:06:36,239
a foot, don't take on a lot of debt, and

2262
02:06:36,279 --> 02:06:38,279
make sure you keep a foot in the in the

2263
02:06:38,319 --> 02:06:43,800
world of education and exercising your brain as well. You know,

2264
02:06:44,800 --> 02:06:46,720
it's because that's basically what I did. I was like

2265
02:06:46,800 --> 02:06:49,359
working at the railroad, but then I was like reading textbooks,

2266
02:06:49,479 --> 02:06:52,520
you know, at work, or you know, going on my

2267
02:06:52,560 --> 02:06:57,279
own self guided field trips on my days off. So yeah,

2268
02:06:57,319 --> 02:07:00,279
I think that that's really important for people. But yeah, weird,

2269
02:07:00,399 --> 02:07:02,520
especially in the United States. I mean, if we lived

2270
02:07:02,520 --> 02:07:04,720
in a society that respected science, would I be giving

2271
02:07:04,760 --> 02:07:07,239
this same advice. No, But we don't live in that society.

2272
02:07:07,239 --> 02:07:09,119
We don't live in a society that rewards science. We

2273
02:07:09,159 --> 02:07:10,760
don't live in a society where they are going to

2274
02:07:10,760 --> 02:07:15,079
be jobs where that stuff is funded, you know, for

2275
02:07:15,199 --> 02:07:18,880
science or for studying the ecosystem, the living machine, that's

2276
02:07:18,920 --> 02:07:21,119
the ecosystem. We don't live in that society. We live

2277
02:07:21,159 --> 02:07:25,039
in a society that elevates fools to rich heroes. And

2278
02:07:25,279 --> 02:07:28,960
you know, people with like the lowest common denominator human impulses,

2279
02:07:29,000 --> 02:07:33,039
we put them in positions of power. It's like, it's

2280
02:07:33,199 --> 02:07:36,960
it's disgusting, and so, you know, it's that's not the

2281
02:07:37,000 --> 02:07:39,399
world we live in. So go to trade school, you know,

2282
02:07:39,640 --> 02:07:41,600
or leave or go to a different country. Maybe, I

2283
02:07:41,600 --> 02:07:43,000
don't know, I just know the US.

2284
02:07:43,079 --> 02:07:46,720
Speaker 2: So, and when did you figure out that you could

2285
02:07:47,399 --> 02:07:54,399
use this this internal draw and desire to keep learning

2286
02:07:54,840 --> 02:07:57,119
to actually be your vocation.

2287
02:07:58,239 --> 02:08:01,239
Speaker 1: I didn't. It wasn't a plan. Just again, it literally

2288
02:08:01,399 --> 02:08:04,960
just happened like that. And then it at a you know,

2289
02:08:05,199 --> 02:08:07,800
because I always liked talking about this stuff and seeking

2290
02:08:07,800 --> 02:08:11,680
out that knowledge anyway, and whether whether it paid me

2291
02:08:11,840 --> 02:08:15,760
or not. And so but you know, but then I

2292
02:08:15,760 --> 02:08:17,600
also like make art on the side, and I've been

2293
02:08:17,600 --> 02:08:20,760
I've been an illustrated for a while and been doing

2294
02:08:21,479 --> 02:08:24,439
you know a multitude of different things. So you know,

2295
02:08:24,439 --> 02:08:26,640
people ask me, like, where's your income come from? I'm like, man,

2296
02:08:26,640 --> 02:08:29,520
I got like nine different things like do from like

2297
02:08:30,079 --> 02:08:32,920
selling T shirts, arts, t shirts with my art on them,

2298
02:08:33,239 --> 02:08:39,119
selling art, selling stickers, doing presentations, doing readings, you know,

2299
02:08:40,239 --> 02:08:42,720
me and me and my friend made this you know

2300
02:08:42,920 --> 02:08:49,880
hack TV show called Killer Lawn that was it was

2301
02:08:49,920 --> 02:08:53,000
like actually like well like professionally produced it, just you know,

2302
02:08:53,279 --> 02:08:55,119
maybe you can catch it at two am at like

2303
02:08:55,159 --> 02:08:58,000
a Motel six on channel two sixty sevens, you know,

2304
02:08:58,520 --> 02:09:01,359
because they were supposed to stream The network that bought it,

2305
02:09:01,920 --> 02:09:04,720
earth XTV, was supposed to stream it, but they decided

2306
02:09:04,760 --> 02:09:07,439
not to stream it and they were gonna see so

2307
02:09:07,479 --> 02:09:12,000
they sold it to cable, which was like what the fuck?

2308
02:09:12,319 --> 02:09:15,119
In an age where cable is like dying out and

2309
02:09:15,199 --> 02:09:17,840
breathing its last breath, you know, it was like you

2310
02:09:17,880 --> 02:09:19,920
had a built in audience for a show and you

2311
02:09:20,039 --> 02:09:23,239
sold it to cable, Like what the fuck? Like who

2312
02:09:23,279 --> 02:09:27,960
watches cable? Like you know some like boomers, some boomer

2313
02:09:28,239 --> 02:09:31,119
like lives in Florida and like just has like Dish

2314
02:09:31,159 --> 02:09:34,439
network on it. It was really fuck you guys doing

2315
02:09:34,640 --> 02:09:37,600
I mean, I don't care. We got paid and then

2316
02:09:37,760 --> 02:09:40,399
you know people pirated it and shared it anyway, but

2317
02:09:41,840 --> 02:09:44,000
it was it was just funny, man, you know, and

2318
02:09:44,039 --> 02:09:46,079
it was a funny fucking show to make, and it

2319
02:09:46,159 --> 02:09:49,359
was like we had a mutiny. The production company had

2320
02:09:49,399 --> 02:09:52,279
other plans for the show, and we had our own plans,

2321
02:09:52,319 --> 02:09:54,359
but we had a friend that was in with the

2322
02:09:54,359 --> 02:09:57,560
production company too, so we had this like mutiny and

2323
02:09:57,560 --> 02:10:02,000
it was just chaos, and but it was. It was hectic,

2324
02:10:02,000 --> 02:10:03,800
but it was fun and I feel like the show

2325
02:10:04,119 --> 02:10:06,600
is I mean, it was. It was definitely. There's nothing

2326
02:10:06,640 --> 02:10:11,600
else like it. It's fucking hilarious. But yeah, I don't know,

2327
02:10:12,520 --> 02:10:14,239
I don't know. That's just how I ended up where

2328
02:10:14,239 --> 02:10:17,800
I am so and now, like where I live, I

2329
02:10:17,880 --> 02:10:20,640
kind of ended up where I live by accident too.

2330
02:10:20,680 --> 02:10:23,159
I didn't move to Texas intentionally. I moved to the

2331
02:10:23,159 --> 02:10:25,279
desert when I knew I had to get out of

2332
02:10:25,319 --> 02:10:28,079
Oakland because Oakland was just getting too weird and expensive.

2333
02:10:28,800 --> 02:10:32,039
And then I ended up down here after my daughter

2334
02:10:32,079 --> 02:10:33,920
got sick. She's better now, but I ended up down here,

2335
02:10:33,960 --> 02:10:35,840
and now it's like, fuck, I'm here, but like I'm

2336
02:10:35,880 --> 02:10:38,880
on a mission, like I can actually be of use here,

2337
02:10:38,960 --> 02:10:41,560
whereas like if I was in California, there's already a

2338
02:10:41,600 --> 02:10:44,159
million people doing a little native plant stuff, and you

2339
02:10:44,199 --> 02:10:47,960
know it's all wholesome and shit, and you know, i'd

2340
02:10:47,960 --> 02:10:50,840
be deemed problematic out there or something because of my delivery.

2341
02:10:50,840 --> 02:10:51,319
Speaker 2: Whereas here.

2342
02:10:51,359 --> 02:10:53,920
Speaker 1: It's like it's you know, I got work to do

2343
02:10:54,000 --> 02:10:56,159
and it can actually be of use and of service.

2344
02:10:56,399 --> 02:11:00,600
So yeah, yeah, I don't know, but man, I want

2345
02:11:00,600 --> 02:11:02,560
to come. I'm gonna come visit you next time I

2346
02:11:02,560 --> 02:11:04,840
go through Tucson, like once or twice a year, so

2347
02:11:04,880 --> 02:11:08,560
I'm gonna come. I'm gonna hit you. Please do, mister Caster,

2348
02:11:08,680 --> 02:11:10,319
and thank you so much for your time. Man, this

2349
02:11:10,399 --> 02:11:12,640
was a great conversation and I know a lot of

2350
02:11:12,680 --> 02:11:13,720
people got a lot out of it.

2351
02:11:13,880 --> 02:11:17,399
Speaker 2: So yeah, well, thank you. I really appreciate the opportunity

2352
02:11:17,399 --> 02:11:19,439
to talk with you, get to know you better and

2353
02:11:19,800 --> 02:11:22,039
share some of the good word. And along with some

2354
02:11:22,119 --> 02:11:24,239
of the other resources I share it, I'll just say again,

2355
02:11:24,640 --> 02:11:28,439
check out Harvesting rainwater dot com, the books Rainwater Harvesting

2356
02:11:28,479 --> 02:11:34,199
for dry Lands and Beyond, and my neighborhood forestry website

2357
02:11:34,239 --> 02:11:36,000
Neighborhood Foresters dot org.

2358
02:11:36,199 --> 02:11:39,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, I see why you kept hyping the website

2359
02:11:39,640 --> 02:11:41,880
so much, because man, there's a shit ton of resources

2360
02:11:41,920 --> 02:11:45,560
on it. It's uh yeah, it's incredible. You really put

2361
02:11:45,640 --> 02:11:48,680
all this shit together in such a like succinct and

2362
02:11:48,800 --> 02:11:51,800
palatable way. Yeah.

2363
02:11:51,840 --> 02:11:54,479
Speaker 2: Man, more to come in the next two months. Thanks

2364
02:11:54,479 --> 02:11:56,520
you's gonna be a whole other Stef. It's gonna blow

2365
02:11:56,560 --> 02:11:56,880
you away.

2366
02:11:56,920 --> 02:11:59,000
Speaker 1: I need we need you down here, We need you

2367
02:11:59,039 --> 02:12:03,560
in South Texas. Brother, Holy shit, man, seriously, this God

2368
02:12:03,720 --> 02:12:06,760
damn I'm gonna I'm gonna send you. I'm gonna send

2369
02:12:06,800 --> 02:12:10,840
you like gore porn, like photos of streetscapes from South

2370
02:12:10,920 --> 02:12:15,000
Texas in July, like the McCallan shopping district, the frontage

2371
02:12:15,079 --> 02:12:17,319
road next to the freeway, just tree lists and just

2372
02:12:17,359 --> 02:12:21,079
one hundred and fifteen degrees. Yeah, man, you give me hope.

2373
02:12:21,119 --> 02:12:22,880
So thanks a lot. Really appreciate it.

2374
02:12:23,640 --> 02:12:26,119
Speaker 2: Yeah you bet well, you give me hope too. So

2375
02:12:26,239 --> 02:12:28,119
it's we're cross pollinating.

2376
02:12:27,760 --> 02:12:30,199
Speaker 1: All right, my friend. All right, I'll be in touch,

2377
02:12:30,239 --> 02:12:32,520
and yeah, thanks a lot. To take care of everybody else.

2378
02:12:32,520 --> 02:12:33,840
Have a grocery daygo focus it by