Black Forager : On Connecting with the Living World

<v Speaker 1>Okay, welcome to the crime pace of Botany Doesen Podcasts.
<v Speaker 1>I'm so excited for this conversation. It's been three years
<v Speaker 1>since we spoke. I'm here with Alexis Nicole, the notorious
<v Speaker 1>Black Forager account on Instagram and TikTok And are you
<v Speaker 1>in a Facebook doing all that stuff or what?
<v Speaker 2>I'm also on Facebook. I'm also on YouTube. I'm in
<v Speaker 2>too many places.
<v Speaker 1>I'm happy because you're you're getting so many people. I
<v Speaker 1>don't know, I mean, I every time your videos pop up,
<v Speaker 1>they just they just make me feel so good. They
<v Speaker 1>really do. It's you know, it's it's uh, that's.
<v Speaker 2>How I feel about your content. It makes me so
<v Speaker 2>happy and also full of righteous anger, which is my
<v Speaker 2>second favorite way to feel.
<v Speaker 1>I'm just this spiny little cactus, you know, I'm like ad,
<v Speaker 1>It's so funny.
<v Speaker 2>You remind us those spiny little cactuses are just as
<v Speaker 2>important as every other part of the DODA.
<v Speaker 1>Well, I'm yeah, I'm excited to have this conversation. Man.
<v Speaker 1>So I just you know, I don't have any questions
<v Speaker 1>written down. I just wanted to just I mean, I'd
<v Speaker 1>like the conversations just sound like two friends talking and yeah,
<v Speaker 1>and I mean some of your What really inspired me
<v Speaker 1>to hit you up again was some of the posts
<v Speaker 1>you've been putting up lately that are just all about
<v Speaker 1>engagement with the living world. I saw another one from
<v Speaker 1>Robin wall Kimer that she had like, uh, I don't know,
<v Speaker 1>I saw like two weeks ago. It was kind of
<v Speaker 1>the same thing. It was like she was talking about
<v Speaker 1>having like a garden where it's like she was talking
<v Speaker 1>about being in a garden somewhere and seeing, you know,
<v Speaker 1>some kid get chastised for picking berries, and she was like,
<v Speaker 1>I want a garden where kids are told to pick
<v Speaker 1>berries and told to like get in and you know,
<v Speaker 1>take like the you know, find all the dry the
<v Speaker 1>hiss and fruits of some of these plants, or smell
<v Speaker 1>the leaves or whatever, you know.
<v Speaker 2>Exactly shake some mountain mint seeds into their hands. Like
<v Speaker 2>Because she made such a beautiful point, and her video
<v Speaker 2>was part of the reason why I felt inspired to
<v Speaker 2>make the one that I did, was she she puts
<v Speaker 2>it so plainly, how are you supposed to fall in
<v Speaker 2>love with the world if you can't eat berries? Like,
<v Speaker 2>if you've never eaten a sun warmed black raspberry fresh
<v Speaker 2>off the cane. There is like a level of love
<v Speaker 2>and connection and just pure elation with the world around you,
<v Speaker 2>but you haven't experienced yet.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I know, I know, and that's that's what makes
<v Speaker 1>me so sad for people. And it's you know, and
<v Speaker 1>we should talk, we should mention to it's not just
<v Speaker 1>about picking berries, but also taking for instance, the dry
<v Speaker 1>stalks of you know, dead annual heli anthis species and
<v Speaker 1>beating your friends with them and oh yeah, everything everything.
<v Speaker 2>Growing and a fallen oastage orange that is half rotten
<v Speaker 2>at your younger sister. It's great. And then guirls will
<v Speaker 2>have an easier time getting the seeds to eat them.
<v Speaker 2>We're all connected.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's the and it's the human plant mutualism. So
<v Speaker 1>go out there and fuck up your dryer lint trap
<v Speaker 1>with the seeds you forgot were in the back pocket
<v Speaker 1>of your pants, you know, do it.
<v Speaker 2>I hope that its uh, some beautiful plants will take
<v Speaker 2>off wherever your dryer ends up.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah yeah. Or like the vacuum, I empty my vacuum
<v Speaker 1>into the yard. Now, I know there's stuff that's you know,
<v Speaker 1>you never know. The soil seed bank in one zone
<v Speaker 1>yard can be extensive, but so what do you butut
<v Speaker 1>up to lately? How's it we haven't spoken of like
<v Speaker 1>three years and like Instagram.
<v Speaker 2>But no, I feel like I you're one of the
<v Speaker 2>people who I feel like I know what you're up to,
<v Speaker 2>but exclusively through what you are posting on social media.
<v Speaker 2>So when you reached out, I was like, ah, yes, perfect,
<v Speaker 2>we can actually catch up in the way that humans
<v Speaker 2>are supposed to grow.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I like, I like obsessively put stuff in Instagram stories,
<v Speaker 1>like it's my frickin' journal, you know, like it's their
<v Speaker 1>diary over here. It's I just I don't know why.
<v Speaker 1>I just I figure if I put stuff out there,
<v Speaker 1>maybe somebody will get something from it or get an idea.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, you're one of the people lately I have
<v Speaker 2>been on telling people maybe this belongs in the journal
<v Speaker 2>kick But for you, it's the opposite. You go ahead
<v Speaker 2>and post whatever you want.
<v Speaker 1>To, Just put it out there. You know, I always
<v Speaker 1>been shitcum posting. Now I didn't need to know that,
<v Speaker 1>but you know, okay, whatever.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, but if it inspires somebody else to, if that's
<v Speaker 3>like someone's foot in the door to becoming integrated into
<v Speaker 3>their local environ, then I think a win.
<v Speaker 2>Is a win. I think a double is a w.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. If I you know, if I make it to be,
<v Speaker 1>you know that old I'm gonna be such a great
<v Speaker 1>wing not old Italian man. I can't win it, but
<v Speaker 1>but oh.
<v Speaker 2>My god, you're gonna be the coolest, funniest old man.
<v Speaker 2>I feel like I'm either going to be like the
<v Speaker 2>really sweet old lady who always has weird cookies, or
<v Speaker 2>I'm gonna be like the scary hag at the end
<v Speaker 2>of the lane. And I'm equally as excited for either of.
<v Speaker 1>Those scary hag. With the overgrown yard exactly surrounded by
<v Speaker 1>all the lawns, surrounded.
<v Speaker 2>By all of the lawns, which is all who I
<v Speaker 2>am in my city neighborhood here in Columbus.
<v Speaker 1>I bet you got a nice I beout you got
<v Speaker 1>a nice yard, though, man.
<v Speaker 2>We we really love it. It's been a joy.
<v Speaker 1>Uh.
<v Speaker 2>There is a local landscaper who deals exclusively in local
<v Speaker 2>eco type native plants named Michael Keeler, and he and
<v Speaker 2>I have been having a lot of fun building out
<v Speaker 2>plans uh and involving in a whole lot of fun
<v Speaker 2>edible species. So we we followed your advice. We killed
<v Speaker 2>my lawn in the front yard. We are getting ready
<v Speaker 2>to transform the backyard into like a mini multi layer
<v Speaker 2>food forest.
<v Speaker 1>That sounds am and I'm really.
<v Speaker 2>Excited about it. It's weird to have gotten to a
<v Speaker 2>point in my life where I even and like lucky
<v Speaker 2>enough to have some space our little like one fifth
<v Speaker 2>acre parcel in the middle of downtown.
<v Speaker 1>Oh god, it's so important though. Yeah, I get distracted
<v Speaker 1>just being in my yard man, and I get It's
<v Speaker 1>funny though. I've done this for because I've done it
<v Speaker 1>for other friends around my neighborhood. Because at this point
<v Speaker 1>I'm like just curating my own botanic garden in my neighborhood.
<v Speaker 1>Now it's like I've ran out of a full sun space,
<v Speaker 1>so I need to start you know who else who
<v Speaker 1>wants it done? And uh And the response.
<v Speaker 2>For everyone listening if someone in your neighborhood is like,
<v Speaker 2>oh my god, here take these seats, it's because they
<v Speaker 2>ran out of space in their yard and are spreading
<v Speaker 2>their landscaping into your space. And I think you said that.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, And it's it's nice too, because I will like
<v Speaker 1>go hang out in these yards like without saying hi
<v Speaker 1>to the people are asking. I mean if they're home,
<v Speaker 1>I'll go say hi. But you know, but it's you know,
<v Speaker 1>and that's the way it should be. It's I get
<v Speaker 1>a benefit from it too. And but when I've done it,
<v Speaker 1>like I did it to this guy, my friend Hector,
<v Speaker 1>who's an immigration attorney. He had no interest in plants
<v Speaker 1>before whatsoever. And then now I get him texting me
<v Speaker 1>randomly being like, Oh, You'll never believe what I saw
<v Speaker 1>in my yard. Oh my god, look at this thing.
<v Speaker 1>It's like some crazy auth or something or what you know.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, so it's the best feeling.
<v Speaker 1>It's spiritually healing, and it heals others as well, which
<v Speaker 1>is yes, it feels great to see. So what is
<v Speaker 1>what's around Columbus? Is it prairie in woodland or a
<v Speaker 1>mixture of both them.
<v Speaker 2>We are, we are in this beautiful zone that I love.
<v Speaker 2>Breaheading about to people where the eastern woodlands meets the
<v Speaker 2>beginning of the prairie. You head literally twenty minutes east
<v Speaker 2>of where I'm sitting right now, and you're in the
<v Speaker 2>foothills of the Apple Atans. You head twenty minutes west
<v Speaker 2>of where I am right now, and it's very it's
<v Speaker 2>starting to look very flat. You're seeing a lot of
<v Speaker 2>really fun your prairie dots, your different Helianthus species. It's
<v Speaker 2>a really special place being right smacked out in the
<v Speaker 2>middle of Ohio. So we kind of get the best
<v Speaker 2>of both worlds. It's I'm I have fun with it
<v Speaker 2>in a way that very few people, unless they all
<v Speaker 2>spend an inordinate amount of time in the outdoors here,
<v Speaker 2>they don't normally notice.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, there's nothing like the prairie man, because it's I mean,
<v Speaker 1>you know those those regions. Yeah, like being in Chicago,
<v Speaker 1>you get those brutal winter months where you're just kind
<v Speaker 1>of losing your mind and then you know, but then
<v Speaker 1>you get this eruption, Like the amount of biomass that's grown,
<v Speaker 1>that's produced in the prairie in the summer from all
<v Speaker 1>those underground roots is I mean they start in main
<v Speaker 1>and then you get this eruption to like eight feet
<v Speaker 1>sometimes of all those cool grasses and sylphiums and all that.
<v Speaker 1>You know, it's it's wild. You don't really get that
<v Speaker 1>in a lot of other ecosystems around North America. You know,
<v Speaker 1>the prairiees no that.
<v Speaker 2>They're really special. And I think part of the reason
<v Speaker 2>why we don't even recognize that in the US is
<v Speaker 2>because we've lost so much of our prairie to farmland.
<v Speaker 2>You know, we don't people don't get to have hands
<v Speaker 2>on experiences with a lot of prairie biomes anymore, which
<v Speaker 2>is part of the reason why, at least in our
<v Speaker 2>front yard, since we do get a good amount of sun.
<v Speaker 2>And I was like, Oh, we're gonna skew prairie plants
<v Speaker 2>for this front yard, and I just I love it.
<v Speaker 2>The difference between first week of May to like second
<v Speaker 2>week of June insane.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy. It's nuts, like from the
<v Speaker 1>spring ofphemerals and then you know when they come out,
<v Speaker 1>when the leaves are off the trees in the woodlands.
<v Speaker 1>At least that's what he used to feel. It's like
<v Speaker 1>around Chicago and then and then the prairies. You just
<v Speaker 1>got these little things and you come back in like
<v Speaker 1>July and it's just this you can't see across it,
<v Speaker 1>and it smells so good and it sounds so good. Guy.
<v Speaker 1>I tell people being in the prairie and it's like
<v Speaker 1>being in psychedelics. It's like it's like sensory overloading.
<v Speaker 2>It overwhelming. Well, it's sensory overload, smells and all of
<v Speaker 2>the different colors of the flower petals and reflecting the
<v Speaker 2>sunlight into your eyes.
<v Speaker 1>It kind of likes like, yeah, and some stuff is
<v Speaker 1>blooming in May, and then some stuff is blooming in July,
<v Speaker 1>and different species are blooming and it's all packed. It's
<v Speaker 1>like all this diversity packed super tight, you know. And
<v Speaker 1>that's why I like, I've been I've been doing this presentation.
<v Speaker 1>I give where I shit on modern horticulture landscaping, you know,
<v Speaker 1>which is mostly which is the stuff that's rooted in
<v Speaker 1>like this weird aristocratic nineteenth century Europe and rich people.
<v Speaker 1>Everything's like uniformly spaced, evenly spaced in a line and hedged,
<v Speaker 1>and it just it's like the kind of landscaping that
<v Speaker 1>makes me die on the inside. Looks like Minecraft. You know,
<v Speaker 1>no no offense to's like Minecraft.
<v Speaker 2>The planet is supposed to look.
<v Speaker 1>Like yeah, and it's just and but again, that's what
<v Speaker 1>you would expect from when there's no place to look
<v Speaker 1>for inspiration in nature and reality. That's what you just do.
<v Speaker 1>What what you're giving and what's around.
<v Speaker 2>You'll also put a boxwood that spells like cat piss
<v Speaker 2>when the sun shines on it.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, why do they do? There must be some urbiguari.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know anything about that genus, you know. But again,
<v Speaker 1>the stuff we see in horticulture isn't even the stuff
<v Speaker 1>you'd see. And they're not the native boxwoods you would
<v Speaker 1>see wherever they're native. It's stuff that's been a greenhouse.
<v Speaker 1>That's what I try to tell people too. I'm like this,
<v Speaker 1>these plants aren't even they're not only not the ancestors
<v Speaker 1>aren't native, like they're from six thousand miles away where
<v Speaker 1>they're probably very important. But these plants don't even exist.
<v Speaker 1>They've been bread in a greenhouse over the last hundred
<v Speaker 1>years for very gated leaves. Are they flower all the time? Oh,
<v Speaker 1>they're just so you know, they can be hedged.
<v Speaker 2>Real they don't produce any fruit because fruit is messy, messy,
<v Speaker 2>need to grow very evenly during the year. And yeah,
<v Speaker 2>you're right, it's not even what those plants look like.
<v Speaker 2>They wouldn't even serve a purpose. If you took your
<v Speaker 2>boxwood hedge out of the ground and put it where
<v Speaker 2>it's from.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's it's it's it's weird. But again, I've tried,
<v Speaker 1>I've trakened the stance where like it's fun to shit
<v Speaker 1>on it, but when I'm trying to convince people who
<v Speaker 1>are still into that, I try to be as kind
<v Speaker 1>as possible and as polite and informative, you know. And
<v Speaker 1>also if it's like city officials messing with me that
<v Speaker 1>I'm just very persistent to the point that they just
<v Speaker 1>get annoyed and eventually give up. You know.
<v Speaker 2>I'm just like, oh, I mean, you were asking what
<v Speaker 2>I've been up to lately, and my entire spring was
<v Speaker 2>being the native plant thorn in our city council.
<v Speaker 1>Oh no, here we go. What they do well?
<v Speaker 2>So last year they wrote us a ticket for one thousand,
<v Speaker 2>two hundred dollars really because because we have a wild
<v Speaker 2>front yard, because it doesn't look like a lawn. And
<v Speaker 2>I was like, oh, well, you post the wrong sleeping there.
<v Speaker 2>This is going to become everybody's problem until I connected
<v Speaker 2>it with other people with these fantastic native yards that
<v Speaker 2>are doing so many great things for their communities and
<v Speaker 2>worked with my fiance who's an attorney, to like put
<v Speaker 2>forth some protection for native plant and pollinator gardens our city.
<v Speaker 2>You know, like a lot of blue lead cities loves
<v Speaker 2>to boast that we're trying to be good for the environment.
<v Speaker 2>Likes to boast that we're trying to increase archery, canopy,
<v Speaker 2>trying to help the pollinators. And I'm like, okay, it's
<v Speaker 2>time for you to put your money where your mouth is.
<v Speaker 1>Then yeah, yeah, they just don't know. They're just no,
<v Speaker 1>they're just not aware. They don't know what's going on.
<v Speaker 1>They don't know what's going on. That's what that's the
<v Speaker 1>thing is, I think again, and I don't fall people for,
<v Speaker 1>but we've all been brought up and doctrinated and is
<v Speaker 1>strange from this stuff. And we've all brought up, been
<v Speaker 1>brought up to think that the landscaping in front of
<v Speaker 1>the wells Fargo is what plants should look like. You know,
<v Speaker 1>where everything's hedged and they're all the same clone and
<v Speaker 1>it's very neat and orderly. And then mulch has even
<v Speaker 1>died because mulch, you know, to use natural wood chips
<v Speaker 1>would be messy and you know that.
<v Speaker 2>It would look like nature. That's crazy.
<v Speaker 1>And I tell people too, like if you saw, if
<v Speaker 1>you this, this reminds me of like a dog that's
<v Speaker 1>got a nervous tick and like just keeps like neurotically
<v Speaker 1>scratching itself, you know, or which you see sometimes okaya,
<v Speaker 1>you know, if they get like separation anxiety, Like that's
<v Speaker 1>what this reminds me of in humans, is like who
<v Speaker 1>does this? Like that's psychologically it's not a good sign
<v Speaker 1>if you need everything to be it's obsessive, compulsive's surly, yes, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>and it and it's like, man, you are so you
<v Speaker 1>need to go outside and you need to like go
<v Speaker 1>get messy. You need to go walk through a prairie,
<v Speaker 1>you need to go hike up a mountain. Something like
<v Speaker 1>this is not normal to have everything hedged and evenly
<v Speaker 1>spaced in the diaed mult It's not normal. It's it's
<v Speaker 1>fucking weird, and we've normalized what's really really bizarre and
<v Speaker 1>very unhealthy for us.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, and I mean not to get on like a
<v Speaker 2>soapbox precariously balanced on top of the beautiful.
<v Speaker 1>Soak it on the soapbox, get on it, do it.
<v Speaker 2>But it's also classes as hell because who has the
<v Speaker 2>money to be like hiring the landscapers to be keeping
<v Speaker 2>everything beautiful in pristine and keeping your grass too. Oh,
<v Speaker 2>the ruler says that your grass is a half inch
<v Speaker 2>too high bad news bears like and not even getting
<v Speaker 2>into the history. Like you mentioned before, the only reason
<v Speaker 2>lawns even proliferated was people who were so rich that
<v Speaker 2>not only did they have all this land for other
<v Speaker 2>people to work on for them, but they had land
<v Speaker 2>that served no purpose just to brag, Yeah, just to
<v Speaker 2>be like, oh yeah, the marquee down the street has
<v Speaker 2>just a big patch of flat grass in front of
<v Speaker 2>his house. Damn, he must have money for days.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's it's a weird form of wealth worship. And
<v Speaker 1>to me it's it's not. You know, it's because you'll
<v Speaker 1>see comments sometimes from people, you know, bootlockers, being like, oh, no,
<v Speaker 1>you're just you're just jealous. You just wish you had
<v Speaker 1>money like that. No, I don't. I really don't like that.
<v Speaker 1>Seems like a depoperate existence to me. I have lived
<v Speaker 1>ten lives over I've seen all kinds of crazy shit.
<v Speaker 1>I'm like, I could croak tomorrow and I'd be happy. Like,
<v Speaker 1>I've done a lot of fun stuff in my life.
<v Speaker 1>Those experiences no one can take away from me. What
<v Speaker 1>do you have? You have like gold plated toilet seats
<v Speaker 1>and you know, all this shit like that's and everyone
<v Speaker 1>you speak to who knows extremely wealthy people, like I
<v Speaker 1>have a friend who used to watch these kids. That
<v Speaker 1>is some billionaire in Chicago. I don't know how he
<v Speaker 1>got that gig. He's real clean cut, he never got
<v Speaker 1>any tattoos. But and he tells me, he's like, you know,
<v Speaker 1>he doesn't work for them anymore, So I don't think
<v Speaker 1>there's any repercussions of me letting this cat out of
<v Speaker 1>the bag. But he's like, they're fucking miserable. They are like,
<v Speaker 1>and now the fun is getting a divorce. They fucking
<v Speaker 1>hate each other. They're like, the kids are have all
<v Speaker 1>kinds of like psychological disorders and are really and those
<v Speaker 1>are the people who end up elevated in positions of power.
<v Speaker 2>But uh hey then want to reinforce the things that
<v Speaker 2>they think are beautiful in their lives, which is sometimes
<v Speaker 2>their area, and they don't even know how miserable it
<v Speaker 2>could be making them, how much it could be contributing
<v Speaker 2>to their new a state of mind.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah it's yesterday.
<v Speaker 2>I sat on a log near a creek picking wood
<v Speaker 2>metal stems and just like scraping fiber, saying hello to
<v Speaker 2>all of the daddy long legs walking by noticing the
<v Speaker 2>influx of box elder bugs like we always get this
<v Speaker 2>time of year before our first frost, and just noticing things,
<v Speaker 2>and I felt lighter than I have felt for months.
<v Speaker 2>Is that also because maybe I hadn't touched my phone
<v Speaker 2>in two hours?
<v Speaker 1>I got it.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that probably has something to do with it too.
<v Speaker 1>But just going outside that's why I'm you know, outdoor
<v Speaker 1>education for kids has got to be the way, man.
<v Speaker 1>I think, like especially vital because I can't sit still
<v Speaker 1>as it is, and to I remember being like six
<v Speaker 1>and seven and just being like, oh my god, this
<v Speaker 1>is torture. I don't want to be in school. I
<v Speaker 1>don't care about this. I'm not excited. I'm getting no
<v Speaker 1>dopamine from any of this at all, you know. And yeah,
<v Speaker 1>letting kids go like running a patch of woods or
<v Speaker 1>a prairie for like two hours would be so and
<v Speaker 1>teaching them about what's there and encouraging them to lift
<v Speaker 1>their blogs and look for bugs and you know, take
<v Speaker 1>these grass and try these grass blades and try to
<v Speaker 1>make a a you know, a little bracelet out of
<v Speaker 1>it or something like that. Cat. That's so important, man,
<v Speaker 1>that's so important.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, I was, I was really lucky and that
<v Speaker 2>there was a lovely, very hippy, dippy Montassori School that
<v Speaker 2>I attended from age three to age twelve, and every
<v Speaker 2>day regardless of whether it was rain or shine, unless
<v Speaker 2>there was like real inclement weather, because we do be
<v Speaker 2>getting tornadoes here in Ohio. You were outside, you know,
<v Speaker 2>rainy day, you dressed for a rainy day, and we
<v Speaker 2>had woods that we kind of just got free rain up.
<v Speaker 2>You know. Teachers would make sure no one jumped off
<v Speaker 2>the monkey bars and broke their arm, which like did
<v Speaker 2>happen sometimes, but kids are are malleable, they're strong. Everybody
<v Speaker 2>bounces back. I didn't know anyone who broke the arm
<v Speaker 2>on the monkey bars who did not do the monkey
<v Speaker 2>bars again after their art was.
<v Speaker 1>Fel Oh, that's good, that's really good.
<v Speaker 2>And we just build. We used to just build forts.
<v Speaker 2>And the crazy thing about being allowed to just build
<v Speaker 2>forts is you very quickly as a child, start learning
<v Speaker 2>what all of the different tree species are, because you
<v Speaker 2>start learning which ones are good for building you which
<v Speaker 2>ones aren't. Yeah, we were like stabbing o sage oranges
<v Speaker 2>for glue to glue like wood peel shingles from black
<v Speaker 2>cherries to put onto our little forts and huts. We
<v Speaker 2>knew that the bark on the outside of the non
<v Speaker 2>native honeysuckles was really flexible, so if you needed cordage
<v Speaker 2>to tie something, you could peel some of that off,
<v Speaker 2>like it was. I didn't realize how much of my
<v Speaker 2>botany education started so early, just because we were outside
<v Speaker 2>all the time and our tea. We're willing to answer
<v Speaker 2>questions for something we were curious.
<v Speaker 1>I was going to say, were they showing you this
<v Speaker 1>stuff or were you I mean, oh, yeah, yeah.
<v Speaker 2>And I mean also at the school, like you take
<v Speaker 2>your first intro to potany class in the third grade.
<v Speaker 1>God damn it. What is it is? Is that that's
<v Speaker 1>a Monossory thing or what.
<v Speaker 2>It's a Montessori thing to be really integrated into outdoor spaces.
<v Speaker 2>I just did a top at the Montsory School of
<v Speaker 2>Denver two weeks ago, and they also have these beautiful
<v Speaker 2>outdoor play spaces with like raised beds integrated into the
<v Speaker 2>play areas where kids are hanging out, filled with both
<v Speaker 2>like native and non native vegetable species. So kids are
<v Speaker 2>getting really hands on from the jump. And I do
<v Speaker 2>think that there's a reason why when I switched from
<v Speaker 2>monasory to my college prep, very regimented. You are outside
<v Speaker 2>for like fifteen minutes a day max. For your lunchtime.
<v Speaker 2>High school. I got really depressed, really fast.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, because you're trapped under the fluorescent lights, you know.
<v Speaker 1>Yeahs smells like floor cleaner. Yeah, okay, that's amazing. I
<v Speaker 1>always because I've always joked too, I mean only partially joking,
<v Speaker 1>Like geologic timeline. Teach that shit in second grade, you know,
<v Speaker 1>but intra plants are the foundation of life on earth?
<v Speaker 1>Why is it not taught how to identify them, like
<v Speaker 1>just basics and like some of that's what a plant
<v Speaker 1>family is, you know, and how like what they do
<v Speaker 1>they rolling plant ecology, that kind of thing, Like why
<v Speaker 1>is that not taught in grade school? It's kind of weird.
<v Speaker 2>I only wish that we had done more geology because
<v Speaker 2>we did have a pit lovingly called the clay pit,
<v Speaker 2>and if you dug down deep enough, you would start
<v Speaker 2>finding like fossilized corals and trilobbes and the rocks and
<v Speaker 2>the consistency of the clay would change. And that's the
<v Speaker 2>thing you notice as a kid. But a lot of
<v Speaker 2>our teachers were like, we know plants, we do not
<v Speaker 2>necessarily know the theological.
<v Speaker 1>History of the grounds of your yeah, because I was Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>because most of the Midwest is limestone underneath or sandstone.
<v Speaker 1>I remember. I remember seeing the limestone pits like on
<v Speaker 1>the side of Interstate fifty five in Chicago, and I
<v Speaker 1>was a kid. I mean, like, you know, my mom
<v Speaker 1>would be like, that's all former ocean floor, and I
<v Speaker 1>just I couldn't wrap my head around that. That was too.
<v Speaker 1>It would have been nice for someone to.
<v Speaker 2>Explain that well, that your mom knew that and told
<v Speaker 2>you that though at like a good young age when
<v Speaker 2>you're really curious about these.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I mean she was a public school teacher, so
<v Speaker 1>I mean, yeah, it was you know, that stuff is
<v Speaker 1>so important some context for that, because I can't. I
<v Speaker 1>just can't. I can't imagine what it's got to be
<v Speaker 1>like growing up alienated from any of that, from going outside,
<v Speaker 1>from plants, from you know. And that's kind of what
<v Speaker 1>I am always ranting about too. It's like you look
<v Speaker 1>at some of these you know, quote communities because they're anything,
<v Speaker 1>but you know, like from when you're flying over them,
<v Speaker 1>like the suburbs of Houston or something, and you're like,
<v Speaker 1>oh my god, it's there's like there's nothing around there.
<v Speaker 1>It's just cul de sacs from like a couple miles
<v Speaker 1>and then it leads to like a shopping center with
<v Speaker 1>a big parking lot, and that's got to be such
<v Speaker 1>a hard place to grow up in because there's nothing
<v Speaker 1>real around there. There's nothing left of the native landscape.
<v Speaker 1>There's no there's you know, this this piece of this
<v Speaker 1>essential piece of the human experience for the last however many,
<v Speaker 1>you know, million years, three hundred thousand years as a species,
<v Speaker 1>but we were, you know, running around naked hominids before that. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>it's just missing. Now it's missing, and now you just
<v Speaker 1>grow up and you know, it's just video games.
<v Speaker 2>I think so stressed out.
<v Speaker 1>Now, Yeah, yeah, of.
<v Speaker 2>Course feels like nothing makes me feel aged more than
<v Speaker 2>suddenly realizing that I am the adult being like, I'm
<v Speaker 2>worried about the children I am. I'm worried about all
<v Speaker 2>they're all on screens. And I mean part of it
<v Speaker 2>is there was kind of a degree of freedom and
<v Speaker 2>the outdoors that I think was already on its way
<v Speaker 2>out when me and my younger sister were kids in
<v Speaker 2>the nineties and the early aunts where you could tell
<v Speaker 2>your parents, I'm like riding my scooter to my friend's
<v Speaker 2>house down the street and we're going to go play
<v Speaker 2>flashlight tag in the woods, like I'll be back before
<v Speaker 2>dinner time, Like let's think our watches. I'll be back
<v Speaker 2>before before dinner. And kids don't really get to do
<v Speaker 2>that as much anymore. Not a lot of them are
<v Speaker 2>in living in spaces where they have access to cool,
<v Speaker 2>wild green spaces to play, and the world is terrifying. Now.
<v Speaker 2>I understand parents not wanting to let their kids be
<v Speaker 2>outside by themselves and have that independence, but I also
<v Speaker 2>think that it's really vital, and so I don't even
<v Speaker 2>know how to reconcile that, which is why I do
<v Speaker 2>not have children, because I think I would be way
<v Speaker 2>too stressed out every single day about being like I
<v Speaker 2>need to keep you safe because I built you from
<v Speaker 2>cells in my body, but also I want you to
<v Speaker 2>be happy and feel like an independent human being. And
<v Speaker 2>I'm having a lot of trouble reconciling those feelings, which
<v Speaker 2>and I know for you, I'm preaching to the choir.
<v Speaker 2>And but that's like a really big reason why me
<v Speaker 2>and my fiance are worried about having kids.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, it's you know, on one hand, you don't
<v Speaker 1>have to worry about polio anymore, at least for the
<v Speaker 1>time being.
<v Speaker 2>But true love that. I love that my child will
<v Speaker 2>not get the consumption and die at age six.
<v Speaker 1>But on the other hand, the world is I mean, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>you know you hear. Especially it's the development in the
<v Speaker 1>last twenty years in this country. Depending on where you live,
<v Speaker 1>it's been so bad, man. I mean even in Texas,
<v Speaker 1>in Florida, there's nothing left. I talked to old, older
<v Speaker 1>people that are older than me or my age all
<v Speaker 1>the time that say that, yeah, the woods we used
<v Speaker 1>to play in behind my house are gone now and
<v Speaker 1>there it's like a strip mall or you know, there's
<v Speaker 1>no But that's again, that's what you that's what that's
<v Speaker 1>what you expect from a society where the dominant culture
<v Speaker 1>has no reverence for these things. And that's kind of
<v Speaker 1>what I've been talking about lately too. It's like, you know,
<v Speaker 1>the EO. Wilson idea that you know, the laid biologists,
<v Speaker 1>it's like half earth like leave set half of it aside.
<v Speaker 1>It's a living machine. You know, you may not. You
<v Speaker 1>don't need to turn everything into you know, a single
<v Speaker 1>use for humans strip of land like it's a living machine,
<v Speaker 1>it's a functioning ecosystem. Manage it, but just don't develop it,
<v Speaker 1>you know.
<v Speaker 2>Exactly, And we're allowed to see value in something that
<v Speaker 2>hasn't been developed. That is the thing that it is
<v Speaker 2>so hard to get people to wrap their heads around,
<v Speaker 2>is there is inherent value not just for other members
<v Speaker 2>of the ecosystem, but also for us in those quote
<v Speaker 2>unquote undeveloped spaces, which you know, even saying that, you
<v Speaker 2>can get into a whole other conversation about how these
<v Speaker 2>spaces are descended from spaces that were being cultivated nine
<v Speaker 2>times out of ten exactly by the indigenous groups that
<v Speaker 2>were here before us. In fact, a book that I
<v Speaker 2>just finished reading, feed Us with Trees by what is
<v Speaker 2>it Elsbeth Hayes talks a lot about these maintained, functional,
<v Speaker 2>but also very like calorie giving ecosystems that had been
<v Speaker 2>specifically built to exist in for us to get things from,
<v Speaker 2>while also not disrupting the general flow of the ecosystem
<v Speaker 2>for other animals, for fungi, for insects, and how people
<v Speaker 2>got here and we're just like, nah, that don't look
<v Speaker 2>like farm raise it.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's just complete shortsightedness and oblivious obliviousness and a
<v Speaker 1>little bit of arrogance too.
<v Speaker 2>Oh. Absolutely.
<v Speaker 1>I mean.
<v Speaker 2>When you look at some of the journals of especially
<v Speaker 2>some of the Spanish conquistadors when they first were making
<v Speaker 2>their way to like the southeastern United States, they would
<v Speaker 2>write in their journals about how insane it was, how
<v Speaker 2>productive these spaces were in terms of food. They'd comment about, oh,
<v Speaker 2>the mulberries, the per simmons, the grapevines, the nuts everywhere,
<v Speaker 2>And then after these beautiful, flowery descriptions would be like, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>so what obviously means that God wants us to be
<v Speaker 2>here and inflict all of our practices onto this layout.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's that's I look at that, and I look
<v Speaker 1>at some of the behaviors of the the quote leaders
<v Speaker 1>of the dominant society we live in. I'm like, where
<v Speaker 1>does this? Where? How did this? How do we get here?
<v Speaker 2>Like?
<v Speaker 1>Is this lead poisoning that happened a few hundred years?
<v Speaker 2>Is it the micro is it.
<v Speaker 1>Like inbreeding by like the monarchies or something like? How
<v Speaker 1>did we? How did this happen? Like how do you.
<v Speaker 2>I'd love to blame the habsburg for this.
<v Speaker 1>I love like how do you see this this? I mean, God,
<v Speaker 1>what I would what I would, what I would give
<v Speaker 1>to be able to go back in time and just
<v Speaker 1>see some of the places in this country and see
<v Speaker 1>what they look like, you know, God, But that's that's
<v Speaker 1>the thing is. You know, you live on a place,
<v Speaker 1>you live at the land, and you work with it
<v Speaker 1>instead of against it, instead of trying to you know,
<v Speaker 1>subdue it and control it. You're going to figure things out.
<v Speaker 1>You know, you're going to create these wonderful places. You're
<v Speaker 1>paying attention to things. You've got innate respect for them
<v Speaker 1>just on their own existence, not because you know they
<v Speaker 1>necessarily provide something for you. You just it's you're going to
<v Speaker 1>learn how.
<v Speaker 2>Affect them and their own like right to exist, their
<v Speaker 2>own agency as another living thing. Yeah, instead of only
<v Speaker 2>viewing it through the lens of either a this has
<v Speaker 2>to be extremely productive for me and other humans or
<v Speaker 2>B this is like a nature museum and we can't
<v Speaker 2>touch it. And that's I mean, the other side of
<v Speaker 2>that is it makes me really deeply sad to see
<v Speaker 2>this general distrust of ourselves and our fellow humans when
<v Speaker 2>it comes to nature. Yeah, that was the main argument
<v Speaker 2>that a lot of really wonderful, very kind, very thoughtful
<v Speaker 2>people were making in the comments of that post, I
<v Speaker 2>made generally saying like, I hear you. I do agree
<v Speaker 2>we need to be interacting with nature more. But surely
<v Speaker 2>you must understand that if people were allowed to forage
<v Speaker 2>places that we would absolutely decimate them and absolutely wreck them.
<v Speaker 2>And I don't think that's our default setting.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I don't think it is either, I think, but
<v Speaker 1>you know, and I understand why they think that. I
<v Speaker 1>think it's me again. It's that Murian view that like, oh,
<v Speaker 1>if just hands off, let it be, then'll touch it.
<v Speaker 1>Just hands off, and you know, it'll take care of itself.
<v Speaker 1>We can. It's like, no, man, that's not how it works.
<v Speaker 1>Not it's get in there, but pay attention and a
<v Speaker 1>little bit of humility and a little bit of respect
<v Speaker 1>will go a long way, and the living world will
<v Speaker 1>teach you. I know that sounds fucking woo, but I'm serious,
<v Speaker 1>it does. There's so much to gain just from paying
<v Speaker 1>attention to this stuff and getting that dopamine release that again,
<v Speaker 1>you've been getting for hundreds of thousands of years as
<v Speaker 1>a species from exactly And that's why I make no shit.
<v Speaker 1>I think that's Honestly, the reason so many people are
<v Speaker 1>fucking losing it today, from mass shootings to road rage
<v Speaker 1>to just whatever addictions they have. Uh, it's because of this.
<v Speaker 1>It's because we've were so estranged and alienated from this
<v Speaker 1>world where the dominant society we live in is killing it.
<v Speaker 1>This mentality we have is killing it. But it doesn't
<v Speaker 1>have to be that way, It really doesn't, you know,
<v Speaker 1>it's no, it's the least. The least you could do
<v Speaker 1>is kill your lawn plants of native plants, or just
<v Speaker 1>go if you don't have a lawn, go out there
<v Speaker 1>and just start collecting seeds. Fuck up your dryer, Fuck
<v Speaker 1>up your dryer lint trap, you know, I mean, if
<v Speaker 1>you want to remember to take them out before, but
<v Speaker 1>you're going to always forget a little bit, you know,
<v Speaker 1>take the seeds out before disperse them.
<v Speaker 2>A moment for a moment of silence for everyone with
<v Speaker 2>a child under the age of tens lent traps, especially
<v Speaker 2>in the fall when I do my acorns, and all
<v Speaker 2>I get our parents being like, so, you're telling me
<v Speaker 2>my child's pockets this time for year are youthful.
<v Speaker 4>Yes.
<v Speaker 2>And the thing that I want to ask people is
<v Speaker 2>why is your child the only one who's filling their
<v Speaker 2>pockets up with it. Yeah, exactly, why are you not
<v Speaker 2>partaking in the limbs?
<v Speaker 1>Man? I was. I was going through my daughter's backpack
<v Speaker 1>the other day, like putting putting her lunch in there,
<v Speaker 1>and like, she's got all these papers gen in there,
<v Speaker 1>and she had like a shit, you god, like forty
<v Speaker 1>hirt pebbles stashed in the back. She had like like
<v Speaker 1>a pound and a half of these. I was like,
<v Speaker 1>what are you doing? Like what I mean, this is great,
<v Speaker 1>but like, can we can I take these up? Can
<v Speaker 1>we put them in this in the garden over here?
<v Speaker 1>It's you know, oh yeah, sure, that's okay. You know,
<v Speaker 1>it's like you have.
<v Speaker 2>To have felt pretty proud though.
<v Speaker 1>I did. I did.
<v Speaker 2>That's a beautiful moment.
<v Speaker 1>I flew back from California two days ago with fifteen
<v Speaker 1>pounds of marble limestone and Mom's a night that I
<v Speaker 1>just picked up. I was like, I don't know why
<v Speaker 1>I'm doing. This is insane, it's hurting my back, but
<v Speaker 1>these are really cool. And then I'll you know, I'll
<v Speaker 1>write with a little sharpie on them where I got
<v Speaker 1>them and the date and everything.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, I mean that is our way yesterday at
<v Speaker 2>one of the woods that I love going to this
<v Speaker 2>time of year, they're doing some maintenance and they cut
<v Speaker 2>back some oceage orange trees and one of the logs
<v Speaker 2>was just really calling to me, and their wood is beautiful,
<v Speaker 2>and so I was like, well, I'm carrying this log
<v Speaker 2>to my car. Now. I don't know what I'm gonna
<v Speaker 2>do with it, but it belongs to me.
<v Speaker 1>That's well. It's good heart scaping too, because man, down here,
<v Speaker 1>I'll just put logs around, especially because we got this
<v Speaker 1>public garden. We started near this public golf course, and
<v Speaker 1>I always worry it wouldn't even be like malicious intent,
<v Speaker 1>but people just love to mow, and I always worry
<v Speaker 1>they're gonna like, yeah, come in one day. So you know,
<v Speaker 1>i'll set up little booby traps whatever, just the and
<v Speaker 1>so I'll put logs in there and make it a
<v Speaker 1>little harder for them. And so anyway, and I'll just
<v Speaker 1>use logs because they're good habitat. You know, you see
<v Speaker 1>the beatles killing in them and the little piles of sawdust.
<v Speaker 1>It's like, okay, something's using that. And so I lifted
<v Speaker 1>this big hackberry log up and they were like these
<v Speaker 1>giant like rhinoceros beetle larvae underneath the six of them. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>like it probably weighed together. They would have weighed half
<v Speaker 1>a pound. They were juicy, man, you know.
<v Speaker 2>But I love love lifting up a good log or
<v Speaker 2>a big fallen piece of bark and just seeing what's
<v Speaker 2>going on under there. It's life's little pleasure.
<v Speaker 1>Your sequels, I bet where you are because you guys,
<v Speaker 1>get enough moisture. You probably see salamanders sometimes.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, I was just talking to folks yesterday evening at
<v Speaker 2>a community knitting night because I am just leaning into
<v Speaker 2>being old, especially during the winter, and I was like, okay,
<v Speaker 2>we got to get a gang together in February to
<v Speaker 2>go out at night down in the southeast and help
<v Speaker 2>these like amphibians cross the roads so people don't run over.
<v Speaker 2>Who's with me? And weirdly a lot of people want
<v Speaker 2>to go guys are crossing about it.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah for salamanders or what.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, when they're going to their vernal pools to get
<v Speaker 2>ready to do their business.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's that's really cool though. I mean, that's just
<v Speaker 1>cool to see that kind of thing, to see, you know,
<v Speaker 1>like a mass movement of all these you know, animals
<v Speaker 1>you don't normally encounter, Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Because they're usually so hidden, and I mean, and those
<v Speaker 2>are my favorite kind of animals. Like, I'm also obsessed
<v Speaker 2>with our Southern flying squirrels, who are our most populous
<v Speaker 2>squirrel in Ohio, but no one ever can sees them
<v Speaker 2>because they're noternal.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I've never seen one. God, I forget those guys
<v Speaker 1>are even around. That's fucking dope.
<v Speaker 2>Really, Oh my God, please come visit, especially if it's
<v Speaker 2>during the winter. I will go and lovingly hit a
<v Speaker 2>tree snag with a stick so we can see them.
<v Speaker 1>So you will go, what, you spook them, and then
<v Speaker 1>you spook them and then they take off or what.
<v Speaker 2>And then they go hi. And then sometimes they'll go
<v Speaker 2>and glide to another tree snag, or they'll just well,
<v Speaker 2>they'll go to another tree snag, realize it's just a
<v Speaker 2>person with a stick, and then go back to where
<v Speaker 2>they were.
<v Speaker 1>God, that's hilarious. Man. What time of night you got
<v Speaker 1>to go out to see him?
<v Speaker 2>Usually just a little ways into the evening. The sun
<v Speaker 2>sets so early now, especially in the winter time, so
<v Speaker 2>like nine nothing crazy.
<v Speaker 1>That's crazy. I didn't know they were that abundant out there.
<v Speaker 1>That's cool.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, Oh my gosh, it's fantastic. One of my favorite
<v Speaker 2>winter activities is there's a professor, doctor down Altov here
<v Speaker 2>who's all of his study is around southern flying squirrels,
<v Speaker 2>and he lets volunteers go out with him during the
<v Speaker 2>winter to do box checks at all of the boxes
<v Speaker 2>that he has set up all around the state of Ohio,
<v Speaker 2>which I think is so cool. I would love to
<v Speaker 2>see more professors just letting regular regular people participate in science,
<v Speaker 2>especially what it has to do with their local ecosystem.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Man, I remember when I was in high school
<v Speaker 1>this this Uh, I don't know if I told you
<v Speaker 1>this before, but I remember this. We had this one
<v Speaker 1>We took an ecology class and this this this teacher.
<v Speaker 1>We came in one day and he's like, oh, we
<v Speaker 1>got a great field trip today. We're going to do it.
<v Speaker 1>And I was like, you know, He's like, I wasn't
<v Speaker 1>planning on it, but I just saw this fresh roadkilled deer.
<v Speaker 1>We're gonna go get it in the van and then
<v Speaker 1>take it to this empty field and then come back
<v Speaker 1>on Monday. And you know, so this this is fucking
<v Speaker 1>hilarious too. He took us in a van. We went
<v Speaker 1>and you know, with like garbage bags, picked up this
<v Speaker 1>carcass and it had already started to stink. It was.
<v Speaker 1>It was horrible. It smelled terrible. But he was like,
<v Speaker 1>fuck it, we're doing this. And there were probably twelve
<v Speaker 1>of us in this class and this big you know,
<v Speaker 1>one of those old Dodge vans were cod like smell
<v Speaker 1>the gas we was coming up through the floorboards and
<v Speaker 1>so we're all like gagging in there with this dead
<v Speaker 1>deer in the back. And then we go and take
<v Speaker 1>it to this fields a minute drive. We're all laughing
<v Speaker 1>about it, like, oh you know, and then we put
<v Speaker 1>it in the field and we come back in two
<v Speaker 1>days and it's it's all just like the vultures just
<v Speaker 1>picked it clean. It was, but it was an excellent
<v Speaker 1>ecology lesson. It was like, oh wow, yeah, that's actually
<v Speaker 1>pretty cool.
<v Speaker 2>It was.
<v Speaker 1>I didn't expect that they picked it clean. Man, two days.
<v Speaker 2>It was nuts two days, I mean. And that's the
<v Speaker 2>thing we gotta be. We gotta be more hands on
<v Speaker 2>with nature, including the stuff that we conventionally considered to
<v Speaker 2>be gross.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Yeah, it's I will say, though, man, it's pretty
<v Speaker 1>I have a lot of hope like me and al
<v Speaker 1>Scorch just did this tour, this killer Lawn tour around
<v Speaker 1>which was I just kind of like last minute. I
<v Speaker 1>was like, I wonder we could do this, let's plan it.
<v Speaker 1>And like the amount of enthusiasm I saw. We went,
<v Speaker 1>you know, from Chicago to Saint Paul, Omaha, Lincoln, Kansas City,
<v Speaker 1>and then Fort Worth, and like the amount of enthusiasm
<v Speaker 1>I saw among people was nuts. Mean, we like two
<v Speaker 1>hundred and fifty people come out to Kansas City. Like
<v Speaker 1>people were just excited and they're just excited. People meet
<v Speaker 1>each other there and like planning other meetups and shit,
<v Speaker 1>and it's it's amazing. It's such a great thing to
<v Speaker 1>I see that, and I'm like, God, that's so this
<v Speaker 1>is like such a growing community of people, and there's
<v Speaker 1>so many people that are into this and it's so
<v Speaker 1>positive and feels, you know, feels so good to see.
<v Speaker 1>It's like maybe they're you know, maybe there's a little
<v Speaker 1>bit of hope. I think there's a lot.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, I think everyone kind of like hit a
<v Speaker 2>point in this loneliness epidemic where people are realizing you
<v Speaker 2>need community, you need connection to something bigger than yourself
<v Speaker 2>in order to feel whole, to feel more fulfilled, and
<v Speaker 2>so it's been really cool to see communities starting to
<v Speaker 2>sprint up, especially around native plants. I was in Montana
<v Speaker 2>and Missoula this past summer gathering sand cherry's in a
<v Speaker 2>Costco parking lot, and I was like, I'm gonna tell
<v Speaker 2>people where they are because I can't take all of
<v Speaker 2>these and it's actually kind of cool that they're landscaping
<v Speaker 2>with nade of plants and I won't for people to
<v Speaker 2>get to be hands on with this. And I heard
<v Speaker 2>that later that night after I posted the video, a
<v Speaker 2>whole group of people converged on the Costco parking lot
<v Speaker 2>after it closed and they made friends with each Other's cool,
<v Speaker 2>and I'm just like, yes, good, perfect. I didn't even
<v Speaker 2>intend this.
<v Speaker 1>What are sand fairies? Really quick?
<v Speaker 2>Oh? Maybe a sand plum? Sand plum. It's one of
<v Speaker 2>the prunises and it is cherry sized, but it is
<v Speaker 2>definitely probably considered a plum. It's prinice. Oh give me
<v Speaker 2>a second.
<v Speaker 1>They were landscaping with these things.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, but they were landscaping with them.
<v Speaker 1>Oh that's cool. Oh that's great.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, And like and it makes sense. They're made like
<v Speaker 2>they are attuned to that environment. They were doing way
<v Speaker 2>better than any of the landscaping plants around any of
<v Speaker 2>the other adjacent buildings that were non made.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, the natives. And it's crazy like natives and cultivation,
<v Speaker 1>you know, in cultivated areas are often in way better
<v Speaker 1>shape than you might even find them in out in
<v Speaker 1>habitat because they're getting you know, they're getting there's probably
<v Speaker 1>an irrigation system nearby. They're getting maintained somewhat. I mean
<v Speaker 1>it's and they're great seed sources too. Like when you
<v Speaker 1>see people, That's why I always think to them, like
<v Speaker 1>all the all the like strip mall, parking lots, all
<v Speaker 1>the like areas around irrigation, uh or what is it
<v Speaker 1>like you know, the reservoirs when they got to put
<v Speaker 1>the what am I thinking of the when they build
<v Speaker 1>a pond like next to a parking lot? Yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I forget what.
<v Speaker 2>That little drainage pond a little.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah like around that Just why can't you just put
<v Speaker 1>natives around there, especially like in the prairie regions. You know,
<v Speaker 1>I saw that.
<v Speaker 2>Someone has tossed some of our Nlumbo lutea are native
<v Speaker 2>lotuses seeds into some of those little like pond ditch
<v Speaker 2>drained areas around one of them all north of the.
<v Speaker 1>City retention ponds, that's what is Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, retention ponds. Y Yeah, and I'm like, good, perfect, Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>there you go.
<v Speaker 1>See. Yeah, human human human plant mutualism. Someone was exactly
<v Speaker 1>maybe someone just took some seeds and threw them in there.
<v Speaker 1>You never know.
<v Speaker 2>Exactly, You never know. But it could have also been
<v Speaker 2>a bird, you know, but I like to believe that
<v Speaker 2>it was a silly goose human maybe the same person
<v Speaker 2>who has been putting philosophy ovoid spores and the woodchips
<v Speaker 2>in front of city Hall.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, we got to talk about, Yeah what was this
<v Speaker 1>because I know they grow on Ohio, but they yeah,
<v Speaker 1>they really come up. They come up in the landscaping
<v Speaker 1>in front of the city hall.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, yeah. That was a fun little thing that
<v Speaker 2>happened a couple years back here in downtown Columbus. But
<v Speaker 2>they grow everywhere, like our whole city is crisscrossed with
<v Speaker 2>rivers and creeks and full of box elders, which is
<v Speaker 2>one of I believe they're like preferred wood substrates. It's
<v Speaker 2>when they break down and you know, get little chippy
<v Speaker 2>pieces where it floods, and so we just got a
<v Speaker 2>ton of them. Earlier this year, I saw a kid's
<v Speaker 2>playground that was full of them, and I was like, oh, oh.
<v Speaker 1>That's so funny. I just take those stembuts, Just take
<v Speaker 1>those stem butts and stuff them in the mulch somewhere. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>it was, it was. It was like that in the
<v Speaker 1>Bay Area too, with Silasi b Leni. But hey, they're
<v Speaker 1>doing a service. They're turning chips into dirt, you know, So.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, exactly, they're working hard.
<v Speaker 1>But but yeah, the name. I mean, that's the thing
<v Speaker 1>I always tell people about natives too, is like we
<v Speaker 1>can just look, we just got to change our perception
<v Speaker 1>of what's beautiful because it's been it's been all warped
<v Speaker 1>from you know, growing up in this society that's estranged
<v Speaker 1>from biological and ecological reality. You know, we think plants
<v Speaker 1>that have they need that variegated leaves and they need
<v Speaker 1>the flower all the time. Whatever. It's like, my whole
<v Speaker 1>perception of what's beautiful has changed. I look at the
<v Speaker 1>you know, the typical strip mall landscaping now, and it's
<v Speaker 1>repulsive or like wealthy garden landscaping is like a like
<v Speaker 1>a rich person's garden. It's horrible. Yeah, it's not attractive
<v Speaker 1>to me. It looks weird. And then I spend time
<v Speaker 1>in nature and that's what I want to look at.
<v Speaker 1>And so you know, you start putting those plants in,
<v Speaker 1>you know, and they're all either easy to grow from seed,
<v Speaker 1>there's genetic diversity, and there's a you know, if one
<v Speaker 1>dies from a disease, they're not all going to die.
<v Speaker 1>There's a little bit of diversity in there. And then
<v Speaker 1>they just they were so low maintenance too, but again
<v Speaker 1>that's bad for the comet.
<v Speaker 2>That's the way that I've been able to sell it
<v Speaker 2>to a lot of my neighbors is, you know, in
<v Speaker 2>high summer and we are we are just finishing year
<v Speaker 2>three of some pretty bad drought conditions here in central
<v Speaker 2>Ohio over the summer, and it's it's that is a
<v Speaker 2>perfect time to lovingly remind your neighbors you would not
<v Speaker 2>need to be out here watering your lawn. Yeah, you
<v Speaker 2>replaced your lawn with some native plants, maybe not all
<v Speaker 2>of it, maybe just a little bit of it. And
<v Speaker 2>that is a nice way to sell it to Also
<v Speaker 2>during the mowing seasons and the spring and the fall.
<v Speaker 2>Another great time to be like, well, it wouldn't just
<v Speaker 2>be no mow may if all of your yard was
<v Speaker 2>native plants, it'd be no mo the whole year.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and you shouldn't. You shouldn't have to, I mean
<v Speaker 1>having to apply fertilizer all the time and your fungus
<v Speaker 1>sides or something that's not normal. You shouldn't have to
<v Speaker 1>do that.
<v Speaker 2>You know, you do that, then that is bad for
<v Speaker 2>us too. Nine times out of pens and leaping into
<v Speaker 2>our groundwater like it just it's so wild. Someone in
<v Speaker 2>my most recent leave the Leaves video was saying like, well,
<v Speaker 2>if you left the leaves on your lawn, you could
<v Speaker 2>mow over them first to break them up in the
<v Speaker 2>smaller pieces, and then you could apply this phosphorus fertilizer
<v Speaker 2>and then you could do this and then you could
<v Speaker 2>aerate it in the spring and then you could do that.
<v Speaker 2>If my comment was or you could just get rid
<v Speaker 2>of your lawn.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, really, you're self The time I did, I did
<v Speaker 1>this video with this uh this like native landscaping company
<v Speaker 1>called Symbiosa's Texas out here, and I was talking about
<v Speaker 1>we're on like these like really barren, hot, dusty Calichi
<v Speaker 1>hills in the juniper woodlands on the Edwards Plateau just
<v Speaker 1>west of Boston, Texas. And I'm you know, I'm looking
<v Speaker 1>at the plants there and they're incredible, Like these things
<v Speaker 1>are just built for the for the heat there, like Galfimia,
<v Speaker 1>this member of the malpiggy a c with these cool flowers.
<v Speaker 1>It's got this big root in Stilingia. You know, all
<v Speaker 1>this stuff that's got big roots, and like some of
<v Speaker 1>the liatris there are just tough as nails, like growing
<v Speaker 1>out of bare of limestone in one hundred degree heat.
<v Speaker 1>And I and on the video, I'm like, look at
<v Speaker 1>this stuff, and like look at how look at this.
<v Speaker 1>This isn't soil. There's no soil here. This is just
<v Speaker 1>limestone that's slowly weathering from the acidic rain and just
<v Speaker 1>creating this powder. And they're the powder beneath that powder
<v Speaker 1>is just this rock. Like the Why would you try
<v Speaker 1>to plant the crape myrtle here? They didn't evolve in
<v Speaker 1>this crpe myrtles. Crape myrtles are I'm a.
<v Speaker 2>Smoke tree here. Why do you want to watch those
<v Speaker 2>non native plants slowly die?
<v Speaker 1>They're probably important where they're native. I mean, I know
<v Speaker 1>they are every plant this, but here they're not you know,
<v Speaker 1>crate birtles. You goinda have to irrigate it. And then
<v Speaker 1>I had like some guy common thing and it turned out,
<v Speaker 1>of course he was like a soil like a like
<v Speaker 1>a soil salesman. His business was like like rehabbing soil
<v Speaker 1>for agriculture. Well, that makes sense for agriculture when you're
<v Speaker 1>growing stuff, but if you just for background landscaping or something,
<v Speaker 1>and he's like, no, man, you can fix that. You
<v Speaker 1>just have to amend it with phosphorus and and uh,
<v Speaker 1>you know, you could put some biochar in there. And
<v Speaker 1>I'm like, you don't need to do any of that.
<v Speaker 2>That's the point.
<v Speaker 1>You don't need to do any of that. You have
<v Speaker 1>all these cool oaks and junipers and all these cool
<v Speaker 1>perennials that are I mean, look at the flowers on
<v Speaker 1>like a liatris. Why do you want to change that?
<v Speaker 4>Just leave it.
<v Speaker 1>They're the tools that came with the land. It's like
<v Speaker 1>the pizza exactly. It's like having a car and like
<v Speaker 1>buying a new car and being like, well I could
<v Speaker 1>I could swap this piece for this, and you don't
<v Speaker 1>need to. It's fine, Just leave it alone. You know,
<v Speaker 1>you don't need to do that, Just leave it alone,
<v Speaker 1>working thus alone, just learn to respect the pieces that
<v Speaker 1>came with the car that you know.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, that was part of our talk with city hall
<v Speaker 2>because the big issue that kept coming up from their
<v Speaker 2>end was well, these yards look beautiful when things are blooming,
<v Speaker 2>like we just have issues with things that are not
<v Speaker 2>blooming or things that are seinessing. And I was like, well,
<v Speaker 2>that's how nature works.
<v Speaker 1>Where do you think they get the energy to bloom
<v Speaker 1>from having green leaves like that?
<v Speaker 2>We can't just keep chugging for an entire years. It's
<v Speaker 2>just not possible. And I think we have to start
<v Speaker 2>reframing what we consider to be pretty, what we consider
<v Speaker 2>to be an attractive yard. And then I mean we're
<v Speaker 2>still working on talking to them about whether or not
<v Speaker 2>people have to clean up their stems after plants have sinessed,
<v Speaker 2>because that's really important overwintering habitat for so many different species.
<v Speaker 2>And uh, and we're working, We're working on it. We'll
<v Speaker 2>get there. I'm just glad that native pollinator gardens are
<v Speaker 2>legal in my city. Yeah. I wanted that's the thing
<v Speaker 2>that wasn't true.
<v Speaker 1>I wanted to I wanted to ask you about that.
<v Speaker 1>So getting into that, if we could talk about that
<v Speaker 1>for a little bit, what what exactly happened? When did
<v Speaker 1>the when did the when did the first start? And
<v Speaker 1>then how did it all go and progress?
<v Speaker 2>So there. For the last couple of years, there have
<v Speaker 2>been a lot of rumblings as people, not not just me,
<v Speaker 2>but a lot of folks around the city who have
<v Speaker 2>been working on restoring the ecology around their homes have
<v Speaker 2>been getting hit with these crazy fines. After you know,
<v Speaker 2>one personnickety neighbor calls three one one on them. Uh,
<v Speaker 2>here in the city, if someone calls three one one
<v Speaker 2>on your yard, Uh, they have to come and check
<v Speaker 2>it out. And the folks who work and checking it out,
<v Speaker 2>and this is absolutely no dig on them, Like they
<v Speaker 2>didn't go to school for botany. That's not usually what
<v Speaker 2>their training is. That is not what most of their
<v Speaker 2>day consists of going and fixing things around the city
<v Speaker 2>and making sure that things are working to their best potential.
<v Speaker 2>So they get to a yard, they see a bunch
<v Speaker 2>of plants that they can't recognize, and they see that
<v Speaker 2>it doesn't look like a kempt lawn with beautifully shaped
<v Speaker 2>hedges and that's what they've been told constitutes a good yard.
<v Speaker 2>So they immediately write you a ticket. If you're lucky,
<v Speaker 2>you can contest it. And some people have had success
<v Speaker 2>with that, some people haven't. And so this past year
<v Speaker 2>a lot of folks started lobbying our city council, especially
<v Speaker 2>because we have someone on city council currently who loves gardening,
<v Speaker 2>and we were like, that's our way in, that's are
<v Speaker 2>in talked to him and so we did, and he
<v Speaker 2>started meeting with members of the community and hearing everybody out,
<v Speaker 2>and then invited us to speak in at city Council
<v Speaker 2>at City Hall and the chambers in front of folks
<v Speaker 2>who kind of plead our case, which was a crazy
<v Speaker 2>thing to have to do in retrospect, but I'm really
<v Speaker 2>glad that we all did it. You know, people brought
<v Speaker 2>photos of their yards and got to tell stories about
<v Speaker 2>kids in their neighborhood getting this hands on education with
<v Speaker 2>native plants that they wouldn't have received otherwise, talking about
<v Speaker 2>the species that they have noticed. That was one thing
<v Speaker 2>that I really harped on was I've been keeping track
<v Speaker 2>of the animal and you know, insect biodiversity in our
<v Speaker 2>front and backyard since we moved into this house in
<v Speaker 2>twenty twenty one, and the explosion in biodiversity after the
<v Speaker 2>first year of having all of these native plants in
<v Speaker 2>the front yard and building my little like trough pond
<v Speaker 2>in the backyard was insane. It doubled the species that
<v Speaker 2>we were seeing in our yards. Yeah, butterflies and moss
<v Speaker 2>that I had never seen before here in downtown we
<v Speaker 2>were suddenly starting to see because our yard, another neighbor
<v Speaker 2>halfway down the block, another neighbor another block down, all
<v Speaker 2>within a year had replaced our front yards.
<v Speaker 1>Oh that's so great, that's so cool.
<v Speaker 2>You know.
<v Speaker 1>I always talk about too. I mean because people will say, oh, well,
<v Speaker 1>you know the snakes and the rats and mosquitoes. I said, no,
<v Speaker 1>they don't. You know why, because that's the way an
<v Speaker 1>ecasst the works. There's other things that keep those in check.
<v Speaker 2>Balance it out exactly.
<v Speaker 1>For like eighties eighties of jypdi are always there where
<v Speaker 1>there's people. They've been co evolving with people for the
<v Speaker 1>last thirty thousand years. That's like the tiny mosquitoes that
<v Speaker 1>cause I don't know, if you get them up there,
<v Speaker 1>we get them down here in the lower latitudes, and
<v Speaker 1>they're they're horrible, and they show up. They don't show
<v Speaker 1>up because of the plants. They show up because there's
<v Speaker 1>people there, you know. But you know what will show
<v Speaker 1>up because of the plants is all the things that
<v Speaker 1>keep those in check. Like I was in the Upper
<v Speaker 1>Amazon of Ecuador in February and I went there and
<v Speaker 1>I was like, I'm gonna get deng gay, I'm gonna
<v Speaker 1>get fucking marked by these mosquitos. Whatever it's worth it.
<v Speaker 1>There's cool plants. And I went there and I got
<v Speaker 1>I got bit like twice. I got bit twice. And
<v Speaker 1>I was like, there are all the mosquitos. It rains
<v Speaker 1>every day, there's water everywhere. And then I listened to
<v Speaker 1>the frogs at night and I was talking to an
<v Speaker 1>arpetologist and there's like, yeah, we have like five thousand
<v Speaker 1>species of frogs here, you know. And I was like, Oh,
<v Speaker 1>that's where all the mosquitoes are going. That's why they're
<v Speaker 1>not you know. But then you clear the forest, you
<v Speaker 1>destroy the habitat, the mosquitoes come back really quick.
<v Speaker 2>They're still there because you're still there.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, And the things that the things that's you know,
<v Speaker 1>so that eat them don't And that's kind of explaining
<v Speaker 1>that to you know, people at city Hall, and you're right, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>it's like a glitch in the system. They don't know.
<v Speaker 1>They don't know what these plants are. They don't go
<v Speaker 1>out into nature. There's nowhere they can experience it, and
<v Speaker 1>so they just don't know. And that's kind of what
<v Speaker 1>I had to do it too, just really polite and
<v Speaker 1>I'm like, okay, well, come to my yard. Why do
<v Speaker 1>you think it's weedy?
<v Speaker 2>What?
<v Speaker 1>You know? They couldn't really, they just kind of stuttered.
<v Speaker 1>I was like, I know every genus and species of everything,
<v Speaker 1>and the law specifically says no plants can be over
<v Speaker 1>twelve inches unless they're cultivated. But these are all cultivated
<v Speaker 1>and altivated.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I put them here.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I can prove it to you. I ask me
<v Speaker 1>what anything is here? And I did that. I was
<v Speaker 1>really nice. I did that for like a month, and
<v Speaker 1>they just said, mister Santo, don't worry about the sectation.
<v Speaker 1>They just gave up. They were like, fuck, this guy's
<v Speaker 1>too annoying and he obviously knows what he's talking about.
<v Speaker 1>I don't want to bother with this, and so I
<v Speaker 1>just keep it hedged so they, you know, can't complain
<v Speaker 1>it's going in the street and whatever, and yeah it's nice.
<v Speaker 1>And the same thing. I get distracted walking to my truck.
<v Speaker 1>I see so much cool stuff. I've got like an
<v Speaker 1>ininapp survey just from my yard.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, oh my, my poor fiance. Every time we're in
<v Speaker 2>a rush to go places, will literally have to physically
<v Speaker 2>put blinders up on the sides of my face because
<v Speaker 2>he knows what out fail. I will notice something in
<v Speaker 2>the yard that I will want to go and pay closer.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, oh yeah, it's hard. It's hard. That's and that's
<v Speaker 1>the way it should be. It's like put it right
<v Speaker 1>where you could see. It's why when people they're like,
<v Speaker 1>I want to kill my lawn, I'm like, do the
<v Speaker 1>front yard, because that's where you have to walk. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>you know exactly.
<v Speaker 2>That's make sure you see it, and that's where you'll
<v Speaker 2>you'll notice the difference so much more, you know. Are
<v Speaker 2>We have a neighbor across the street who when they
<v Speaker 2>moved in, was not super keen about our yard. And
<v Speaker 2>they finally came over yesterday to come and talk, and
<v Speaker 2>I got to point at all of the different species.
<v Speaker 2>I got to give them one of our may pop
<v Speaker 2>fruits because somehow it's November and we haven't had first
<v Speaker 2>cross yet, so my may pops are still chugging, still
<v Speaker 2>go in. I think we have two more fruits. We're
<v Speaker 2>still gonna We're still gonna get fully right from this
<v Speaker 2>guy before we get our first frost on Monday, which
<v Speaker 2>is insane. And when he left, he's like, I really
<v Speaker 2>like what you're doing here, yes, And I was like,
<v Speaker 2>if you really like it, you know, you can take
<v Speaker 2>a couple of the seeds out of this maypop and
<v Speaker 2>put them in the raised bed in your front yard.
<v Speaker 2>You know, the vines will climb up your porch. You'll
<v Speaker 2>have beautiful flowers full of like carpenter bees and butterflies
<v Speaker 2>all summer and then it dies back to the ground
<v Speaker 2>every winter. Yeah, nice and easy.
<v Speaker 1>You recruited him. That's great. You're slowly recruiting him. You're
<v Speaker 1>working on that's what we need to do. It's seriously,
<v Speaker 1>it's like that is.
<v Speaker 2>Slowly, but surely. I mean in the politeness, it works,
<v Speaker 2>and some people get mad at me on some people
<v Speaker 2>litimately get mad on the internet when I try to
<v Speaker 2>bring people in, whether it's about getting hip to native plants,
<v Speaker 2>whether it's about realizing some of the inherent racism in
<v Speaker 2>our outdoor spaces. Trying to bring people in with politeness
<v Speaker 2>and kindness. I thought people get mad at me, being
<v Speaker 2>like they don't deserve that. You know, we all have
<v Speaker 2>the Internet. Everybody said no by now, and I'm just like,
<v Speaker 2>when has that attitude?
<v Speaker 1>When has it ever worked? It's counterproductive. It's probably a cio.
<v Speaker 1>If anything, it's probably a syop.
<v Speaker 2>You know.
<v Speaker 1>It's it's like, because it's so good at fracturing and
<v Speaker 1>dividing and going and totally totally sawing off the branch
<v Speaker 1>that you're clinging to, you know, it doesn't work.
<v Speaker 2>Sise Lee.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it was so.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, I I try to be like, Okay, people
<v Speaker 2>can want the same things that I want and want
<v Speaker 2>to go about them in different ways. But one of
<v Speaker 2>these people was literally so persistent that I was just like,
<v Speaker 2>it's given plant energy. It's like and not cool plant,
<v Speaker 2>It's giving someone planted you into this conversation to try
<v Speaker 2>to fracture the community energy.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah yeah, I mean, and you know, with like political like,
<v Speaker 1>I've got my strong opinions. I don't need people to
<v Speaker 1>agree with them at fucking all. All I need you
<v Speaker 1>to do is kill your fucking lawn and plant this
<v Speaker 1>stuff and not met with me for planting it, and
<v Speaker 1>you'll get you'll start getting that dopamine dripped too. I
<v Speaker 1>know you will at some point. There's no way you
<v Speaker 1>can resist it. It's in your fucking genome. You know,
<v Speaker 1>we're all human. It's been there for a long time.
<v Speaker 1>You know. That's all I need. It's like it's you know,
<v Speaker 1>it's And.
<v Speaker 2>Once they get a little taste, it's like a domino
<v Speaker 2>effect and it starts fought like they start wanting to
<v Speaker 2>feel that about so many more aspects of their life.
<v Speaker 2>That's the type of thing that like makes people jump
<v Speaker 2>ship from hyper conservatism and hyper individual worsout.
<v Speaker 1>Or shitty job.
<v Speaker 2>I think that makes people leave that stuff behind.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, it does exactly, because it's it's it's it's addictive,
<v Speaker 1>and it feels good and it's fucking positive too. It
<v Speaker 1>feels really good to be around that stuff. And I mean,
<v Speaker 1>I've gotten a lot of people just write me being
<v Speaker 1>like you're the reason I got into botany, I got
<v Speaker 1>into plants. I'm like, fuck, that's great. That's that's all
<v Speaker 1>I fucking need. Do you know this could die happy?
<v Speaker 1>That's that's great. That's you know, get onto this stuff.
<v Speaker 1>It feels good. It saved me, it'll save you too.
<v Speaker 1>I mean it really, I was a I was a
<v Speaker 1>fucking miserable fuck. I think quitting alcohol also helped me too,
<v Speaker 1>but you know I was. This stuff really did man,
<v Speaker 1>It's so and I've seen it do it to so
<v Speaker 1>many people.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, I have always had like a relationship, I
<v Speaker 2>feel with my local surroundings with plants. You know, my
<v Speaker 2>mom is an avid gardener. Our whole family like really
<v Speaker 2>pride themselves and spending a lot of time outdoors. But
<v Speaker 2>after I graduated from college, in which I was also
<v Speaker 2>very disenfranchised, because when I started my degree, originally in
<v Speaker 2>environmental engineering, I was like, oh, this is perfect. I'm
<v Speaker 2>going to be outside like building these beautiful systems that
<v Speaker 2>help keep our environment intact. And They're like, nah, you're
<v Speaker 2>going to be in an office or you're going to
<v Speaker 2>be in a lab. And I was like, oh my god, wait,
<v Speaker 2>I've made a huge mista. And so I left college
<v Speaker 2>really sad and really depressed and really disenfranchised with just
<v Speaker 2>the world as a whole, and finding my way back
<v Speaker 2>to ecology into native plants and to foraging. I think
<v Speaker 2>really kind of saved my life. Like before I started
<v Speaker 2>just blogging to keep track of all of the foraging
<v Speaker 2>that I was doing and all the rabbit holes i'd
<v Speaker 2>go down about the plants that I was working with.
<v Speaker 2>I had an eating disorder. I was extremely depressed. Like
<v Speaker 2>my mom made me start going to therapy, which a
<v Speaker 2>black mom making you, who's a boomer making you go
<v Speaker 2>to therapy a thing that they famously do not believe
<v Speaker 2>actually work.
<v Speaker 5>You know, it's bad because like and when they're like, nah,
<v Speaker 5>maybe you do need to talk to someone about this,
<v Speaker 5>and just slowly.
<v Speaker 2>Tapping into that kind of like childlike wonder and childlike
<v Speaker 2>curiosity and getting kind of the education that I thought
<v Speaker 2>I was going to get an undergrad on my own
<v Speaker 2>by just like going university libraries, going to the public library,
<v Speaker 2>and the community around native plants especially. I really think
<v Speaker 2>it saved my life, honestly.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's so you got you kind of when you
<v Speaker 1>graduated from college, you were kind of bummed, like not bumped,
<v Speaker 1>but I mean you were not set up, You were
<v Speaker 1>not already into this. It kind of took getting out
<v Speaker 1>of that and getting back outside and getting more into plants.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I kind of had resigned myself to I'm never
<v Speaker 2>gonna I'm never going to have a job that brings
<v Speaker 2>me to I'm never going to have a job that
<v Speaker 2>I feel like is contributing to the greater good for anything.
<v Speaker 2>You know, I was doing like data and QA analyst
<v Speaker 2>jobs for a while right after college, like and for
<v Speaker 2>a fast and like for a company that participated in
<v Speaker 2>fast fashion. So I actively felt like I was going
<v Speaker 2>against all of my ideals and everything that I wanted
<v Speaker 2>to see in the world. And I kind of had
<v Speaker 2>just been told that, you know, that's the way the
<v Speaker 2>cookie crumballs. You want to make a living, you want
<v Speaker 2>to be able to afford your rent, you got to
<v Speaker 2>play the game. And I guess I kind of decided
<v Speaker 2>I didn't care about playing the game anymore. And I
<v Speaker 2>was like, oh, it means that I have to move
<v Speaker 2>back in with my mom. It means that I can
<v Speaker 2>look back in with my mom.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>And I just I feel like I got very lucky
<v Speaker 2>that people resonated with the content that I was making
<v Speaker 2>and really resonated with strengthening their connection to the world
<v Speaker 2>around them through foraging through food. Because I mean, just
<v Speaker 2>like Robin Wilkomer said, you know, how are you gonna
<v Speaker 2>fall in love with the earth if you don't eat theories.
<v Speaker 2>It's a really good way to not even insidiously, but
<v Speaker 2>like a little bit sneakily, get people in on on
<v Speaker 2>taking good care of the spaces around them and seeing
<v Speaker 2>that there is this value that they never knew was there,
<v Speaker 2>and realizing that they're not the only ones who can
<v Speaker 2>benefit from it, and wanting to be able to help
<v Speaker 2>lots of things benefit not just themselves. It's it's sneaky,
<v Speaker 2>it's but in the best way possible. And I got
<v Speaker 2>really lucky that people resonated with that and that I
<v Speaker 2>guess I have like more energy than any human should,
<v Speaker 2>which is what I am told frequently by people who.
<v Speaker 1>Wanted But you just start so you just you were
<v Speaker 1>working the job you hated, and you just thought you
<v Speaker 1>could you quit it? Or were you just going up
<v Speaker 1>making time to go outside and do the things that
<v Speaker 1>you love because they felt good.
<v Speaker 2>I was making time to go outside and and do
<v Speaker 2>the things that I loved. When I had my my
<v Speaker 2>worst job, my job I had immediately out of college
<v Speaker 2>for about a year or so. I remember I was
<v Speaker 2>like probably at one of my lowest points and you
<v Speaker 2>know that cool thing that boomer parents do when they're
<v Speaker 2>just like, go take a walk. Yeah, I'm just like,
<v Speaker 2>I don't think taking a walk is gonna fitch this mom,
<v Speaker 2>But if it'll, if it'll get you to take me
<v Speaker 2>being sad seriously, I will. And I for the first
<v Speaker 2>time in a long time, just paid attention to a
<v Speaker 2>lot of the plants that were growing in my little
<v Speaker 2>suburban called sac at that time, and it was like,
<v Speaker 2>huh oh, I do accidentally feel better. And so for
<v Speaker 2>a while. Then I left that job and I was
<v Speaker 2>working a marketing job that I did, I did enjoy.
<v Speaker 2>I loved the people that I was working with. I
<v Speaker 2>had a really fun team full of really like minded people,
<v Speaker 2>but all of us kind of had these other passions
<v Speaker 2>on the side that we didn't bring to work with us.
<v Speaker 2>My boss was literally also a forager who was cultivating
<v Speaker 2>native plants on the balcony of her fifth floor walk
<v Speaker 2>up in Manhattan Wild, and I thought she was just
<v Speaker 2>the coolest person. She still is the coolest.
<v Speaker 1>We were living in New York.
<v Speaker 2>I was back and forth between Columbus and New York
<v Speaker 2>at that time, and one of the few things keeping
<v Speaker 2>me tethered to Ohio was like the lack of green
<v Speaker 2>space access if I was going to be living in
<v Speaker 2>New York proper, that was that was a really hard
<v Speaker 2>sell for me. Yeah, and she was running this cool
<v Speaker 2>blog called Garden Cocktails, and she was like, oh, you
<v Speaker 2>also love these things. Just start just start writing about
<v Speaker 2>the things that are making you happy, you know, post
<v Speaker 2>some pictures on on Instagram.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, that's great, man, that's great. Yeah, it's so.
<v Speaker 1>I think that's the best. Like advice for people who
<v Speaker 1>are like in a job they dislike is like just file, like,
<v Speaker 1>take a walk and go outside. Just start paying attention
<v Speaker 1>to it, or don't just pay attention to something out there,
<v Speaker 1>but just make sure you get out there. Like you
<v Speaker 1>may not want to do it at first, but go
<v Speaker 1>drive to like a trailhead, go drive to some you
<v Speaker 1>know something, and just go take a walk and just
<v Speaker 1>just being away from people and having like clean air
<v Speaker 1>would be nice. And then maybe you ready, yeah, and
<v Speaker 1>then maybe you just start paying attention to some of
<v Speaker 1>the stuff that's growing around you and taking pictures of
<v Speaker 1>it so you could reference it later if you figure
<v Speaker 1>out what it is or not whatever, do whatever, just
<v Speaker 1>get out there. And eventually it'll it'll, it'll tick, something'll
<v Speaker 1>catch you, you know, it'll hook you. I was working for
<v Speaker 1>the railroad and I just, uh, I would just you know,
<v Speaker 1>I would go to all these hiking spots and I
<v Speaker 1>didn't know much about the plants out there, but I
<v Speaker 1>know it just felt amazing to be out in these places.
<v Speaker 1>And so I was like, I'm just going to keep
<v Speaker 1>doing this. And then suddenly I was trying to scam
<v Speaker 1>time off work so I could go farther out, you know,
<v Speaker 1>go drive, going.
<v Speaker 2>To ask like when I transition happened for you.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it was like twenty nineteen, twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen,
<v Speaker 1>the railroad started doing this thing, this policy called precision
<v Speaker 1>Scheduled railroading, which just sounds like gobbledegook. It's like words,
<v Speaker 1>it doesn't mean anything. What it means in actuality is
<v Speaker 1>that we're going to cut costs. We're gonna screw over
<v Speaker 1>our customers and our employees to please the shareholders. And
<v Speaker 1>so you know, if there were like six jobs in
<v Speaker 1>a yard, like switching jobs, we're going to cut it
<v Speaker 1>to four and then pile the existing work onto the
<v Speaker 1>remaining four jobs. So you guys are going to be
<v Speaker 1>here longer and working harder. And so, you know, I'd
<v Speaker 1>always been good at scamming time off work because we
<v Speaker 1>all knew the company didn't care about us, and that
<v Speaker 1>was kind of solidarity. It was a cool you know,
<v Speaker 1>whether someone was left left leaning or right leaning, or
<v Speaker 1>whether they were whatever their background was, wherever they came from.
<v Speaker 1>Everybody kind of hated the company, which is.
<v Speaker 2>Honestly and sometimes that little bit of community within a chology.
<v Speaker 1>But it's wild though, because the work wasn't that bad.
<v Speaker 1>The work was fun, but the company was terrible, and
<v Speaker 1>it was I kept on thinking, I'm like, God, if
<v Speaker 1>this company knew how much their employees hate them, why,
<v Speaker 1>Like this is the most this is not the most
<v Speaker 1>sensible way to run a company, like you generally want
<v Speaker 1>your employees to like you, because you know, we would go,
<v Speaker 1>we would get over time. We'd go park the locomotive
<v Speaker 1>siding and go to a Takorea and sit down for
<v Speaker 1>two hours on overtime. Like that's how much we hated
<v Speaker 1>the company, I know. But anyway, so I started just
<v Speaker 1>getting time off and going out and it was, you know,
<v Speaker 1>cow I was living in California. They've got a bunch
<v Speaker 1>of nice stuff out there, a bunch of nice areas
<v Speaker 1>to go to, and so that was oh yeah, just
<v Speaker 1>started getting me help put around twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen,
<v Speaker 1>because I started there in two thousand and six. Twenty eighteen,
<v Speaker 1>twenty nineteen, I was like, I got to get out
<v Speaker 1>of here, man, this is this company is just it
<v Speaker 1>just got too shitty and the managers were harassing people
<v Speaker 1>and it was a very antagonistic spot. And then I
<v Speaker 1>was the same thing. I was just recording stuff that
<v Speaker 1>I saw because I wanted to share with people. It
<v Speaker 1>was so cool, and yeah, people liked it. And then
<v Speaker 1>someone was like, you should put these on YouTube because
<v Speaker 1>I was just doing Instagram stories, you know, and they
<v Speaker 1>disappear after a day, and I was like, well, YouTube's
<v Speaker 1>kind of a cesspool. The comments are you know, it's
<v Speaker 1>just a toilet, but whatever, it's maybe you're right, you know,
<v Speaker 1>these the last longer and some of these plants I'm
<v Speaker 1>singing are pretty rare and the habitat may not even
<v Speaker 1>be here in thirty years. So started doing that and
<v Speaker 1>then yeah, people liked it, and I was like, okay,
<v Speaker 1>I'll keep doing this, and then I just I just
<v Speaker 1>went down a wormhole. Once I got away from the railroad,
<v Speaker 1>now I could do this full time, and I just
<v Speaker 1>learned so much more just by asking questions and paying attention.
<v Speaker 2>So yeah, and I and thank goodness that you do.
<v Speaker 2>And that's that person was just like put these things
<v Speaker 2>on YouTube because my like one of my favorite things
<v Speaker 2>about traveling and going to all of these events is
<v Speaker 2>hearing who else within kind of like the science education
<v Speaker 2>community at large online people also love and it is
<v Speaker 2>almost always you. It's like you and all wards from ologies.
<v Speaker 2>Everyone is just like, oh man, you know cui pace,
<v Speaker 2>but botany doesn't. That got's so cool. And I was
<v Speaker 2>like that die is so cool.
<v Speaker 1>I just tell you that I just want to, Like,
<v Speaker 1>I just want There's just so much to learn out there,
<v Speaker 1>and it's it is, it's like understanding how this wonderful.
<v Speaker 2>Reason I'm afraid to die is that I'm afraid I
<v Speaker 2>won't have time to learn everything that I want to learn.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, like I want to. I'm trying to teach
<v Speaker 1>myself blues piano now, like which has no relations to
<v Speaker 1>plants at all. But but you know.
<v Speaker 2>Okay you say that, but okay, it's it's a long
<v Speaker 2>stretch because I grew up playing the piano, and when
<v Speaker 2>things make sense musically in your mind, they also kind
<v Speaker 2>of make sense mathematically in your mind. That connects to
<v Speaker 2>the sciences.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, lately.
<v Speaker 2>Everything is connected. I was just ranting with one of
<v Speaker 2>my ecologist friends yesterday about how the biggest lie that
<v Speaker 2>any of us were sold growing up is that the
<v Speaker 2>arts and science are two things that should main separated
<v Speaker 2>from one another instead of being so intrinsic.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, man, totally connected. They're both so, I mean, they're
<v Speaker 1>so important. Yeah, who would? Why would? Yeah? I never
<v Speaker 1>thought about that. That is kind of you need. You
<v Speaker 1>need a background in one to have a good footing
<v Speaker 1>in the other, you know.
<v Speaker 2>For Yeah, I think the people who make huge splashes,
<v Speaker 2>whether in the science community or in the arts community,
<v Speaker 2>almost always also have some sort of affinity for the
<v Speaker 2>other one.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. And art is so important for happiness too, man,
<v Speaker 1>it really, Yes, it's so and just like expression, and
<v Speaker 1>it's it's this fundamentally human thing. You can't just have
<v Speaker 1>this totally rigid world with you know, where it's all
<v Speaker 1>just data and numbers and statistics without any like fun
<v Speaker 1>in it, you know, without.
<v Speaker 2>Any joy, without any soul and that I mean, it
<v Speaker 2>goes back to what we've been talking about this whole time.
<v Speaker 2>It's right up there with lawns, like lawns and AI
<v Speaker 2>data centers. Do not a community made.
<v Speaker 1>The fucking AI data center. That's yeah, that stuff gets
<v Speaker 1>this dough pick man.
<v Speaker 2>Oh my god, those things are crazy. And you know that,
<v Speaker 2>like that bubble is about to burst when even rural
<v Speaker 2>communities in Ohio that some of these places are trying
<v Speaker 2>to move to are voting now, are like, uh no,
<v Speaker 2>absolutely not.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, do you want this thing that's big, ugly
<v Speaker 1>and loud and is going to drive your electricity prices up?
<v Speaker 1>Unto you don't it's gonna be good for They can't
<v Speaker 1>even say it brings jobs in. It doesn't. There's exactly
<v Speaker 1>because it doesn't. It's thethesism of just that's a big
<v Speaker 1>thing up by you. I don't. That's it's I think
<v Speaker 1>it's down here Texas too, but not around I live
<v Speaker 1>right on the Mexican border, so's there's not too many
<v Speaker 1>around here yet.
<v Speaker 2>But uh oh, they're trying to make really big inroads here.
<v Speaker 2>And you know, of course we used to be a
<v Speaker 2>swing state. We kind of don't we have we haven't
<v Speaker 2>earned that in a while, and so are very conservative,
<v Speaker 2>very right leaning government is trying to court all of
<v Speaker 2>these AI companies and all of these tech companies, and
<v Speaker 2>it is kind of really encouraging to see that one
<v Speaker 2>thing a lot of us can agree on, regardless of
<v Speaker 2>political affinity, is that we're not out here about to
<v Speaker 2>shoulder the energy bills for like a handful of people
<v Speaker 2>to get somehow even richer than they already.
<v Speaker 1>All yeah, yeah, And you know it's I mean, obviously,
<v Speaker 1>the any politicians that are behind that, against what their
<v Speaker 1>constituents want, they're just getting paid off. They're getting It's
<v Speaker 1>totally self serving somehow. That's what's so sleazy. Man. It's crazy.
<v Speaker 1>Like I was in Florida two weeks ago looking at
<v Speaker 1>some of the sand hill communities out there, fucking insane.
<v Speaker 1>It's so cool. It's like a it's like a humid
<v Speaker 1>desert with this nutrient poor sand. It reminds me the
<v Speaker 1>Lake Whales Ridge, reminds me of some of the stuff
<v Speaker 1>I've seen in like Mina Shariahs, Brazil. Like this nutrient Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>the sand looks like sugar. It's like this bleach white
<v Speaker 1>sugar sand. And then there's all these insane plants there,
<v Speaker 1>and it's all fire adapted. Everything there's fire adapted, and
<v Speaker 1>like short interval fires too, like two three years, you know.
<v Speaker 1>And they've got like big xylopodium, like these big woody
<v Speaker 1>roots that they can, you know, re sprout from. And
<v Speaker 1>like when you burn the landscape there, everything ends up
<v Speaker 1>looking so much better. Like the plants thrive, they just
<v Speaker 1>take off. Whereas because they still get sixty inches of
<v Speaker 1>rain a year, but they've got this dry season kind
<v Speaker 1>of like the tropics do, which is kind of what
<v Speaker 1>central Florida is, and so the winters are dry, but
<v Speaker 1>it's still like ninety degrees and so, you know, but
<v Speaker 1>then you've got sixty inches of rain a year. But
<v Speaker 1>then it's on this sand. It's like a former It's
<v Speaker 1>like basically the Appalachian Mountains weathered down over millions of years,
<v Speaker 1>washed out to the Atlantic, and then the Atlantic at
<v Speaker 1>some point in the last however many million years washed
<v Speaker 1>all that sand up into these dunes, and so there's
<v Speaker 1>all these endemic plants there. I'm going off on a
<v Speaker 1>rant there. I'm sorry, but it was just so.
<v Speaker 2>No do it. It's reminding me that when I was
<v Speaker 2>in Miami for Art Basle, which I had no business
<v Speaker 2>being at love here. That the only moment of joy,
<v Speaker 2>the only like little bit of solace I found in
<v Speaker 2>that city that I am very much not built for
<v Speaker 2>was the Simpson rockland Hammock Preserve, which is this tiny
<v Speaker 2>nature preserve hidden right in the middle of downtown Miami,
<v Speaker 2>where it is all of these sand adapted and like
<v Speaker 2>all native mostly threatened trees and shrub species. And I
<v Speaker 2>remember just like stumbling upon it walking in and the
<v Speaker 2>temperature immediately dropping fifteen degrees.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, yeah, the transpirational cooling and just the shade,
<v Speaker 1>and it's it's crazy. I mean, that's how I was
<v Speaker 1>talking about like native plants as infrastructure on this post
<v Speaker 1>a couple of weeks ago, because it's like, you know,
<v Speaker 1>even if you think plants are quote woke and you
<v Speaker 1>hate you know whatever, I mean, I live in a
<v Speaker 1>state where reading is woke and going to therapy is
<v Speaker 1>what you know, you think plants are woke, like and
<v Speaker 1>it shouldn't be politicized. But even if you think that,
<v Speaker 1>like they're doing so. They're doing a service by by
<v Speaker 1>cooling the landscape, preventing the heat from the sun from
<v Speaker 1>hitting the ground and warming up all that concrete. You know,
<v Speaker 1>that giant island of asphalt and concrete that you've created. Well,
<v Speaker 1>now that's not getting charged up by the sun, so
<v Speaker 1>it's not going to continue to radiate heat until two
<v Speaker 1>in the morning after the sun goes down. And also,
<v Speaker 1>you know, they're preventing flooding for when it does rain
<v Speaker 1>because the roots break up the soil and make it
<v Speaker 1>poorous like a dry sponge. And you know the transpirational
<v Speaker 1>cooling from the leaves, I mean those little gas pores
<v Speaker 1>you let out moisture, it goes to a gas state
<v Speaker 1>that takes energy, whereas I mean that's how a swamp
<v Speaker 1>cooler works. You know, It's like, even if you don't
<v Speaker 1>like plants like you want them on, it doesn't make
<v Speaker 1>any sense to have these median strips where it's just
<v Speaker 1>mode lawn. Have it being native plants. You know, the
<v Speaker 1>sides of a strip mall or a retention pind have
<v Speaker 1>be native plants. It will cool every thing down. And
<v Speaker 1>also it'll probably be covering fucking butterflies. And if you
<v Speaker 1>don't like butterflies, you got something wrong with you, you know,
<v Speaker 1>you really you don't.
<v Speaker 2>Like butterflies, then you might be past fixing.
<v Speaker 1>I can't.
<v Speaker 2>It might be where I'm just like, uh oh, this
<v Speaker 2>one's broken.
<v Speaker 1>Beyond Stephen Miller. Probably just like butterflies.
<v Speaker 2>Honestly, I would not be surprised to Miller. You have
<v Speaker 2>twenty four hours to respond.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it'd be fun to man. That guy needs to
<v Speaker 1>get dosed, you know. I mean, I believe there's hope
<v Speaker 1>for everybody. But you know, anyway, but I came home
<v Speaker 1>from uh, I came home from see this is the
<v Speaker 1>way my mind works. I'm already ping ponging all. I
<v Speaker 1>forget what I was fucking talking about. We'll get back
<v Speaker 1>to it in a minute. But I came home speaking
<v Speaker 1>of butterflies last week, and then I got this plant
<v Speaker 1>that's a member of the Astraraci, you know, with the
<v Speaker 1>just which related to Joe Pieweed, And it was in
<v Speaker 1>my yard and it was covered all that it was
<v Speaker 1>covered in monarchs. The monarchs were going yeah, and I
<v Speaker 1>was just like immediately like, oh my god, that's so
<v Speaker 1>nice to see. I'm so glad I came home to that.
<v Speaker 1>Whatever I was thinking about before, it doesn't matter. I'm
<v Speaker 1>just gonna stare at this and lurk, yeah, so and
<v Speaker 1>showing people that they're just like you know anyway, Okay,
<v Speaker 1>I remember what it's talking about. So Florida, like the
<v Speaker 1>corruption and I apologize for this, uh this this ramp,
<v Speaker 1>but the corruption was nuts. Florida has all this cool
<v Speaker 1>shit and then but there's been so much development there
<v Speaker 1>because all the politicians there man are so own and
<v Speaker 1>like I was hanging out with my friend Lily and
<v Speaker 1>her friend Valerie and they were telling me about you know,
<v Speaker 1>the levels of corruption are just insane, like stuff stuff
<v Speaker 1>you would expect in like a Banana republic where these
<v Speaker 1>developers just own the politicians. There's you know, the politicians
<v Speaker 1>getting these positions where they install developers in the fit
<v Speaker 1>the Wildlife Commission. You know, these people that have no
<v Speaker 1>backing in science, no backing and even hunting or going outside.
<v Speaker 1>They're just developers, you know, they're just these ledges are
<v Speaker 1>now like in charge of management decisions or you know
<v Speaker 1>what little state parks remain like that that is insane,
<v Speaker 1>like how do you even? That's so corrupt, like there's
<v Speaker 1>no oversight, like how do you even? And Florida has
<v Speaker 1>biological riches like beyond belief, like there's so many plants
<v Speaker 1>that only grow in Florida. They don't cur anymore there.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know, like it just makes you go, like,
<v Speaker 2>how do we how do we start untangling that? You know?
<v Speaker 2>And I mean I guess for both of us it's
<v Speaker 2>not necessary. I mean we're not Florida residents, but like, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>how does a plucky, you know, hopeful Florida residence start
<v Speaker 2>the process of that uncoupling before we lose things that
<v Speaker 2>we can literally never get that?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I think you just show people, look, this cool
<v Speaker 1>stuff is where you are. It's really amazing, and by
<v Speaker 1>the way, it's threatened by this, and then you start
<v Speaker 1>talking about the levels of corruption and you get people
<v Speaker 1>to show up, you know, but there's a lot of
<v Speaker 1>and there's a lot of people in Florida that are
<v Speaker 1>really showing up and are pissed off about But you know,
<v Speaker 1>that could be anywhere. I mean, that's what like Mike
<v Speaker 1>he was doing with the public lands that that you know,
<v Speaker 1>the guy that looks like a thumb from Utah. He
<v Speaker 1>looks like a he looks like a thumb.
<v Speaker 2>He does look so much like a thumb. Oh my god.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, but he was you know, his he's still coming
<v Speaker 1>at it again. Now he's got some other public lands,
<v Speaker 1>you know, border security. He tried the like we're doing
<v Speaker 1>this for affordable housing thing, which was so like, man,
<v Speaker 1>are you really this Like this is such bullshit? Are
<v Speaker 1>you really this cynically you think people are going to
<v Speaker 1>leave this? But and that failed, Like even the hunting.
<v Speaker 1>The hunting community was really the the you know, the
<v Speaker 1>demographic that's helps you.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and when you anger the hunting community as like, oh,
<v Speaker 2>well you messed up, you messed up because now we're
<v Speaker 2>allied together.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, it was really cool. It was one of
<v Speaker 1>those things you're seeing people from normally wouldn't work together
<v Speaker 1>working together to defeat these anti public lands. But anyway,
<v Speaker 1>now he's got another one up that's a border security
<v Speaker 1>anything within one hundred miles of a border, and they're
<v Speaker 1>considering like Lake Michigan a borders. So everything in Chicago
<v Speaker 1>is like, you know, yeah they can, they can build
<v Speaker 1>roads through wilderness areas. They're trying to do this, so
<v Speaker 1>hopefully it'll fail again, but it's it's just crazy, man.
<v Speaker 1>It's that they're never going to stop, like you've already
<v Speaker 1>taken so much, like just stop, like can there be
<v Speaker 1>a moratorium and any more development and protect this stuff.
<v Speaker 1>And also like we need to understand how it works.
<v Speaker 1>It's why like funding sciences and ecological studies and surveys
<v Speaker 1>and all this stuff is so important right at the
<v Speaker 1>same time, everything's and my.
<v Speaker 6>Thing is, I'm just like we we in most of
<v Speaker 6>our cities, we are not out of space, Like why
<v Speaker 6>are we not just rezoning things for more dense living,
<v Speaker 6>for more apartments so we don't feel like we constantly
<v Speaker 6>need to be over developing some of the few wild space.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah, and that's.
<v Speaker 2>The d makes no sense. But then you start angering
<v Speaker 2>the the nundies and then and then that's when we
<v Speaker 2>get fractured, and then that's when we have problems.
<v Speaker 1>But that's the thing is like I think, you know density,
<v Speaker 1>but with you know, every four blocks there's a block
<v Speaker 1>of just native green space where people can actually go in.
<v Speaker 1>It's not off limits. You want to get people's asses
<v Speaker 1>in there, get them in there to engage with it.
<v Speaker 1>But you know that will and that will lighten the
<v Speaker 1>load of the quote density, but also just not when
<v Speaker 1>you've got density, you don't need as much car car space,
<v Speaker 1>parking lots. Yeah, all that you can walk places. It's
<v Speaker 1>good for your health too, Like heart disease is a
<v Speaker 1>big problem in America. You think they might be related
<v Speaker 1>to being trapped in a car and sitting down not
<v Speaker 1>moving for three hours.
<v Speaker 2>Hours a day. Exactly. Yeah, And I feel very lucky,
<v Speaker 2>like we're our neighborhood honestly does not get a lot
<v Speaker 2>from the city. I joke, but it's not a joke
<v Speaker 2>that like we're the sacrificial lamb when the city floods,
<v Speaker 2>like we literally get walled in by the flood walls.
<v Speaker 2>It has historically been a very poor and thus very
<v Speaker 2>diverse neighborhood, and somehow we lucked into having these pocket parks,
<v Speaker 2>like every other block, every other street running off of
<v Speaker 2>our main street. And it's crazy how the houses that
<v Speaker 2>are along the pocket parks get so they're so much cooler,
<v Speaker 2>they get so much additional shade during the summertime. Seeing
<v Speaker 2>the kids running through the pocket parks just like playing
<v Speaker 2>catch or kickball, people walking their dogs, people just sitting
<v Speaker 2>at the picnic tables underneath you know, the giant basswood
<v Speaker 2>tree in one of them, just enjoying being outside. And
<v Speaker 2>I just don't understand why we aren't doing that everywhere?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I think, Well that's what I wanted to ask
<v Speaker 1>you too, cause I'm just curious what you think. But
<v Speaker 1>you know, for kids that are growing up, like teenagers
<v Speaker 1>that are growing up in some of those like cul
<v Speaker 1>de sec communities that are alienated from all this stuff
<v Speaker 1>and it's hard to get anywhere without a car, what
<v Speaker 1>do you think, I don't know. What do you think
<v Speaker 1>can give them hope? What do you think can get
<v Speaker 1>them out?
<v Speaker 2>Like? What?
<v Speaker 1>I don't know? I guess because that's like that's who
<v Speaker 1>those are. The people I feel bad because they didn't
<v Speaker 1>choose that man, their parents just you know whatever, they're
<v Speaker 1>just ended up there. You know, they're growing up in that.
<v Speaker 1>I wonder that I worry about those kids, you know, like,
<v Speaker 1>how do you just like life is so cool? Life
<v Speaker 1>can be full of such wonderful things, and you're probably
<v Speaker 1>there's a lot of depression, there's a lot of anxiety,
<v Speaker 1>Like get people to go out and partake in these things,
<v Speaker 1>or at least if you're going to be starting at
<v Speaker 1>your screen, use it for you know, whether it's following
<v Speaker 1>nature accounts or you're looking at an out or just
<v Speaker 1>asking questions like what are the cool plants that grow
<v Speaker 1>in this area or in this area or what you know,
<v Speaker 1>I don't know. I mean you've got the library in
<v Speaker 1>your pocket, Like the phone can be cool, if it.
<v Speaker 2>Can be a good thing, I think not like you
<v Speaker 2>just mentioned, is so important for gtting people's foot in
<v Speaker 2>the door and kind of sparking this interest and sparking
<v Speaker 2>the realization that you can be in a city, you
<v Speaker 2>can be on a cul de sac in the middle
<v Speaker 2>of suburbia and still have biodiversity around you. To an extent,
<v Speaker 2>I love suggesting to people try downloading AMAT and just
<v Speaker 2>open the explore tab and see if anybody has logged anything.
<v Speaker 1>Around it, if it's something.
<v Speaker 2>You've ever seen before. Oh, it's the coolest. I love
<v Speaker 2>it so much. And I'm like, if you, if there's
<v Speaker 2>nothing in your neighborhood, go out and log like two
<v Speaker 2>or three plants. That makes you immediately have to start
<v Speaker 2>paying attention because you have to start telling the difference
<v Speaker 2>between a couple different plants. Take a picture of it,
<v Speaker 2>see if you can figure out what it is. If
<v Speaker 2>you can hee it out with between their suggestions and
<v Speaker 2>comparing it to pictures on the Wikipedia pages. It's such
<v Speaker 2>a great tool for inspiring curiosity.
<v Speaker 1>And if you're looking.
<v Speaker 2>I think people were like told to not be curious
<v Speaker 2>after we're not kids anymore.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's that's depressing too, Like when when people stop
<v Speaker 1>being excited about like finding roly Polly's under a rock,
<v Speaker 1>that's why. No, it's like they've fully been They're in
<v Speaker 1>the matrix now, you know, like you gotta get them
<v Speaker 1>pick up. But I tell I tell people, you know,
<v Speaker 1>if you live in one of these cul de sects
<v Speaker 1>that you know it looks like these housing pods everywhere.
<v Speaker 1>If you live like when you're looking at it from above,
<v Speaker 1>you're trying to find a spot to go, just pull out,
<v Speaker 1>look at like Google satellite maps and look for like
<v Speaker 1>power line easements or sides of railroad tracks or the
<v Speaker 1>edge of a retention pond. Like there's gonna be places
<v Speaker 1>where the mowers can't go and where people aren't gonna
<v Speaker 1>bother to spray herbicide or try to trim things up,
<v Speaker 1>and you're you're gonna find stuff there. There'll probably be
<v Speaker 1>a mixture of natives and invasives, but they're at least
<v Speaker 1>they're they're feral or they're wild. They're not you know,
<v Speaker 1>this weird minecraft landscaping and just look what's there. You
<v Speaker 1>never you'll never guess maybe what what things might be
<v Speaker 1>using those quote nether regions of human infrastructure like those
<v Speaker 1>are those are.
<v Speaker 2>And then they can be like you following your footsteps,
<v Speaker 2>gather a couple seeds and bring them home. Maybe put
<v Speaker 2>a couple of them into the ground in the backyard.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, totally, or just disperse them to places like along
<v Speaker 1>fence lines, places where you know they're not going to
<v Speaker 1>get mowed and no one's gonna no one's gonna, you know,
<v Speaker 1>bother them whatever. So it's there's cool, Yeah, there's I
<v Speaker 1>just want to get people excited about this stuff. I
<v Speaker 1>just want people to realize, like I see kids who
<v Speaker 1>are like depressed or anxious, and it's you know, just man,
<v Speaker 1>there's it gets better. There's no reason to feel that way.
<v Speaker 1>There's this is such a wonderful fucking place to be
<v Speaker 1>on this planet, and you know, we have such treasures here.
<v Speaker 1>You just got to go out and find it. They
<v Speaker 1>may not be in your immediate area because of what
<v Speaker 1>the society we live in has done, but you can
<v Speaker 1>you can get away from that, and they're out there
<v Speaker 1>somewhere you know, and.
<v Speaker 2>It's so easy to get lost in spiraling about what
<v Speaker 2>we have lost instead of celebrating what we do still have.
<v Speaker 2>And that sorrow, I think is also very dangerous because
<v Speaker 2>sorrow is immobilizing. Sorrow makes you feel like you can't
<v Speaker 2>do anything but mourn and be sad. And yeah, when
<v Speaker 2>you get out in nature, you see that there are
<v Speaker 2>still beautiful things to take care of, there's still beautiful
<v Speaker 2>things to protect. Yeah, and everybody go touch a blade
<v Speaker 2>of grass, well not a blade of oh maybe a
<v Speaker 2>native grass and big bluestem.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, go touch it. Go find some andropogan God, the
<v Speaker 1>fucking andropoguans in Lake Wales Ridge are insane. They're like waxy, man,
<v Speaker 1>they're like icy blue. It's it's crazy. That's such crazy
<v Speaker 1>shit down there in Florida, like these. The andropogon diversity
<v Speaker 1>is insane. There's like twelve species anyway. Really, yeah, it's
<v Speaker 1>it's crazy. I'll send you some pictures later. It's yea.
<v Speaker 1>They're like it and they're blue. They're like then there's
<v Speaker 1>wax on the leaf plads you look at like the
<v Speaker 1>base of the plant. They're like these four five foot
<v Speaker 1>six foot tall grasses and then you look at the
<v Speaker 1>base of the leaves and they're like icy blue. Like
<v Speaker 1>it's like, yeah, it's it's the.
<v Speaker 2>Fun gloccous color that you get when things are have
<v Speaker 2>that nice waxy coating.
<v Speaker 6>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, because it's me. It's hard out there and you're walking,
<v Speaker 1>you're walking around on that white sand and it's like
<v Speaker 1>reflecting back at you, you know, like like it's intense,
<v Speaker 1>it's hard. It's a harsh environment. That's you get a
<v Speaker 1>lot of cool stuff. But anyway, but yeah, I'll get
<v Speaker 1>you know, I get these people asking me sometimes and
<v Speaker 1>I don't know what to say to them because I
<v Speaker 1>could rant about it forever. But that young people, they'll
<v Speaker 1>be like, how do you see all this stuff, like
<v Speaker 1>all the destruction or just the whatever dumb shit you know,
<v Speaker 1>our society is doing right now, our civilization? How do
<v Speaker 1>you see that and not get depressed? I'm like, I
<v Speaker 1>don't know, man. I I see so much beauty around me,
<v Speaker 1>and that's what I intentionally put around me, whether it's
<v Speaker 1>my front yard of the place I go to, and
<v Speaker 1>I guess maybe I've just got perspective. The geologic timescale.
<v Speaker 1>I always tell people it's really important, you know this
<v Speaker 1>is a blink of an eye. This is we're not
<v Speaker 1>going to win this war We've waged on nature. I
<v Speaker 1>guarantee we might win a couple of battles, but we're
<v Speaker 1>not gonna win. And so I think, you know, just
<v Speaker 1>it's not about I don't know. You can't have this
<v Speaker 1>short Try not to have this short sighted view, you know,
<v Speaker 1>take a long term, long game view, and just do
<v Speaker 1>what you can. It's fun, you know, but don't don't
<v Speaker 1>do what you're doing with you know, the the end
<v Speaker 1>in mind, Like, oh I'm doing it. It's a means
<v Speaker 1>to an end. Do it just because it's it feels great.
<v Speaker 1>It feels so good. I was like, even before we
<v Speaker 1>get on the phone, I was like planting shit in
<v Speaker 1>my neighbor's yard. They said I could, They said I
<v Speaker 1>could plant some stuff. I was like, you don't know what,
<v Speaker 1>you just invite it in man, it's you know this
<v Speaker 1>is But yeah, I don't know. I think there's there's
<v Speaker 1>so much good ship out there and what we're what's
<v Speaker 1>going on, so.
<v Speaker 2>Much to hope for, and like, I don't know, sometimes
<v Speaker 2>I do get a little depressed about it. But yeah,
<v Speaker 2>one thing I've worked on for a large portion of
<v Speaker 2>my adult life is asking myself, like how much time
<v Speaker 2>I'm giving myself to wallow and whether or not I
<v Speaker 2>feel like I'm getting anything productive. Like if I get
<v Speaker 2>upset or angry about something, sometimes that's a really good
<v Speaker 2>motivator for me to like get boots on the ground,
<v Speaker 2>spread some seeds in some spaces, go learn about a
<v Speaker 2>new to me species. I've been trying to use it
<v Speaker 2>as a reason to go and get excited and find
<v Speaker 2>something to get happy about instead of just like letting
<v Speaker 2>myself wallow for an extended period of time. But I
<v Speaker 2>but I have to be really deliberate about it, and
<v Speaker 2>I have to be able to catch myself and like
<v Speaker 2>self parent and be like, okay, girl, let's cry for
<v Speaker 2>an hour and then let's maybe try something out.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, the wallowing is important for a little while.
<v Speaker 1>You gotta feel. You got to feel your feeling, your feeling. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>you gotta feel your feelings. Don't suppress that shit because
<v Speaker 1>that doesn't go anywhere good either. But uh yeah, man,
<v Speaker 1>I it's yeah, I think that's a good tactic. Get out,
<v Speaker 1>just let it feel it for a minute. Then you
<v Speaker 1>got to go out and fall in love with the world.
<v Speaker 2>Again exactly kind of. I mean, before we started recording,
<v Speaker 2>I was telling you I'm going on this journey of
<v Speaker 2>like fibercrafting from wild plants netals all around the world,
<v Speaker 2>All sorts of different species of metals have a really
<v Speaker 2>long history of being used for their really strong and
<v Speaker 2>like kind of silky bast fibers. And we have wood
<v Speaker 2>netals what is it lappertea cana dency that are native
<v Speaker 2>here and their fibers are beautiful. And I love clothes self.
<v Speaker 2>You know, admittedly, I'm not going to say that I
<v Speaker 2>I am not a fool for a good article of
<v Speaker 2>clothing on the internet, because you can go to my
<v Speaker 2>page and see for yourself.
<v Speaker 1>She's got a night profession.
<v Speaker 2>I just I love a good dress. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
<v Speaker 2>It's a fun way to express myself. It's one vice
<v Speaker 2>I've left myself in this world. And but I also
<v Speaker 2>know how much, especially fast fashion is imperiling so many
<v Speaker 2>parts of this planet. And for me, that journey has
<v Speaker 2>looked like, oh, a couple of years, I started like
<v Speaker 2>very deliberately phasing out like polyester out of my wardrobe.
<v Speaker 2>And thankfully, I'm very lucky and privileged to be in
<v Speaker 2>a position where I can be preferential and be like,
<v Speaker 2>now I'm trying to play the natural fibers game, trying
<v Speaker 2>to not be putting microplastics into this into the world
<v Speaker 2>every single time I wash my clothes, which is like
<v Speaker 2>crazy to think about that. We're all just doing and
<v Speaker 2>it's real normal. And but now I'm like, Okay, I
<v Speaker 2>really want to see how much effort it takes for
<v Speaker 2>a person to just be fully responsible for a soul garment.
<v Speaker 2>It's probably gonna be like a scarf. I'm gonna be
<v Speaker 2>real honest with everybody right now. I'm not gonna be
<v Speaker 2>like that cool artist Eve who is going and trying
<v Speaker 2>to grow an entire dress out of flax as she
<v Speaker 2>grew in her front yard right now.
<v Speaker 1>Damn, where was that?
<v Speaker 2>Oh my gosh. She lives in Vermont and she's trying
<v Speaker 2>to go from putting the seeds in the ground to
<v Speaker 2>a dress in fifty two weeks. She does weekly updates
<v Speaker 2>and it is like my.
<v Speaker 1>Super Bowl man, And that's linen. That's COMFX is comfortable
<v Speaker 1>flax and hamper like the most comfortable fibers.
<v Speaker 2>Oh, it's amazing. It gets I mean, with all of
<v Speaker 2>our plant fibers. They get softer the longer that you
<v Speaker 2>wear them, the longer that they get to have a
<v Speaker 2>life with you, the better they become as a garment.
<v Speaker 2>It's crazy that that's like not what everyone is preferential towards.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, really the polyester thing is yeah, man, it's
<v Speaker 1>that's it.
<v Speaker 2>I thought I was just a sweaty girl. I thought
<v Speaker 2>I was just a sweaty Also.
<v Speaker 1>Speaking of dryer lind traps though, you remember that that
<v Speaker 1>you could sometimes remember as a kid, you could take
<v Speaker 1>some of that and light it on fire and it
<v Speaker 1>will go up, like that's all the polyester. That's like, man,
<v Speaker 1>it's fine.
<v Speaker 2>And Scouts like I was a girl Scout and they
<v Speaker 2>were telling us to use that stuff was fire starter
<v Speaker 2>and I'm just like, oh my god, damn at least
<v Speaker 2>so much so much microplastic.
<v Speaker 1>Wait, so how do you make fibers out of it?
<v Speaker 1>So what is the process? Because I'm actually interested in that.
<v Speaker 1>It's a gave fiber, I mean banana fiber. You know,
<v Speaker 1>if you ever get a chance and you and you're
<v Speaker 1>in Chicago, go to the Field Museum and they got
<v Speaker 1>a whole fucking room of plant fibers, Like in glass
<v Speaker 1>cases with different plant families. Oh my god. And they
<v Speaker 1>got the Well Witchy a diorama in there too, like
<v Speaker 1>a diorama for well Witchy. You know that that weirdest.
<v Speaker 2>Chicago was way too close of a drive to me do.
<v Speaker 1>It. And I worry because it's just it's called like
<v Speaker 1>the Hall of Botany. I worry that that, and it's
<v Speaker 1>like in the corner of the museum. I worry they're
<v Speaker 1>gonna like get try to get rid of it someday
<v Speaker 1>because it's it's not enough of a draw or you
<v Speaker 1>never know. All it takes is one administrator or someone
<v Speaker 1>an administrative position to change.
<v Speaker 2>The term something's not important.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, they as much as I love animatronic dinosaurs, you know,
<v Speaker 1>maybe it's not worth shuttering the Hall of Botany for
<v Speaker 1>you know, but another one. Yeah, but it's not. It's
<v Speaker 1>so it's such a cool fucking exhibit, man, they've got
<v Speaker 1>I mean, it's really and they've got great models of
<v Speaker 1>plants in there too. It's it's really fucking cool.
<v Speaker 2>I gotta go with the that's so cool. I've been
<v Speaker 2>going now trying to find just a compendium of you know,
<v Speaker 2>as complete a list of all of the different fiber
<v Speaker 2>plants that were used by you know, as many different
<v Speaker 2>groups across North America as I can find. But unfortunately,
<v Speaker 2>because fibers are so delicate, a lot of them don't
<v Speaker 2>last the test of time. And because fibers and clothing
<v Speaker 2>have been considered like women's work for so much of
<v Speaker 2>human history for a long time, that's not even like
<v Speaker 2>a thing historians were paying attention to when they were
<v Speaker 2>trying to gather information from, you know, who is you know,
<v Speaker 2>the people who are left of all of the different
<v Speaker 2>indigenous tribes and bands across the Americas. And so it's
<v Speaker 2>hard to find that information. I mean, it's even hard
<v Speaker 2>to find that information for like Western Europe.
<v Speaker 1>It's such fascinating stuff. Yeah, I was looking up because
<v Speaker 1>I was curious. I bought some like bracelet at a
<v Speaker 1>market for like two bucks in the in the Amazon
<v Speaker 1>and Ecuador, and I was gonna, I just I don't know.
<v Speaker 1>It was like two bucks, and it was it was
<v Speaker 1>all native plants. It was like the the bactress, the
<v Speaker 1>native palm was the fiber. And then there's legume seeds
<v Speaker 1>in there. One of that, you know, some of the
<v Speaker 1>legumes produced those red seeds. They look like coral beans.
<v Speaker 1>They're really toxic. Yeah, but they've they were using those as.
<v Speaker 2>They made sick jewelry.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, And I was like, this is fucking beautiful. I
<v Speaker 1>don't even really wear it. Where's any jewelry? Oh, but
<v Speaker 1>this is just the cool bracelet. I'm just gonna get
<v Speaker 1>it just to hang. And and then that got me
<v Speaker 1>into thinking about, like, man, how do they make these
<v Speaker 1>fibers because this is not this is like in a remotere.
<v Speaker 1>This is not They're not ordering shit out of a
<v Speaker 1>shipping container from China to make this stuff. This is
<v Speaker 1>locally produced. And so I was looking up like the
<v Speaker 1>twining basically spinning individual fibers together and then trying to
<v Speaker 1>get them. It's a you know, it's a process. You
<v Speaker 1>spin the fibers with your hands individually clockwise, then you
<v Speaker 1>wrap them around each other counterclockwise and let go and
<v Speaker 1>they anyway. But it was fascting stuff. But I wanted
<v Speaker 1>to ask you though, like with the wood nettles, how
<v Speaker 1>do you how do you put it together? Like how
<v Speaker 1>are you? How are you? How's it going?
<v Speaker 2>Oh my gosh, well I've been at it for a
<v Speaker 2>couple of weeks now, everyone except for people who specifically
<v Speaker 2>work in fibercraft has been confused. In my Instagram stories,
<v Speaker 2>one person's like, are you making paper question mark? Are
<v Speaker 2>you getting fiber to eat? Question Mark? And so what
<v Speaker 2>I what I've been doing is gathering chunky wood netal
<v Speaker 2>stems as they are sinessing after they've already dropped their seeds.
<v Speaker 2>I'll go out with one gloved hand, one not gloved hand.
<v Speaker 2>I'll cut them off at the base so I don't
<v Speaker 2>disrupt their root system. Use my gloved hand to kind of,
<v Speaker 2>you know, go up the stem to break all of
<v Speaker 2>the try cones, because I'm not trying to be more
<v Speaker 2>in pain than I already am from the handful of
<v Speaker 2>splinters that I get from this process. And in my opinion,
<v Speaker 2>I think wood metal stings hurt way worse than stinging netalstad.
<v Speaker 1>To which they are related. Yeah. Same family, yes.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, same family. We love all of our sweet stinging
<v Speaker 2>tamat friends, and I have been processing them green. So
<v Speaker 2>I will take them home. I will hit them with
<v Speaker 2>a huge mallet going up the stem to split them,
<v Speaker 2>peel the bark off of them, and the bark will
<v Speaker 2>contain all of those fibers. I will hang up the
<v Speaker 2>bark strips to dry for at least twenty four hours.
<v Speaker 2>Then I will there's a process called scutching where you
<v Speaker 2>use a butter knife. Back in the day with flax,
<v Speaker 2>they used to use these sick, giant wooden swords and
<v Speaker 2>run it down the bark fibers to dislodge all of
<v Speaker 2>the kind of dried pecked in all of the barkie bits,
<v Speaker 2>to just expose these really beautiful silky fibers. And then
<v Speaker 2>I'll brush them a couple of times, separate the long
<v Speaker 2>fibers from the short fibers. And then I'm also learning
<v Speaker 2>how to spin on a spindle, a drop spindle, so
<v Speaker 2>I can hopefully make a good amount of thread and
<v Speaker 2>then weave it into a small garment, hopefully before the
<v Speaker 2>winter is over.
<v Speaker 1>And how did you it's how did you learn this?
<v Speaker 2>Good? Well, I had a grammy that used to spin
<v Speaker 2>my uh put. My paternal grandmother used to spend a
<v Speaker 2>little bit when I was little, and I remember being
<v Speaker 2>entranced by that work. And when I got older, when
<v Speaker 2>I was in like Scouts, and when I was a
<v Speaker 2>camp counselor, I knew about using nettles for just making
<v Speaker 2>rough cordage nothing you'd want to wear against your body,
<v Speaker 2>but you know, still taking advantage of those fibers. So
<v Speaker 2>I have a little bit of knowledge going into it.
<v Speaker 2>But I have been pouring through fiber history books. I
<v Speaker 2>just read someone's dissertation on flax and metal usage in
<v Speaker 2>northern Europe and in Northern Africa. I have been watching
<v Speaker 2>a lot of very quiet YouTube video and then just
<v Speaker 2>going and getting my hands thirty and trying things and
<v Speaker 2>seeing what works and what doesn't. I've been taking notes of,
<v Speaker 2>you know, what processes seem to yield longer fibers versus
<v Speaker 2>shorter ones, softer fibers versus coarser ones, hoping that I
<v Speaker 2>can land on a solid process. So hopefully next season,
<v Speaker 2>as the nettles are starting to siness, I can gather
<v Speaker 2>even more, have a solid system put together, and oh no,
<v Speaker 2>maybeest or something. I just I want that physical, visceral
<v Speaker 2>reminder of how much time and energy goes into a garment,
<v Speaker 2>because regardless of whether I'm the one who's doing it
<v Speaker 2>or not, it's still happening. Yeah, there is a degree
<v Speaker 2>of new that is needed for processing fibers that machines
<v Speaker 2>cannot do yet fully. So garments are always going to
<v Speaker 2>be a very human, very hands on process. Whether that
<v Speaker 2>is someone working in you know, a union shop in
<v Speaker 2>southern California, or that's someone working in a sweatshop in Bangladesh.
<v Speaker 2>Like someone is responsible for the garment that you are
<v Speaker 2>wearing right now, and I just want to be able
<v Speaker 2>to step into those shoes and to hopefully be responsible
<v Speaker 2>for a couple more of the garments that I own.
<v Speaker 2>I've always loved sewing, but fast and sense is real weird.
<v Speaker 2>So I've grown up making a lot of my clothes
<v Speaker 2>since I was a kid, and I this just feels
<v Speaker 2>like the next logical step for a very strange and
<v Speaker 2>illogical woman.
<v Speaker 1>What a way, What a way to bond with the
<v Speaker 1>plant though too. I mean, man, that's that's you know, making.
<v Speaker 2>Trying to notice nuances in this plant that I've known
<v Speaker 2>for decades now that I have never noticed. I mean,
<v Speaker 2>making having to be this hands on.
<v Speaker 1>Making fiber is a really essential tool too, you know,
<v Speaker 1>if like just making rope or anything like that. I've
<v Speaker 1>you know, I saw someone do that with a gave once, and.
<v Speaker 2>So agave fibers are so strong, agave and yet the
<v Speaker 2>fibers are so cool.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and I'm still kind of like, I'm still I
<v Speaker 1>don't understand. That's the thing I want to ask you.
<v Speaker 1>I guess I too. Is you got like La Portia Cana?
<v Speaker 1>That is? How tall? Is it? Get? Like three four feet?
<v Speaker 1>Five feet?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, the tallest ones I've been finding have been maxing out.
<v Speaker 2>I've found a couple that are like five feet tall,
<v Speaker 2>but they usually max out between three and four And.
<v Speaker 1>So you've you've you got to get them at the
<v Speaker 1>right time of year when it's still soft, right, and
<v Speaker 1>then how do you get the fibers together to make
<v Speaker 1>a longer fiber from if it's only in three to
<v Speaker 1>five foot sections.
<v Speaker 2>So that is where spinning it comes into play, because
<v Speaker 2>cotton is, you know, one of the most widely used
<v Speaker 2>fibers on the planet, and cotton it's what is it?
<v Speaker 2>It's ply length like length of each fiber is usually
<v Speaker 2>only a couple of inches, and so it's the speed
<v Speaker 2>at which you are spinning and joining those fibers together.
<v Speaker 2>You're essentially trying to space out a couple fibers to
<v Speaker 2>twist up at a time, and you don't want them
<v Speaker 2>to be perfectly lined up with each other. You want
<v Speaker 2>them to be getting kind of tangled and for you
<v Speaker 2>to be making this continual pull of like fibers that are,
<v Speaker 2>you know, ones a little bit above this one, this
<v Speaker 2>one's a little bit below that one. To try to
<v Speaker 2>get an even thread with all of them, you're essentially
<v Speaker 2>spinning them to get them to tangle up with one another. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>it's so neat and like. The spinning wheel is also
<v Speaker 2>just like a cool and crazy invention because plant fibers
<v Speaker 2>don't want to tangle up with each other as much
<v Speaker 2>as wool. Wool has tiny little microscopic like there they
<v Speaker 2>look like little zigzags when you zoom in on them,
<v Speaker 2>whereas plant fibers are relatively smooth and straight, so you
<v Speaker 2>need a really fast spin speed to make a good, strong,
<v Speaker 2>consistent fiber.
<v Speaker 1>I see what I see it is now Okay, I
<v Speaker 1>looked up spinning wheel for fibers.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and now I got you.
<v Speaker 1>Now I get Fuck that's cool, man. I tried to
<v Speaker 1>take there's feral hemp all over like Western Iowa, Nebraska,
<v Speaker 1>and I tried to take some. I just like wadded
<v Speaker 1>it up into a ball. It's like still on the
<v Speaker 1>floor of my truck somewhere. But I was so curious.
<v Speaker 2>Probably wet that and still like roll it between your
<v Speaker 2>hands a couple of times to break up.
<v Speaker 1>Oh, get away, okay, get fibers out of them, get
<v Speaker 1>it wet to make it more pliable. Yeah, I don't know,
<v Speaker 1>fucking hemp isn't more common because it's I bought a
<v Speaker 1>hemp shirt was at like a Goodwill in Vancouver and
<v Speaker 1>it was the most comfortable thing. It breathed so well.
<v Speaker 1>It was way more comfortable than cotton. But you can't
<v Speaker 1>find hemp anywhere. It's like sixty bucks for a T shirt.
<v Speaker 1>It's crazy.
<v Speaker 2>Oh god, I know. And it's wild because it is
<v Speaker 2>a that is a pretty like set it and forget it.
<v Speaker 2>As far as non native plants.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, it's feral, man, It's everywhere. Over in the
<v Speaker 1>over Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa. We were on the border of
<v Speaker 1>we were going to this like Bison Preserve on the
<v Speaker 1>Less Hills in a broken kettle. That was an amb
<v Speaker 1>of it. In western Iowa right on the South Dakota
<v Speaker 1>border on the river, got a fucking beautiful area, man.
<v Speaker 1>And yeah, there was just like feral hemp everywhere. And
<v Speaker 1>I was like, why is this not more common? Why
<v Speaker 1>are there like hemp fiber farms. Wish there were.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, And I'm starting to see as I'm getting more
<v Speaker 4>into fibercraft, a lot of these local regional fiber sheds
<v Speaker 4>that are encouraging people to find out what fiber plants
<v Speaker 4>both are native and feral in their areas and encouraging
<v Speaker 4>them to work with them more.
<v Speaker 2>You know, it's fewer things are better, you know, foot
<v Speaker 2>carbon footprint wise, as much as you know the carbon
<v Speaker 2>footprint system is not perfect. Then sourcing you know, food
<v Speaker 2>or clothing from the place that you're living in.
<v Speaker 1>But also just learning about I mean, like learning to
<v Speaker 1>connect with the place that you're living in too. Like, Yo,
<v Speaker 1>this came from the land around my house, like, and
<v Speaker 1>I know the species I was there. It's a it's
<v Speaker 1>got to feel fulfilling as hell. What are you gonna
<v Speaker 1>do a video on like spinning yet? Yeah, that would
<v Speaker 1>be really cool.
<v Speaker 2>I'm working. I'm I'm gonna do, like I'm accounting to
<v Speaker 2>do a full YouTube video, which is very hard, very
<v Speaker 2>hard for me. Every time I see how quickly you
<v Speaker 2>are crank about videos, I'm just like that is insane.
<v Speaker 2>But last time I did a horizontal YouTube video, it
<v Speaker 2>was only five minutes long. And it took me two
<v Speaker 2>weeks to make le to edit.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I just edited on my phone. I use an
<v Speaker 1>app called inshot. That's like, yeah, I paid twenty bucks
<v Speaker 1>once and I'm feeling in a lifetime. It's fucking great.
<v Speaker 1>It's so easy. But I hate editing.
<v Speaker 2>Man.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I've still got videos from Chile and Florida and
<v Speaker 1>all this shit to edit. I'm just like at I
<v Speaker 1>can't sit still. I got too much going on. But
<v Speaker 1>the fiber I had this. I had this guy. The
<v Speaker 1>last podcast I did was with this guy, Cyrus Harp,
<v Speaker 1>who's like a paleo forager. And you know, I'm not
<v Speaker 1>into a lot of like I'm not into like forging
<v Speaker 1>a lot. I'm always interested in at the botany, but
<v Speaker 1>for me, I just you know, it's not not necessarily
<v Speaker 1>my thing. But this guy's stuff is all through the
<v Speaker 1>context of like Native American ethnobotany and recreating how things
<v Speaker 1>were made and which is fucking fascinating. And he was
<v Speaker 1>so yeah, and he was using he was talking about
<v Speaker 1>using Yuka fibers and all these other fibers for making
<v Speaker 1>his own for like making a bow or just making rope.
<v Speaker 1>It was really fascinating stuff. Yeah, so it's kind of cool.
<v Speaker 1>I was, you know, just talking about this last week,
<v Speaker 1>but I think that, man, it is really interesting. It is.
<v Speaker 1>It is super interesting to be able to see a
<v Speaker 1>plant and know what it can be used for. It's
<v Speaker 1>not just like oh can I eat it? Or is
<v Speaker 1>it medicinal? But like, yo, you can make stuff out
<v Speaker 1>of this, Like you can make clothing out of this.
<v Speaker 1>This is a great you know again, it's just that
<v Speaker 1>more that connecting with the living world around you. It's
<v Speaker 1>fucking amazing, man.
<v Speaker 2>And all of the different ways that you can do it.
<v Speaker 2>I just think, you know, the more connected you get
<v Speaker 2>to feel. Also is Cyrus's page Paleo Foraging, because that
<v Speaker 2>is one of the pages that I've been looking at
<v Speaker 2>for like fibercraft inspiration.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>The work that he's doing is so cool.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Yeah, he's really cool guy, like really like humble,
<v Speaker 1>you know, down to earth and just super knowledgeable, but
<v Speaker 1>also like being like, yo, this isn't I didn't just
<v Speaker 1>come up with this, Like other people were doing this
<v Speaker 1>for thousands of year doing this work, and like here's
<v Speaker 1>respect to them. Yeah, like here's some respect to them,
<v Speaker 1>to the ogs, you know, and and uh, it's fascinating because.
<v Speaker 2>I mean that's another reason why I like working with
<v Speaker 2>the wood metals is cool. But also depressing, is I mean,
<v Speaker 2>so much of the culture of the Eastern woodlands was
<v Speaker 2>just absolutely decimated during colonialism. Like it's you know, it's
<v Speaker 2>a joke, but it's not a joke that it's like
<v Speaker 2>it took them until they reached the Mississippi River to
<v Speaker 2>be like, oh they're people. Yeah, yeah, danger that's on us.
<v Speaker 1>And it happened. It happened before. I mean so much
<v Speaker 1>earlier in the history of this country than like the
<v Speaker 1>tribes out west, you know, because they landed on the east,
<v Speaker 1>the Europeans land on the east first, and just got
<v Speaker 1>right to work.
<v Speaker 2>You know, there's not right to work, and so there's
<v Speaker 2>so there are so many gaps in the ethno botanical
<v Speaker 2>history and so many patches of the eastern side of
<v Speaker 2>the country. And so it's one of those things where
<v Speaker 2>it's like, well, we know that wood metals were being
<v Speaker 2>used for fiber and for cordage, but we don't really
<v Speaker 2>have a lot of great examples, like extant examples to
<v Speaker 2>be able to point to that could also give you
<v Speaker 2>a lot of visual information about how it was spun
<v Speaker 2>if it was being spun with other fibers, like what
<v Speaker 2>kind of applied twists? So are we talking about with
<v Speaker 2>these fibers. It's it's pretty heartbreaking, and part of me
<v Speaker 2>is always like so happy and a little envious that
<v Speaker 2>the further out west you go, the more of that
<v Speaker 2>information has managed to stay intact. Of course, in a
<v Speaker 2>good and perfect and just world, all of that information
<v Speaker 2>for everybody you could still right intact.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I mean the information I mean about the ethyl
<v Speaker 1>botanical uses, but also just how to manage the land man, like, yes,
<v Speaker 1>like the fire suppression. That was the dumbest shit that
<v Speaker 1>these the arrival settlers did, like just suppressing fire, like
<v Speaker 1>you know, you've got sixty inches of rain a year
<v Speaker 1>man in most the East coast, like stuff grows so
<v Speaker 1>fast and you're just so fast. Yeah, and then you
<v Speaker 1>add an invasive species too, and you get the sheep,
<v Speaker 1>you get what I call the shitty woods. It's just
<v Speaker 1>smothered woods. And then there's ticks everywhere because you're everywhere,
<v Speaker 1>you're not burning, and the predators are all gone, and
<v Speaker 1>there's deer. There's too many deer, and so there's yeah,
<v Speaker 1>there's ticks there ticks a butt. I mean, that's why
<v Speaker 1>you know there's all these like forced to be vegan
<v Speaker 1>restaurants I read about in northeastern Massachusetts, like in Cape
<v Speaker 1>Cox because everybody has alpha goal.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, that's where my family, That's where my family
<v Speaker 2>is from, and Yew and Martha's Vineyard. Now you will
<v Speaker 2>go to restaurants, we'll see, you know, the little like
<v Speaker 2>V with a leaf for vegetarian or vegan, but you'll
<v Speaker 2>also see a little tick logo for alpha gol because
<v Speaker 2>so wide spread. Yeah, I mean, just so people will
<v Speaker 2>know because not. I mean, there are a lot of
<v Speaker 2>like sneaky things that alpha gl will also make you
<v Speaker 2>have a reaction to some seaweed proteins and polysaccharides.
<v Speaker 7>Hell, and so it's it's so crazy, and it's like
<v Speaker 7>the answer, the answer is right there, and it is
<v Speaker 7>fire based.
<v Speaker 2>Hands on land Man.
<v Speaker 1>Does anybody talk about because I've like, that's actually part
<v Speaker 1>of the reason I've avoided the northeast except for the cities.
<v Speaker 1>Does anybody talk about that up there? Like, yo, maybe
<v Speaker 1>we need to start burning again like that.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, it's definitely a conversation that happens within like
<v Speaker 2>naturalist circles. But you know, one of the things that
<v Speaker 2>is sometimes a blessing and sometimes a curse about states
<v Speaker 2>like Massachusetts is the bureaucracy is so hard to wade
<v Speaker 2>through to be able to get the permission to do
<v Speaker 2>things like that on public land. Yeah, on like mass
<v Speaker 2>autobonn Land, like these are things that my friends who
<v Speaker 2>work at like Felix neck on Martha's Vineyard, which is
<v Speaker 2>a beautiful piece of land. Like they know that fire
<v Speaker 2>suppression is the reason why a lot of these issues
<v Speaker 2>are happening, but it's just the hoops that you'd have
<v Speaker 2>to go through in order to be able to do
<v Speaker 2>so are so daunting.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. God, they could change everything there in a decade
<v Speaker 1>if they just started burning, just doing learning to do
<v Speaker 1>control burns. And it was part of the popular culture.
<v Speaker 1>Like you don't even care about plants, you don't care
<v Speaker 1>about the wood, but you just know we got to burn.
<v Speaker 1>It's just burned. If you have to burn or else
<v Speaker 1>the ticks get out of control and the invasions get
<v Speaker 1>out of control, and you can't walk through the woods,
<v Speaker 1>you know, without getting stuck on something or without getting
<v Speaker 1>a tick on you. The tick situation there is insane, man,
<v Speaker 1>I mean it is.
<v Speaker 2>Oh, it's awful, and it's only it's only getting worse.
<v Speaker 2>I I was driving to go see my mom. Got there.
<v Speaker 2>It's a long drive from here, and you have to
<v Speaker 2>you know, it's like planes, trains and automobiles. You take
<v Speaker 2>a really long drive and then you have to take
<v Speaker 2>a faery and then it's you get there. I'm so
<v Speaker 2>happy to be there geting my mama. Hug. Look down,
<v Speaker 2>there's already a tick on my leg. I just got here.
<v Speaker 1>You don't even have to go into the woods. There everywhere,
<v Speaker 1>you don't even have to go into the woods. It's
<v Speaker 1>like it's like that in parts of Chicago.
<v Speaker 2>Uh.
<v Speaker 1>There was this forest reserve on Ogden Avenue I used
<v Speaker 1>to go to, and it's the same thing. It's it's
<v Speaker 1>like understory is just invasive honeysuckle and buckthorn, and they
<v Speaker 1>don't burn. And I think they started masticating, like they'll
<v Speaker 1>go chew up the understory, but you know, and then
<v Speaker 1>it's just hardwood forest. But it's like God that they
<v Speaker 1>could just burn, you know. I remember going off. I
<v Speaker 1>stepped off the trail to piss once and just came
<v Speaker 1>out with like six ticks on me, and I'm like,
<v Speaker 1>what the fuck, Like, what the are you fucking kidding me?
<v Speaker 1>Like where are they like carabeaning out of the trees,
<v Speaker 1>Like where are they?
<v Speaker 2>You know, are they waiting? Are they just sitting there
<v Speaker 2>with a little bib tied on?
<v Speaker 1>And they're right, yeah, but there's deer everywhere. It's over deer,
<v Speaker 1>and they haven't.
<v Speaker 2>It on the vineyard. I mean, once again, blessing and
<v Speaker 2>a curse was being overwhelmingly blue. And it's a thing
<v Speaker 2>that I'm like, one of the things that I've grown
<v Speaker 2>to be appreciative of, even as a vegan here in
<v Speaker 2>Ohio is that there is a much bigger hunting culture
<v Speaker 2>here than there is on say, Cape Cod and the
<v Speaker 2>islands in Massachusetts, and all of the predator species are gone.
<v Speaker 2>So the deer gpulation is insane. I know because I
<v Speaker 2>have to hear about it every time they eat my
<v Speaker 2>mom's yuka shoots before they blew.
<v Speaker 1>Or they wreck a car. It's like that here in
<v Speaker 1>parts of Suextas. I mean, I hit I hit a deer.
<v Speaker 1>It was in a rental car locally, it was two
<v Speaker 1>years ago, and it like just ran out in front
<v Speaker 1>of me, like I didn't like looks like it.
<v Speaker 2>Was I mess up your car.
<v Speaker 1>They den It was like it was like a kama
<v Speaker 1>kazi just for the hood. It was like, buddy, what
<v Speaker 1>are you doing? You know, come on, man, So you
<v Speaker 1>got to pick up this this phenomenon, This is a
<v Speaker 1>real thing, you know. But yeah, I don't know.
<v Speaker 2>Me.
<v Speaker 1>I wonder about that with the Northeast, like are they
<v Speaker 1>ever going to start burning up there? Is it just
<v Speaker 1>going to become part of the culture where like, you
<v Speaker 1>have to burn. It's just what you have to do
<v Speaker 1>if you live here.
<v Speaker 2>It's just what you have to do unless you want
<v Speaker 2>everybody to be kicking it with a red meat plus
<v Speaker 2>other things allergy.
<v Speaker 1>Right, yeah, and so you know the burning, that's what
<v Speaker 1>I'm curious about too. It's like, yeah, I mean, like
<v Speaker 1>I was saying, the burning practices of Native people on
<v Speaker 1>the East Coast, like what were they Like, God, if
<v Speaker 1>you could just go back to the time and talk
<v Speaker 1>to them about like.
<v Speaker 2>Only because you know, it can't be the exact same
<v Speaker 2>as some of the still extant practices that we see
<v Speaker 2>in the Pacific Northwest, but I would love for there
<v Speaker 2>to be able to be some sort of facilitated information exchange.
<v Speaker 2>Like there are some really amazing Indigenous live groups out
<v Speaker 2>in Oregon, like the wagon Burners best name ever.
<v Speaker 1>That's pretty good.
<v Speaker 2>And to be able to have them go and work
<v Speaker 2>with like other Indigenous communities, Like it would be so
<v Speaker 2>cool to have them be able to fly out and
<v Speaker 2>meet with like the Aquinna and the tap equticc Wampanog
<v Speaker 2>communities on the Vineyard on the island. Yeah, to just
<v Speaker 2>be like, here's what we're doing out here. Maybe let's
<v Speaker 2>have a conversation about what that could look like in
<v Speaker 2>these spaces too, if those communities, if those communities wanted that,
<v Speaker 2>I just I think that would be amazing. And it's overdue.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, it's long over too, man. I mean it's
<v Speaker 1>the thing. At some point, it's like what are you
<v Speaker 1>gonna do? You just gonna let like this red meat,
<v Speaker 1>this red meat analogy. I mean, it's it's better for
<v Speaker 1>the planet, honestly, if everyone's you know, vegan or not
<v Speaker 1>eating as.
<v Speaker 2>Much continuing to mow down. Yeah, swath, But.
<v Speaker 1>I think people I think people should have a choice
<v Speaker 1>about it. But Alpha Gal doesn't give you a choice.
<v Speaker 1>It just says, guess what you're vegan now or you're
<v Speaker 1>gonna be pissing out your ass, you know, and exactly
<v Speaker 1>extreme dietary, you know, extreme gastro intestinal pain. I think
<v Speaker 1>it's gonna have to crack at some point, man. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>they're gonna have to take it up.
<v Speaker 2>But you know, the burning important is gonna get alpha
<v Speaker 2>gal and then suddenly the flood pates are gonna be
<v Speaker 2>open for conversations. Yeah, what the heck are any we
<v Speaker 2>can do about that?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, the burn intervals, i know, out west were a
<v Speaker 1>lot longer, like a lot more The fires were a
<v Speaker 1>lot more spaced out than in the East, if that
<v Speaker 1>makes sense though, because it's so there's so much more
<v Speaker 1>rain in the east, I mean in the east.
<v Speaker 2>So the the Yeah, the growth in the like under
<v Speaker 2>bits of the canopy, it happens so fast. Yeah, you
<v Speaker 2>see that in people who are like manually going and
<v Speaker 2>removing glossy buckthorn uh non native honeysuckle bushes. It's like
<v Speaker 2>it's crazy work because you will be doing it again
<v Speaker 2>in like a year.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, it comes back so quick. Yeah, it's it's
<v Speaker 1>you know, and you can see it in a lot
<v Speaker 1>of the plants too, Like a lot of plants, like
<v Speaker 1>the seeds won't germinate without smoke. They won't Like, we
<v Speaker 1>know these things evolved with fire.
<v Speaker 2>We know that it's and I think that there are
<v Speaker 2>even some native species that are kept in better control
<v Speaker 2>with fire. Like The Northeast also has crazy poison ivy.
<v Speaker 2>Poison ivy is on, Like fuck every thing.
<v Speaker 1>You're reminding me of all the reasons I don't go
<v Speaker 1>out there. Oh God, you're welcome.
<v Speaker 2>I know. If you ever need a reason to not visit,
<v Speaker 2>uh Martha's vineyard, it's the poison ivy and the deer
<v Speaker 2>ticks literally everywhere.
<v Speaker 1>I need to get up there. At some point, I
<v Speaker 1>get people like getting mad at me, like, man, why
<v Speaker 1>don't you just why do you avoid the Northeast? When'd
<v Speaker 1>you come up here?
<v Speaker 2>You know? Like, well, if you ever want to go
<v Speaker 2>to the vineyard and need a place to crash and
<v Speaker 2>let me know.
<v Speaker 1>I'll take you up.
<v Speaker 7>I will just like.
<v Speaker 2>Every article of clothing and what is it like parma
<v Speaker 2>thren before leaving the house.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I guess that's what you'd have to do. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I want Man, we have to check how Maine the
<v Speaker 1>geology and Maine looks really, the.
<v Speaker 2>Geology in Maine is amazing but also the ticks are insane.
<v Speaker 2>That's where some of jests family, my fiance's family is,
<v Speaker 2>and it's oh, I mean the nature is stunning. The
<v Speaker 2>geology is amazing. The confluence of the two. Getting to
<v Speaker 2>see like what seaweed species correspond to, like what sort
<v Speaker 2>of rocky outcroppings you're seeing on the coast. That's another
<v Speaker 2>thing that's made me go, I need to know more.
<v Speaker 1>I want to ask you about I wanted to ask
<v Speaker 1>you about seaweed. But yeah, we're already two hours. But yeah, man,
<v Speaker 1>I mean next, Oh.
<v Speaker 2>No, we have to talk a guy.
<v Speaker 1>Well, well we could talk a little bit about seaweed
<v Speaker 1>because I know I saw you posting stuff from the
<v Speaker 1>Pacific and then also from the let's get into it.
<v Speaker 1>What's up with the sea?
<v Speaker 2>Do it? Let's do it. I have had a bit
<v Speaker 2>of an unhealthy obsession with seaweed ever since I was
<v Speaker 2>a kid. Like I said, my mom's family is the
<v Speaker 2>like Cape Cod area. They've been there, oh my god,
<v Speaker 2>for like the last four hundred years, which is like
<v Speaker 2>as a family of color, kind of like an insane
<v Speaker 2>thing to say that is also fraught with a lot
<v Speaker 2>of pride and a lot of sadness, and so I
<v Speaker 2>just I, you know, it's normal in our family to
<v Speaker 2>get like thrown into the ocean at age one or
<v Speaker 2>two and being like, well, you'll learn to swim, and
<v Speaker 2>just spending a ton of time socializing with family at
<v Speaker 2>the beach in the ocean. You know. I'd spend my
<v Speaker 2>summers out there, and we'd just be on the coast,
<v Speaker 2>you know, hanging out eating peebee and jays and drinking
<v Speaker 2>polar seltzers with our cousins most days of most days
<v Speaker 2>of the week. And when you're near the ocean that much,
<v Speaker 2>you start noticing the things that live there, like the seaweed. Granted,
<v Speaker 2>as a kid, I was like, well, there's a seaweed
<v Speaker 2>that you can eat in like the seaweed salad that
<v Speaker 2>they sell at the fish market. And then there's this
<v Speaker 2>seaweed that I throw at my sister because it's funny.
<v Speaker 2>And I was not connecting those two things until I
<v Speaker 2>got to be an adult and I started looking into
<v Speaker 2>just seaweed as a regenerative food source, as a zero
<v Speaker 2>input food source, started reading up on how popular it
<v Speaker 2>used to be on both sides of the Atlantic. We
<v Speaker 2>hear so much about you know, Pacific seaweed culture. Thankfully,
<v Speaker 2>a lot of it is still you know, intact on
<v Speaker 2>the uh you know, in Asia and China and Japan
<v Speaker 2>and Korea and and even like moving southward into like Indonesia,
<v Speaker 2>we know that they have a robust culture around eating
<v Speaker 2>seaweed and the aquaculture of it. And for me growing up,
<v Speaker 2>I was like, oh, that's crazy, because we have seaweed too,
<v Speaker 2>and why didn't we develop some sort of like sushi
<v Speaker 2>adjacent thing in the Atlantic. And what I grew up
<v Speaker 2>to figure out was that very much did happen with
<v Speaker 2>Atlantic lava, which is in the same genus but different species,
<v Speaker 2>the same genus Porphyra as nori in the Pacific was
<v Speaker 2>a really popular food stuff, both for indigenous groups on
<v Speaker 2>our side of the ocean and especially in Wales, where
<v Speaker 2>lava bread, which is made out of that seaweed, is still,
<v Speaker 2>you know, historically significant part of their food systems. And
<v Speaker 2>I was like, oh, so, why don't we talk about it?
<v Speaker 2>And for some reason, eating seaweed after the Victorian era
<v Speaker 2>kind of just fell out of fashion. It had a
<v Speaker 2>really big boom because they were into jiggly desserts in
<v Speaker 2>Europe in the Victorian era, and they were like, how
<v Speaker 2>are we gonna set this either with gelatin, which was
<v Speaker 2>expensive at the time, with swim bladders of fish, or
<v Speaker 2>with chandras crispus, irish moss seaweed, which is where we
<v Speaker 2>still source karraghinan for a ton of different products all over.
<v Speaker 2>And so for a second it got really popular. It
<v Speaker 2>was a way for like women to make money because
<v Speaker 2>they could just like hang out in beachcomb and I
<v Speaker 2>guess their husbands didn't hate that, and then they'd get
<v Speaker 2>to sell it to confectioners to make cool things with.
<v Speaker 2>And then it just kind of faded away. And that
<v Speaker 2>makes me sad because I think seaweed is so cool
<v Speaker 2>and it's not being a plant but being very plant
<v Speaker 2>adjacent and a lot of the ways that it behaves,
<v Speaker 2>and there's so many different.
<v Speaker 1>Kinds and it's delicious when you spice them and you
<v Speaker 1>put salt them.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, so good, So many different delicious kinds. There's like
<v Speaker 2>dolls and pepper dolls which end up tasting like bacony
<v Speaker 2>when you toast them or fry them. We have all,
<v Speaker 2>you know, a ton of species of kelps, which are
<v Speaker 2>fantastic for flavoring soup rops or even making a seaweed
<v Speaker 2>salad out of them. I like to pop them into
<v Speaker 2>the air fryer with a little sprits of oil and
<v Speaker 2>then they turn into little crunchy kelp chips. That's what
<v Speaker 2>they're so good. Oil.
<v Speaker 1>What do you use? Just olive oil or what?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah? Usually just olive oil, sometimes avocado, really whatever I
<v Speaker 2>have on hand.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, because that stuff is expensive. We just got an
<v Speaker 1>Asian food market down here, and it's like, I'll buy
<v Speaker 1>that stuff, but.
<v Speaker 2>It's still expensive to buy the imported stuff. One. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>if you're near an ocean, there's a lot of seaweed
<v Speaker 2>near you. Granted, you do also have to pay attention
<v Speaker 2>to things like your water safety levels, but people get
<v Speaker 2>really worried about that, and I'm like, well, I have
<v Speaker 2>one step ahead of you, and by me, I mean
<v Speaker 2>the fishing industry. They have to be keeping track of
<v Speaker 2>the health of these waters too, for the sake of
<v Speaker 2>their businesses. So at least when I'm foraging seaweeds, whether
<v Speaker 2>it's when I'm with my family in Massachusetts or chest
<v Speaker 2>family in Maine, it is really nice that you can
<v Speaker 2>just be like, well, are the fishermen and the shell
<v Speaker 2>fishers getting food out of the ocean here today. Yes, okay,
<v Speaker 2>then I feel more comfortable doing that.
<v Speaker 1>So you're mate, you're mostly looking for like fecal coliform
<v Speaker 1>bacteria that might be in the water for like red
<v Speaker 1>tide stuff, red tide. Yes, yeah, okay, yeah, you got.
<v Speaker 2>You gotta be very wary of both cases. And in
<v Speaker 2>Maine it's usually much kinder because the water is holder
<v Speaker 2>and there's just less industry and less sewage going directly
<v Speaker 2>out into the ocean. Whereas on Martha's Vineyard, I'm just
<v Speaker 2>giving you all the reasons to not visit one of
<v Speaker 2>my favorite places on Earth. Every time it rains too much,
<v Speaker 2>the sewing's overflow connects to wear the ocean.
<v Speaker 1>Oh they used to Yeah, they used to do that
<v Speaker 1>in Chicago Lake Michigan. The yeah, and then you get
<v Speaker 1>ship water.
<v Speaker 2>Yes exactly. And so that's ookie, spooky, bad and scary. No,
<v Speaker 2>but you said you should still go to Martha's Vineyard.
<v Speaker 2>It's a beautiful place. But there's no antips.
<v Speaker 1>Oh god, the tax, there's no uh, there's no seaweed
<v Speaker 1>that's innately toxic.
<v Speaker 2>Is there are those seaweeds that would be growing in
<v Speaker 2>nothing that's going to be toxic in a way that
<v Speaker 2>would hurt you badly. There's one type of help, acid
<v Speaker 2>help that when it's cell walls are broken, it does
<v Speaker 2>initiate a chemical reaction that creates a tiny bit of
<v Speaker 2>sulfuric acid, but nothing that's going to like cause long term,
<v Speaker 2>extremely painful damage. But most seweet species are edible. The
<v Speaker 2>ones that aren't edible are typically because they're just too
<v Speaker 2>calcium rich to be comfortable to eat. Like they're tough,
<v Speaker 2>they're gonna hurt your teeth.
<v Speaker 1>So what's the tissue made out of? Is it cellulose
<v Speaker 1>or is it?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it is. It is a lot of cellulose, just
<v Speaker 2>like what you will see in plants, but they build
<v Speaker 2>up in a lot of different ways. They tend to
<v Speaker 2>be a bit more protein heavy than your average you know,
<v Speaker 2>leaves and stems that you're seeing on land plants. They
<v Speaker 2>of course don't have roots in their place. They have
<v Speaker 2>hold fasts, which don't absorb anything. They just keep them
<v Speaker 2>anchored onto rocks. They're going to be absorbing their nutrition
<v Speaker 2>directly from the sun and the water around them, so
<v Speaker 2>they are still photosynthesizing just like plants are, even though
<v Speaker 2>they are. They are different, and I have to be
<v Speaker 2>that annoying person that's just like macro algae colon. They're different.
<v Speaker 2>Every time that I switched to talking about them after
<v Speaker 2>mostly talking about plants.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, phylogenetically they're cool though, too, because I know it
<v Speaker 1>like brown, brown algae, red algae and green algae are.
<v Speaker 2>Not green algae.
<v Speaker 1>They're not closely really, they're not closely related.
<v Speaker 2>No, they are not, which is mind blowing. How long
<v Speaker 2>ago I mean, you're talking about us, you know, the
<v Speaker 2>time of humans really being the blink of an eye
<v Speaker 2>and the history of this planet. Nothing reminds me of
<v Speaker 2>that more than how far back you have to go
<v Speaker 2>to find a common ancestor for red, green, and brown seap.
<v Speaker 1>What are you caryotic life of it? It's like one
<v Speaker 1>point six billion years or two bills or something.
<v Speaker 2>They yeah, somewhere in that range. And that's just that's
<v Speaker 2>so old, it's so you can't even fathom it. You
<v Speaker 2>can try, but I just I can't wrap my head
<v Speaker 2>around that much.
<v Speaker 1>Time life beginning to see. Yeah, and these are there,
<v Speaker 1>these are very old lineages. It's a that's one and they.
<v Speaker 2>Really found their niche and they and they're like, okay, cool,
<v Speaker 2>We're good.
<v Speaker 1>It's wild to think about because some of the plant
<v Speaker 1>you know, like fightapra irish potato blight and the same
<v Speaker 1>and then the sudden oak death. They're both fightastra. I know,
<v Speaker 1>those are a member of the brown algae clade. Like
<v Speaker 1>they're not fun yeah, which is fun.
<v Speaker 2>It's so wild. And I always love talking to the
<v Speaker 2>folks who study fung i. AM always jealous that you
<v Speaker 2>and Alan Rockfeller get to hang out so much because
<v Speaker 2>gotting to talk to them about the evolutionary history of
<v Speaker 2>fungi is so cool and crazy. Yeah, and they also
<v Speaker 2>probably get just as annoyed as I do about people
<v Speaker 2>classifying macro algae as plants, as people classifying fungy as.
<v Speaker 8>Play Oh my god, yeah that is like you crack
<v Speaker 8>open like old, old the taxonomy or biology books from
<v Speaker 8>like eighty years ago, you know, and you'll see it
<v Speaker 8>in there and you're like, man, what is this really?
<v Speaker 1>But they're they're both, I mean they're both like fungy
<v Speaker 1>and algae are both. Really they're both really old, and
<v Speaker 1>they're both really bizarre, at least when you're coming at
<v Speaker 1>them from a botany standpoint. You're like, these things what
<v Speaker 1>are they? How the fuck does it? You know, like,
<v Speaker 1>how does it evolve? I had someone on my friend Julia,
<v Speaker 1>we were talking about she studies protus and and this
<v Speaker 1>is like a year or two ago, and we were
<v Speaker 1>just talking about the whole the whole tree of life,
<v Speaker 1>and there's I've really got a myopic lens on it.
<v Speaker 1>You know. I'd like to think I know a lot
<v Speaker 1>more than I do, but I really it's just there's
<v Speaker 1>all these other things out there, and plants are a
<v Speaker 1>tiny part of it, and these other things that you
<v Speaker 1>don't really pay attention to, and algae are one of them.
<v Speaker 1>I mean that's I'm I kind of want to learn
<v Speaker 1>more about them because I think it would probably blow
<v Speaker 1>my damn mind.
<v Speaker 2>I have been saying for years that at some point,
<v Speaker 2>when Jeff and I are up in May, I want
<v Speaker 2>to just invite all of my nerdy plant friends up
<v Speaker 2>so I can give all of you guys the bug
<v Speaker 2>of also being nerdy about algae. Here.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, man, there, you know, there's there's some there's some
<v Speaker 1>weird stuff going on over there. I mean that alone,
<v Speaker 1>when you learn like this, this notorious plant pathogen is
<v Speaker 1>technically an algae and not a fungus. It makes you
<v Speaker 1>wonder what other things might be out there that, you know,
<v Speaker 1>what other weird forms might have this lineage might have
<v Speaker 1>evolved to. But yeah, I don't know.
<v Speaker 2>I know, And when I hear about that, I also
<v Speaker 2>I don't know. I also wonder. I'm like, oh, maybe
<v Speaker 2>in algae is the answer to some of the to
<v Speaker 2>some of the blights that we are dealing with. Like
<v Speaker 2>it just yeah, it just makes you start thinking about
<v Speaker 2>how much we still don't know because we've learned so
<v Speaker 2>much just in the last eighty years. Yeah, just said,
<v Speaker 2>And I hope that I am still around to see
<v Speaker 2>just like what we're doing in another fifty or sixty
<v Speaker 2>if I'm so lucky.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Yeah, I always think about that with you know,
<v Speaker 1>with especially with ecology, like there's all these different relationships
<v Speaker 1>that we don't know exists yet. Like I'll look at
<v Speaker 1>a plant and I'll try to find out what pollinates it,
<v Speaker 1>and there's nothing out there on it. There's no research
<v Speaker 1>you could look google scar there's nothing there's We think
<v Speaker 1>it might be this, but we don't really know. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>the connection between insects and plants and the deep ties
<v Speaker 1>going on there, there's still so much that's not known.
<v Speaker 1>And that's just even in the United States. You go
<v Speaker 1>to place is where they're more remote, like say Ecuador, or.
<v Speaker 2>Still so much to be found, so many species we
<v Speaker 2>haven't even seen or classified yet.
<v Speaker 1>And how about how they're like evolving together too, like
<v Speaker 1>the relationships. You know, that's what blows my mind. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>it really is. It's like a living machine and we
<v Speaker 1>have no clue how more than half the pieces in
<v Speaker 1>it work, like how they're operating, and then.
<v Speaker 2>We just throw a wrench into it without knowing how.
<v Speaker 1>They're we could get rid of it. How about a
<v Speaker 1>cattle pasture here? How about that? Or a data center
<v Speaker 1>or a housing subdivision. And yeah, it's it's frustrating, man.
<v Speaker 1>But I think, you know, I see I see stuff
<v Speaker 1>like the I see a lot of hope. I see
<v Speaker 1>a lot of positive reason for hope. Just in the
<v Speaker 1>terms of too. People are just.
<v Speaker 2>In terms of awareness, and people who maybe thirty forty
<v Speaker 2>fifty years ago would not have wanted to go into
<v Speaker 2>the sciences felt comfortable going into the sciences. Who are
<v Speaker 2>And as that space becomes more diverse, people are asking
<v Speaker 2>different questions and noticing different things. I mean, I think
<v Speaker 2>you know. Robin wal Kimmer of course, speaks to this
<v Speaker 2>in Braiding Sweet Grass, with her entering wanting to answer
<v Speaker 2>the question of why asks and golden rd so frequently
<v Speaker 2>grow near each other and look so beautiful, And you know,
<v Speaker 2>fifty years ago that is not a question that you
<v Speaker 2>could ask in a scientific concept. Yeah, And when she
<v Speaker 2>was first starting her education, that was something you couldn't
<v Speaker 2>ask in a scientific contry.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, she got shut down. Yeah. I remember reading that. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>and I was like, that's a fucking great question. Who
<v Speaker 1>would shut that down? What kind of stiff would shut
<v Speaker 1>that down?
<v Speaker 2>So I can't wait. I can't wait for so many
<v Speaker 2>more people to ask those questions and just blow the
<v Speaker 2>front door off of what we even think we know
<v Speaker 2>about ecology and how so many different living beings relate
<v Speaker 2>to each other.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. And I think the other thing too. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>there's a lot of you know, obviously a lot of
<v Speaker 1>social media and phones and cause a lot of problems,
<v Speaker 1>but man, like they can do a lot of good too.
<v Speaker 1>You've got the library in your pocket now, And I
<v Speaker 1>see I see this kind of dismantling of this like
<v Speaker 1>hierarchy of class in terms of the natural sciences, where
<v Speaker 1>it's like, oh, you're gonna take out all this money
<v Speaker 1>and go to school and blah blah, Like no, man,
<v Speaker 1>maybe you could just you know, go for a degree
<v Speaker 1>in electrical engineering and then just you know, on the side,
<v Speaker 1>you know, because it's a trade, then on the side
<v Speaker 1>just fucking dive into you know, being a community scientist
<v Speaker 1>studying bugs or just you know, getting into native plants
<v Speaker 1>around you whatever. Like it's so accessible to more people
<v Speaker 1>now and this kind of horn and toyty Ivory tower
<v Speaker 1>shit is kind of fading, like you cut, people are coming. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>people can really you don't need you don't need that,
<v Speaker 1>Like you don't need that. I mean I didn't. I
<v Speaker 1>don't even have a college degree. I dropped out of college.
<v Speaker 2>You know. Fuck I mean, but neither does Sam Sayer
<v Speaker 2>and you too are some of the like Key are
<v Speaker 2>some of the people that people turn to about native
<v Speaker 2>plants and native ecosystems. Now. It's just like it's it's
<v Speaker 2>so excited to see.
<v Speaker 1>It just takes asking questions. It just takes asking questions
<v Speaker 1>and going out there and like, you know, if you
<v Speaker 1>don't know something to me, like I don't know shit
<v Speaker 1>about that, I want to learn that's it's you know, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>it's it gives me. It does give me a lot
<v Speaker 1>of fucking hope.
<v Speaker 2>Man.
<v Speaker 1>There's so many people out there that are just like
<v Speaker 1>random schmucks like me who're just into this stuff now.
<v Speaker 1>And it's that's how you bring the living world back,
<v Speaker 1>you know, because it's the death cult is trying to
<v Speaker 1>get rid of it. Man. It's just yeah, they don't
<v Speaker 1>know any better. But but yeah, there's there's so much hope.
<v Speaker 1>So anyway, well, I guess we cut it short there.
<v Speaker 1>I love talking to you, Thank you so much for
<v Speaker 1>being down to do this.
<v Speaker 2>So I love talking to YouTube Julie. It's always so
<v Speaker 2>great when we get to catch out.
<v Speaker 1>And I love seeing your videos and it's yeah, it's
<v Speaker 1>you know, it's a it's a it's definitely a good medicine.
<v Speaker 1>It's a cheer upper.
<v Speaker 2>So hey, that's exactly how I feel about you right.
<v Speaker 1>Back after all right, man, well thanks a lot. I
<v Speaker 1>appreciate you. Lecxis Nicole, And are you gonna be uh
<v Speaker 1>are you going to be out like you're giving talks now? Right?
<v Speaker 1>I mean you I assume you travel all right, I've.
<v Speaker 2>Been I've been giving lectures I've been giving talks and
<v Speaker 2>plant walks. Things are about to slow down just because
<v Speaker 2>you know, in a lot of the country the plants
<v Speaker 2>are about to be dormant for the next couple of months,
<v Speaker 2>which I love. It means I get to put my
<v Speaker 2>feet up and like, I don't know, finish a book
<v Speaker 2>for once.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, you got a book in the works. That's great,
<v Speaker 1>that makes me well.
<v Speaker 2>And yeah, so my my book will will be out
<v Speaker 2>by this time next year, which is insane to think about.
<v Speaker 2>I just started seeing some of the uh the actual
<v Speaker 2>design of the pages for the first time, and it's
<v Speaker 2>crazy that it's real, because I think a lot of
<v Speaker 2>people were like, I don't know if she's ever going
<v Speaker 2>to finish that book. It's me. I'm people, do you
<v Speaker 2>get a title happy Snacking Don't Die. That's amazing, you know,
<v Speaker 2>people to snack happy. But I'm also like, hey, hey,
<v Speaker 2>I do need you to know that they're they're there's
<v Speaker 2>some fine print at the bottom.
<v Speaker 1>Of the fact. That's perfect. God, I love it. Man,
<v Speaker 1>are you but if people want to go see you
<v Speaker 1>talk anywhere? Is there do you have like a list
<v Speaker 1>of places you'll be speaking anywhere? Or a website or anything,
<v Speaker 1>or oh.
<v Speaker 2>My gosh, I am working on getting that up as
<v Speaker 2>like a pinned post on my Instagram page. And keep
<v Speaker 2>an eye out because I guess pre orders are probably
<v Speaker 2>going to be starting in like the next couple of
<v Speaker 2>months for the book, and I am planning on going
<v Speaker 2>on a book tour. So also, please do not hesitate
<v Speaker 2>to let me know where you think I should go,
<v Speaker 2>or I will just go to the places.
<v Speaker 1>That I know. God man, that's kind of makes me
<v Speaker 1>so happy. It makes me so happy. Now you're putting
<v Speaker 1>on a book and you're going to be on tour too,
<v Speaker 1>I want to come see you speak.
<v Speaker 2>Oh my gosh, that would be a dream. If you
<v Speaker 2>ever wanted to do an event together, I would love that.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, oh yeah, that'd be a great idea. Actually we
<v Speaker 1>could probably find out the dream.
<v Speaker 2>I can bring people my my weird little wild snacks, cake,
<v Speaker 2>warm turkies, so like a Laffel's made out of honey
<v Speaker 2>locust beans.
<v Speaker 1>Damn, or like a walk like a plant walk or something. Yeah, fu,
<v Speaker 1>that'd be fun. Oh great, Yeah, well let's yeah, let's
<v Speaker 1>try to make it happen next year. They'd be cool,
<v Speaker 1>that'd be really enjoyed. I love that so all right,
<v Speaker 1>well before.
<v Speaker 2>The book comes out in September, I am purposefully taking
<v Speaker 2>it easy. So book tour does not like end my life.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, man, especially if you being on the road.
<v Speaker 1>How long are you going to Are you gonna go
<v Speaker 1>out for a little bit at a time and then
<v Speaker 1>come back and then go out again. Are you going
<v Speaker 1>to try and do one long book?
<v Speaker 2>Probably going to do like one one long book tour,
<v Speaker 2>which yeah, very scary for me to think about. But
<v Speaker 2>I'm always tired until the second that I walk into
<v Speaker 2>the room and I get to start talking to people,
<v Speaker 2>and then my energy always just skyrockets because the plant commune,
<v Speaker 2>he's amazing. We're a fun bunch. Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>People get excited, man, God, I got I bet people
<v Speaker 1>go go bat shit on your at your events too,
<v Speaker 1>because people are there's so many people that be excited
<v Speaker 1>as how to see you and you're just so high
<v Speaker 1>energy anyway. But definitely make sure you take a day
<v Speaker 1>off every couple of days too, so you can you know,
<v Speaker 1>you don't get burnt out. I mean, I don't need
<v Speaker 1>to tell you that. You know that, but I learned
<v Speaker 1>that the hard way. I was going every day and
<v Speaker 1>I was like, fuck, I needed.
<v Speaker 2>I know you. I was gonna say, are so busy?
<v Speaker 2>You're here, there, and everywhere, and then you're in a
<v Speaker 2>different country and you're posting all of these videos. I
<v Speaker 2>frequently find myself wondering when you find time to relax.
<v Speaker 1>I need to just I don't think I do. I
<v Speaker 1>don't know. I hang out with my kid and then say,
<v Speaker 1>it's like hanging out with my kid and doing like
<v Speaker 1>fun stuff. That's like my relax time. You know.
<v Speaker 2>Oh well that counts as relaxing.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Yeah, but she's pretty high energy too, so I
<v Speaker 1>don't really fuck hard to keep up with her. But anyway, well,
<v Speaker 1>thanks so much. This is This has been great talking
<v Speaker 1>to you boys.
<v Speaker 2>Thanks for having me. It was so great getting to
<v Speaker 2>chat today. I was just like flowing by.
<v Speaker 1>So it's always yeah, man, I was. I looked and
<v Speaker 1>I was like, oh two hours ship. That was fast. Anyway,
<v Speaker 1>all right, Alexis, thanks again.
<v Speaker 2>Of course, talk to you soon.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, talk to you soon. Take care, bye bye