1
00:00:00,080 --> 00:00:02,560
Speaker 1: Hey, thanks for being a part of the conversation. This

2
00:00:02,600 --> 00:00:05,480
is Forest Stories. I am the Poet in the Forest,

3
00:00:05,759 --> 00:00:08,480
a children's series that I pinned out in the nineteen nineties. Now,

4
00:00:08,480 --> 00:00:10,640
none of it would be possible if it wasn't for

5
00:00:10,720 --> 00:00:13,480
this forest right here in South Charlotte, North Carolina. I

6
00:00:13,519 --> 00:00:16,480
talk about it so much that I thought maybe it's

7
00:00:16,519 --> 00:00:19,640
time that you get to know what has inspired me

8
00:00:20,239 --> 00:00:24,359
for thirty years. Thanks for being a part of the conversation.

9
00:00:25,839 --> 00:00:30,000
Welcome back to the forest. The creation of the canal.

10
00:00:31,000 --> 00:00:34,640
You know when man thinks it's smarter than nature, because

11
00:00:34,640 --> 00:00:36,799
we have that big drop off from the front of

12
00:00:36,840 --> 00:00:39,399
the forest to the back, to that slow moving stream

13
00:00:39,399 --> 00:00:42,679
moving toward this beautiful lake, I thought, okay, well I'm

14
00:00:42,719 --> 00:00:44,840
going to control the water. Because we get so much

15
00:00:44,920 --> 00:00:48,240
runoff from everything above us. I will be in control

16
00:00:48,320 --> 00:00:51,399
of how this water moves. So I created a canal,

17
00:00:51,479 --> 00:00:55,679
complete with river rock, everything out there, day after day

18
00:00:55,719 --> 00:00:58,439
digging trying to make it to where the water would

19
00:00:58,479 --> 00:01:01,039
flow in that direction. Because you know, if you can't

20
00:01:01,079 --> 00:01:03,560
just have level land when it comes to moving water,

21
00:01:03,920 --> 00:01:06,959
there's got to be a motion of moving downward into

22
00:01:06,959 --> 00:01:10,079
that slow moving stream. I was out there with my pick,

23
00:01:10,719 --> 00:01:16,280
my shovel, everything, my gloves, even gigantic waffle stomper type shoes,

24
00:01:16,599 --> 00:01:18,840
just so I could look like and feel like that

25
00:01:18,879 --> 00:01:22,120
construction worker that was in control of Mother nature. I

26
00:01:22,319 --> 00:01:24,120
was going to win this. Now. Why did I want

27
00:01:24,120 --> 00:01:27,280
to do this? Well, because I had put in a pond.

28
00:01:27,799 --> 00:01:30,040
You know, you go to Low's and Home depot, you

29
00:01:30,079 --> 00:01:32,920
buy a pond, a plastic little pond. And I put

30
00:01:32,959 --> 00:01:35,840
the pond in with the goldfish. And what happens after

31
00:01:35,840 --> 00:01:39,920
the first rain, that rain from that hill, that ninety

32
00:01:39,920 --> 00:01:43,959
five foot drop lifted that pond full of water and

33
00:01:44,079 --> 00:01:47,920
dumped it and there went my goldfish. So I decided

34
00:01:48,280 --> 00:01:50,719
with my waffle stoppers, it was time for me to

35
00:01:50,840 --> 00:01:53,959
create the canal. I was going to be in control,

36
00:01:54,159 --> 00:01:57,239
not mother Nature. So as I dug and dug into

37
00:01:57,319 --> 00:02:00,959
the earth, I started realizing that what am I doing.

38
00:02:01,719 --> 00:02:03,920
I'm creating a scar here, just like I did on

39
00:02:03,959 --> 00:02:06,760
the other side of the forest with that other hill

40
00:02:06,920 --> 00:02:09,639
that drops and that. I wanted to put in an

41
00:02:09,719 --> 00:02:13,639
underground culvert to deliver the water to the slow moving stream,

42
00:02:13,960 --> 00:02:15,800
but I didn't want to ruin the land on top.

43
00:02:15,840 --> 00:02:17,879
But I had to ruin the land on top in

44
00:02:17,960 --> 00:02:22,080
order to get that culvert in. Yeah, creating the canal,

45
00:02:23,000 --> 00:02:27,800
and there it was, it was finished. It looked horrible

46
00:02:28,599 --> 00:02:32,080
because the once rolling hill that was part of this

47
00:02:32,120 --> 00:02:35,719
beautiful forest now had a scar like that of something

48
00:02:35,879 --> 00:02:38,879
that you would create if you cut yourself, or if

49
00:02:38,919 --> 00:02:41,520
you fell and you scarred yourself from a bike ride,

50
00:02:41,560 --> 00:02:44,960
a motorcycle ride. All of a sudden, the land had

51
00:02:44,960 --> 00:02:49,360
a scar. Was the water moving never once? Never once?

52
00:02:50,000 --> 00:02:52,800
As much as I put in it into the creating

53
00:02:52,840 --> 00:02:55,639
of this canal, And to make sure that the land

54
00:02:55,759 --> 00:02:58,199
was not as balanced as what everybody thought it should

55
00:02:58,199 --> 00:03:01,759
have been, I created the downward motion, but the water

56
00:03:01,800 --> 00:03:04,159
didn't go that way. The water had a mind of

57
00:03:04,199 --> 00:03:08,120
its own, and that canal. What did I do? It

58
00:03:08,159 --> 00:03:10,840
took me about three years to go out there and

59
00:03:10,919 --> 00:03:14,000
cover it up. But every now and then when I

60
00:03:14,039 --> 00:03:16,719
take a walk through that part of the forest, I'll

61
00:03:16,719 --> 00:03:20,360
stub my foot. I'm part of that river rock, the

62
00:03:20,479 --> 00:03:24,000
creating of the canal. Hey, thanks for being a part

63
00:03:24,439 --> 00:03:25,240
of the conversation.