Speaker 1: Hey, thanks for being a part of the conversation. This
is Forest Stories. I am the Poet in the Forest,
a children's series that I pinned out in the nineteen nineties. Now,
none of it would be possible if it wasn't for
this forest right here in South Charlotte, North Carolina. I
talk about it so much that I thought maybe it's
time that you get to know what has inspired me
for thirty years. Thanks for being a part of the conversation. Hey,
welcome back to the forest. Spring day not as green
as it normally is. Everything seems to be yellow. We've
got a fire warning, is what we do. It's so
dry this early in the season, and the bulk of
the land that I can see is not green. The
green is gone for right now. You just never know
what the oceans will bring to us or the West coast.
But the fire warnings are pretty scary because we've got
giant forest fires an hour maybe an hour and a
half away from us. What would it take to spark
something like that up here? And what would happen if
you know it's not creating, you know, a fear in
your soul, but rather it's preparing your heart for How
can I help prevent something from taking place. That's why
they have fire prevention. That's why they're teaching us every
day through social media on what we can and cannot burn.
And yet people do in their backyards. It's the South.
They do that. But you can't do it now because
they'll find you fire danger. In the forest, it's no
longer green. You can walk by people's lawns and see
that there's bare earth, there, no grass. They're not watering
because watering is expensive. The color green disappearing. Is it
just a seasonal thing or is this the way it's
always going to be? And in this forest, if the
groundcover is suffering, what's happening to the trees? Now? If
you step into my forest, the one closest to my home,
the limbs are falling, The land is shifting. Things are
moving in ways that I couldn't predict. But I do
remember in nineteen ninety seven, before we planted that seventeen
hundred trees inside this forest to give it a vibrant life,
there was such a thing as acid ren that was
killing our trees. All these years have gone by, and
all of those little seedlings have matured to face barely
any green Hey. Thanks for being a part of the
conversation