Catching up with Kyle Lybarger of The Native Habitat Project

Okay, good afternoon. Welcome to the Crying Pace of Body Doesn't Podcast.
I'm here with Kyle Eiberger from Native Habitat Project. We're here at the Calloween
Native Plant Conference. It's pissing rain outside, and so I figured out I
always since we can't go buy nice, it's a good time and just catch
up and see what you went up to. I know there's been a couple
of interesting developments we're talking about with you lately, and so, uh yeah,
I don't know how you're doing. Many good h We're man. I
was in a coma. I was in a coma last night because this is
like the first time we've been away. We got a little one at home.
He crows all not so I was. I slept hard. I didn't
get up till like nine this morning. Not pretty sure. I'm pretty sure
I went into a coma or something. But crappy dorm mattresses and very uncomfortable.
But uh yeah, it's a good time. This is the first Is
this your first time at cool Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, this
is uh. I came last year for a day, um but uh Saturday,
and so this year we got to go on field troops and stuff.
Who's a good Yeah, it's cool, man. I'd never this isn't my
first time in this region, which has been really cool, and I had
no I've never been at the Smoky Mountains, which I were just foggy mountains,
you know, but to see all that, you know, that Pacific
Northwest climate in the southeast. Yeah, I'm like, so I'm not very
well versed in the Southeast. Like I just started doing videos in Florida,
making a couple of videos in Louisiana. You know, I've got I need
to like spend more time on this side of the country, which I'm going
to do. So Smoky Mountains has more about diversity than any other any other
national park, so there's a ton of diversity there. Yeah, it was
super rich man. I mean we went on we only did like a mile
hike yesterday. I mean we were moving at bout in this pace. We
were just photographing everything that cool. PLI tanthera or the orchid. And then
you know the endemics are the really interesting ones. You know. It's but
like the disjunctions too, of the stuff that's like same genus or same clade.
You know, you gotta remember here and you got a member in Asia
somewhere, and that's it, you know, Yeah, That's that's how I
felt going out to h I was. I wanted to Idaho last summer.
Um, and it's like a lot of the same stuff. Delphiniums and and
uh meadow, I don't know, the meadow room meadow. Yeah, and
like I was able to like, man, it's crazy how many plants I
could recognize there that we have back home there. They look they're different,
but you know, yeah, and you wonder, like how long since these
two species had a common ancestor there? You know what the landscape look.
I love to think about stuff like that, you know. Yeah, And
it's weird, uh. I mean we're north Alabama. I'm like five and
a half hours from here. Um. We were up on a granite uh
like outcropping yesterday and it had Curtis's milkwort, which is we got on our
sandstone barons back Holm and all the hypericums and uh blueberries. Is weird how
similar uh it was to you know, the sandstone bearons where I'm at.
But really cool because the southeast is for me, I'm so ignorant about the
southeas. This is like a climatic mino culture where I just think it is
like hot and sweaty and balmy. And then like where we were yesterday with
like twenty five feet elevation, it's like Pacific Northwest climate. It's chili.
You can wear a hoodie and yeah we were we were at like four thousand
feet elevation yesterday, christ and yeah, I had to put my raincoat on.
It was chili. Back home it's like a hundred. But um,
the roadside's up here, that's uh, that's what's so different than home.
Like you can ride like if I left here and rode a mile, I'd
see like probably thirty different roadside little areas that are covered in different wildfliers.
And back home, every bit of that is mode and like do you have
to really really look for it? But up here, I guess it's because
the all the mountains, they're not able to get in there mow everything.
They probably I'm sure they spray and stuff. Um, it's a you can
just drive around and sea cool stuff. So you can notice smart diversity just
right off the road. Yeah, Like, yeah, I think it's mostly
because it's not can't get there was a lot of I saw some like,
was it not we j having He's not we M some invasives but a lot
of good stuff. Yeah, lilium superb um just going out. I saw
a bunch of that too, That was cool. I've never seen the kudzoo.
I mean, I know about kudzu, but I've never actually seen it.
It's a wild Yeah, it's insane, like it really takes over everything.
I mean, at what point does that start killing trees and other things
that just depriving them of late I used to so I used to buy timber
for a living, so I'd like I was basically out hustling, knocking on
doors, sending letters to landowners. There's a place by us, huge track
of hardwoods, um and uh, a lot of invasives in there. I
sent them letters to see if they wanted any of it cut and uh,
and they sold it to somebody else. And they came in there and cut
all the way up to the road edge where there was a ton of privy,
a ton of kudzoo. And I was like, they just they just
have that place up because I knew that kudzu was about to take off.
They did a select cut. So there's like instead of like you know,
one hundred trees per acre. Now it's like fifteen trees per acre, and
uh, every one of those trees is getting taken over by cuts. It's
just like towers of cut where those still living trees are they turn them into
towers of cut zoo, and the whole property is just overtaken. It's wow.
So so it takes over the margins of the forest, but it doesn't
really grow inside the canopy at all or slowly creeps into a forest. But
if if you go go into a forest and cut trees down and open it
up, then it just takes off like crazy and like there's no stopping it.
Once it'll never be a forest ever again. So if you if you
have a parcel of land, I mean, but you can manage it obviously,
just by it's just something you have to keep going back at. Man,
you gotta like mow it and burn it and spray it however, like
you gotta because it's got the has these huge tubers, um just giant,
I mean like the size of your leg. Does it form new tubers?
Like will it reroot itself into the ground or yeah, yeah, I think
it can cral reroute and uh, and so you got to starve out those
I mean they have all that stores there, You're gonna starve them out.
So u disturbance. Do you get a lot of people defending it, like
the like any like the anti invasions, the people who don't believe in invasion
biology, and they're like, oh, you could eat it. I don't
you know, I haven't hurt it. Seems the South just all they all
hate. I mean, when you see something taking over to the extent that
it does, yeah, it seems like a sci fi novel. Man,
it's nuts. People graze it, they'll turn catalog on it. And but
I'm surprised that nothing's evolved yet. I mean, it's been a short period
of times. I've been here, what like fifty sixty hundred years in some
places. But normally you'd think that with like a something that's like booming with
a population to that extent, normally quickly you'd think there'd be an insect,
there's some sort of fungus that would involve. That'll probably happen at some point,
but of course it wouldn't. You know. It's like with any invasive
invasives, at what point does that evolve and how late after things have already
started being smothered and going extinct. Does it does it actually happen? You
know, there's there's uh, it's gonna be prime real estate for something in
the future. I feel like, because oh yeah, like parts Alabama,
you'll get tornadoes coming through, and when those tornadoes come through knock trees down
that there's that there's cud Zoo's chance to just take over. So you'll have
privot um. It'll be you know, privot tops out of like ten foot
the privot will take over and then the cud zoo takes over the privot and
the privot creeps through and they're just fighting. So it's like a ten foot
wall, ten foot high wall that's just solid for acres and acres of just
you can't you couldn't walk through it if you wanted to do. What a
mess just like just a a maze of invasion, disturbed ecology. It's nuts
too when you think about how many people grow up and there's no education about
this stuff, you know, out there in the general populace, and they
think that's that's native too. Like that's what I was like growing up at
Chicago. I though European buckthorn everywhere was native. Yeah, and it was
you know totally wasn't It was just invading the for I mean, it was
running rampant and there were there at that point in time, I was going
out there with no efforts to control it. Really. I mean, it
was such a small minority of people that cared about that stuff. We see
English ivy two. That's a bad one. Yeah, a lot. And
uh, what's great they're still selling it and I mean you still go to
loads your home depot and buy it. That was because I wanted to bring
that up to because you were you were having I remember you were bringing you
were bringing it to light. The people were still selling mscanthus right, yeah,
grass, and that it was. I mean, is there because in
other countries even there's it's illegal to sell some of this stuff, these things
that are proven invasives over there. Yeah. Do you think that's any possibility
of reaching that kind of level of awareness here? Um? Uh? For
what for mimscantus for an invasion, I mean for any invasive species or is
it still there's people just deny it and they don't care and it's my right
and whatever. I hope. So, but it's Uh, um, it's
the guy I started talking out about mscanthus and then, uh, the guy
who sells it and promotes it the most. Uh, he sells it to
hunters mostly. He immediately got just really offended. So I didn't even I
didn't even know who he was. And he was like this guy was like
he was just it really ticked him off because, uh, he's trying to
he's trying to make a buck off of selling you know, an invasive to
to some hunters as a as a cover. Um. He posted a few
weeks ago he said, uh, which he blocked me. I think somebody
sent it to me, but he uh, he was like, muscanthus and
native berries can grow well together, and like posted a picture of it.
I'm like, man, in another two years, that muscanthus is going to
crowd everything else out and it's gonna be a monoculture of muscanthus. Yeah.
I mean it just defies everything that's known about modern ecology. Yeah, Like
it's just it's it's just wild. He doesn't like why not why is he
fighting it so hard instead of just you know, yeah, because there's other
native replacements that are more beautiful and aren't the problem. And yeah, fit
right at home here too. Yeah, but it's a he's I don't know.
It's easy to sell crap to hunters because they want to spend money on
on making their property better and and so they just there's so many gimmicks like
that, and um, I don't know when you when you try to stop
it, you're you're missing with his livelihood and and they just get ticked off.
But you're such a you're so diplomatic and chillo too. It seems like
if anyone could reach somebody like that, Yeah, I mean did he did
he listen at all? Or no? Oh no, he he's a lost
call. I think other hunters have, like I mean I had some like
really like, um, what is it? Um? Uh? Oh gosh,
what's the podcast? Uh? It's uh, it's one of the largest
hunting podcasts. They reached out to me just to basically ask me about it.
And he was that host of that podcast was um just all on board
with natives and hating amastantus. So I think a lot of a lot of
people have seen a lot and and that that guy is just a louiser.
But he's got ah, he's got a property, and like I don't know,
so maybe Illinois, I don't know where it's. Uh, he's got
like two hundred acres in the middle of corn. Everything else is cornfield.
So when they come through and harvest that corn, of course every deer in
the area is coming to his two hundred eight years, right, because it's
the only thing. Yeah, and so he's shooting these giant bucks and claiming
it's because he has miscanthus and stuff, like you're living, you're you have
an island. Man, Like it's like the only place for him to go.
Like, you know, anybody could shoot a deer thing. It's like,
yeah, if you're in a desert and all you're serving is like sartine,
saltines and cheese, you know, cheese wisdom. Mean, yeah,
people are gonna come to it, obviously, but you know they're not seeing
the buffet of diverse natives. Yeah, and that's a good transition, I
guess because I was in Illinois last last week. Um sh is uh Fayett.
I think Fayette County, about an hour east of east of Saint Louis.
And uh, the guy who thought that's a big hunter and he bought
it in the early two thousands, and uh, there was a hay field
um. And the old the family he bought it from, they always called
it there they're wild. They called it a wild hay field um where they
just cut hay on it once every fall. And what it was they had
timothy grass up there, some timo grass and just whatever came up naturally they
were cut a native grass or is it it's not timothy, isn't no,
But um, there's a bunch of natives and stuff out there too that they
were just cutting and belling it up and feeding to livestock. Um. But
this new land woman bought it and he, uh, he immediately let it
grow up. And uh he was out there with his uh with his film
camera just taking pictures of anything that popped up blooming, and him and his
wife would go home and get it developed and trying to figure out what what
those plants were. And Uh, over time they like reached out to like
you know, like some wild flower folks and they're area and they came out.
He said, Uh, the first time he brought a guy out there,
he stood there and looked out and like saw thousands and thousands of of
uh that look dense blazing star Latris spicata and its tons of it. He
said, a guy out he's like he's like a tear roll down his face
and he was like, dude, this is like you don't understand, Like
I haven't seen this. He's like, ever, like a much latris in
one spot and that's what everything used to look like. Yeah there, yeah,
so all those seeds we're just in the seed bank, yeah, or
or there's just a little you know, they're just hanging out just the roadside
populations will read colonizing or something. Yeah, And so he started burning it
and just kept burning and uh so it turned from you know, a hayfield,
and how there's over six hundred species. God damn, how big is
it. It's thirty acres. It looks it looks planted, and it's just
all natural. He didn't plant any of that stuff. He didn't just recolonize
from daylight populations or was there so but what was growing there before, the
non native cover grass, he just stops growing it and it couldn't compete with
the natives in or what he so that timothy grass believes a cool season grass,
so it's not a rescue So if you start burning in the fall,
like in the wintertime. That stuffs green in the winter because it's a cool
season. So if you burn that time of year, it starts to outcompete
it. It it can't handle, you know, that wintertime burning, and
so it promotes the warm season stuff. And so our native warm season grasses
were kind of able to get a hold. That's amazing. Yeah, but
just stuff I've never seen before. It was really cool. And then once
he saw it, he got hooked and then it was like it was hunting
now, there's no stop but it yeah, yeah, it's a man,
it's a crazy place um and wildlife. Man. It's so he had so
much, so much wildlife us in this place, and so he's like,
I don't hunt this property anymore. He just lets one of his friends hunted.
But it's just a great hunting property and a good example of how managing
for native prairies really good for native wildlife if that's what you're trying to manage.
It's remarkable, man. It's like, it's it's cool to see these
messages of hope, you know, during all this other you know, destruction
everywhere else in some cases, you know, it was like that thing with
the Chicago River, like seeing all this life come back. Seeing beavers on
the Chicago River, man, like two miles north of downtown, seeing giant
snapping turtles. I mean the snapping turtles. Obviously you probably know they can
take they can grow in some pretty messed up places. But seeing beavers there
it was wild, you know. And it's like once you show people that,
they're like, oh wow, it's kind of cool. Now I want
to learn more about this, you know. And now they're they're putting like
native plant floating gardens on the river, like the Chicago the nasty ass.
I mean, it's pretty clean now actually, but just used to be.
I mean that was always like the butt of a joke. You know.
It's like the Charles River in Boston or the Goanest Canal all Brooklyn. It's
nuts, man, Yeah that um, I mean what just Illinois as a
whole. Man, It's crazy how how much used to be there. I
don't know if we last time we talked. I don't know if I've already
been up there, because I also went to Illinois to see the Prairie chick
in the Greater but yeah, I don't think I don't think we talked about
it. That was so they have these leaking areas um are there like the
high spots of like you know, you got the prairies rolling these high spots.
It has to be like shorter grass, so like you know, and
they're doing that in the spring after a burn, so it's like real low
grass. And they get out there and they do all these crazy dances and
they call it the booming grounds. And these things are like, like,
dude, it's the wildest thing I've ever seen. And they got like a
decent population. No, I mean it's one hundred and sevent like they have
like one hundred and seventy five. Oh god, there used to be there
used to be anywhere from ten to routeen million prairie chickens in the state of
Illinois, and now there's only one hundred and seventy five. It's crazy,
Like the fathom that that kind of reduction too. I always wonder, I'm
like, what what happened? Like how do you wake it? Get?
Like? No one was like, hey, wait a minute, I mean,
we shouldn't take all this stuff. Well, they were like Audubon was
like when he was traveling through like Kentucky. That's what they were eating where
prairie chickens, and they're like he apparently got so tired of eating them that
they were just shooting them and just leaving them. Jesus. Yeah, there
they were. They were They used to be everywhere our populations were bounding.
Now though, a little bitter because they were just these low numbers. They
can't handle like all the crop fields like corn and stuff like they need they
need native grasses, um, they need fire, they need wide open spaces
like um. Somebody was like, how many trees is like too many trees,
you know, to have around for prairie chickens and and uh they said,
what one, Like, you don't want any tree. He's like,
it's just wide open prairie and that's all on. And that's why I like,
Illinois used to have twenty two million acres of prairie and now there's an
original, like intact prairie left. There's like, oh god, yeah,
that's nothing. It's crazy. I grew up. I grew up near Wolf
Road prairie, which I didn't realize it at the time. Like we'd be
driving by my mom would be like, oh, that's an old piece of
prairie. It's all gone gone, And I didn't really appreciate at the time
until I started getting into body and native plants and a little context of native
planting, which is just a college where like like we were talking about last
night, and I went there and I was like, God, damn,
this is insane. Like there's all these there's fucking native lilies that only a
few miles from where I grew up. I had no idea like it was,
you know, Lilian Philadelphia, come to Sylphie and all this stuff.
It's always been there. It was never wiped out, you know, yea,
which is remarkable. And you look around and install shopping centers and sprawl,
and the right across the street there's like a terribly managed forest that they're
just starting to clear out. They can't burn it because it freaked out the
suburban nights there, but they're at least masticating the understory of all the invasive
buckthorne and stuff, and so you can see all the airthronium, all the
trout lilies coming back, and all kinds of other stuff. But you know
that that forest was a mess, I mean as far as I can remember,
and there were way too many deer in it. They were always getting
hit by cars. And always covered in ticks, and you step off the
trail, you get covered in ticks. They need to burn, but they've
been burning it the prairie. But you know this forest preserve across the street,
it's just wild. I mean it's again, it's the whole thing,
like the shifting baselines. You know, like you grow up, you think
this is normal. You have no idea how fuck it is compared to what
was there. But on that brighter note, there's all this renowned, the
you know, renewed awareness coming back about this stuff. Yeah as well,
so well with the prairie chickens. So they need a lot of space.
So where where they're persisting now, is it like nature conservancy land and try
to land owners? I think it's nature conservacy land. Um, it's a
I think state managed but it's a I think prairie ridge or something like that.
They'll do tours so like um for the whole like leaking season or booming
season, whatever they call it. They they'll take tours out in the morning
and so he just they literally have these like wooden boxes out in the middle
of those leaking areas and uh, you just get out there before dark and
sitting those and then just wait on the sun to come up and they all
just start flying in. Oh they're like hides basically, yeah, and they're
like their next, like are super like yellow orange red, like it's their
their their next just like blow up and it's crazy looking. What were you
so, what were you doing out there? You got him? Do we
just checking them out? You got invited the Golden a friend of mine who
uh he's and uh training bird dogs I think gun dogging yourself. He's he's
got a podcast and he creates content for bird hunters and he's just trying to
get bird hunters, you know, to see what we're doing too. I
mean we've almost lost prayer chickens and uh quill and Turkey and rough gray House
are gonna they're go in the same direction, like they're dwindling. Um,
and so trying to get those folks interested in uh in conservation and creating native
habitats because that's the only way to save them. So so time that together.
Basically, like getting people that are interested in conserving these whether the hunters
or whatever. Yeah, that's what that's his target audience is his hunters.
So um, yeah, he invited me up because he wanted to. He
wanted to go see him and and uh create a he has like a YouTube
video add on it. Um. But uh, just that's the kind of
stuff we need because like nobody's talking about that, like not even like there's
literally I was like I pulled up to that town in Illinois and I was
at the gas station and and somebody was like, Alabama, what are you
doing up here? I'm like, we're up, We're here. I was
came up to see the Prayer chickens and and they're like what approachings They like
live in the same town for like the only population of Praya chick is left
in the state of Illinois are and they had no idea that there's yeah,
why that should be like an emblem on the town logo or something that's yeah.
So that's that was his goal, try to get the word out about
him. So that was one cool thing that was Like when I was in
New Zealand two months ago, it's like they're so proud of their like native
plant and animal life and it's like it's on the currency and stuff. I
mean, it's it's cool. It it gives me hope for what could be
done in other places. Like here, you know that's why. I mean,
so you you mentioned last night that that you still get like people you'll
catch flag for posting like hunting related stuff. Really, I mean it seems
so wild to me. It's like that's kind of like Bambi style version of
nature that people have. It just seems so obsolete. Yeah, Like that's
there's still people that kind of think like that that don't realize that, like
hunting is a necessity and it's can be really used proactively. Tight end especially
tight into what you're doing that especially deer, Like I mean there you see
what the damage that happens when you've got too many deer. Yeah, and
uh, and I mean that's that's all all we eat at home. I've
got four deer in the freeze year right now, and that's all literally almost
every night of the week, that's what we eat as deer meat. And
and uh and we didn't have to carve out any you know, land,
or cut hay or or turn up pasture and native grasses. They're already there.
It's like it seems so easy. They're they're evolved there, Like yeah,
so it wasn't didn't have to farm it. And the thing's uh,
you know, just just uh, I feel like the best food source,
the best meat you could possibly get. So that's why I enjoy it.
But yeah, I posted pictures of on like Instagram with like I was done
in the black Belt Prairie. You know, I'm like, it's man,
it's so cool to sit there and like, you know, I know all
the plants that are around you, like the blue stems, and like all
these milkweed pods had you had opened up. And and I and I shot
a buck down there on my buddy's place, and we'd been done there,
burning it earlier that that year, and um, just managing it, making
it as you know, best as possible, just trying to improve that need
of habitat. And and I posted a picture of it, and like,
I just watched that night. I don't watch my followers go down on Instagram,
so I like, I purged to purge the followers. I guess,
oh god, but man, it's like to me, it's a I don't
know if that's the best way to to acquire meet in my in my opinion,
And well also it's just I mean, it's just that it's just it's
just to me, it's just another example of ecological disconnection. You know,
it's like these it's not a disrespectful thing to hunt, Like a lot of
hunter's tool will have immense amounts of respect for these animals. And it's not
like there's nothing obscene about it. You know. Yeah, and there's there's
bad apples in every group, but you know, for the most part,
like I'm I'm not doing like like I do more for conservation than I than
I take. And I think that's what it's all about. Give back more
than you take. If you're gonna be taking, you know, feed your
family off something that's wild, make sure you're giving it back more than you
take. And I think, yeah, I think you're giving back. That's
how that's how I think that's how indigenous people would have done it, you
know. Yeah, that's the model. Man. It's like it's I always
use that the shel Silverstein booth, the giving tree. You know, don't
be like that fucking kid in the giving tree. You know, it's take,
take, take, like always always give, you know, and anytime
you do take, make sure you give it back. I mean, I
got a friend of mine, Rick, he's like a I think he's like
seventy. He's like an old Navajo, old Denay veteran. I remember I
did a sweat ceremony with him in a month or two ago, and and
he mentioned too. He was like, you know, you go a lot
of these places you know, you never know I mean, he was all
slightly superstitious. He's like, you never know what happened there. You know,
you should always like leave something, you know, which is just he's
like, leaves him to background. I don't smoke, but you know,
I get the way he put it. I was like, that's a pretty
cool whether I'm you know, woo woo to that extent, if you want
to call boo or not, it's a pretty cool perspective I think to have.
It's like you don't want to take any saying that that too, He's
like, just leave something out of respect, so you're not just taking or
you know, being in these places where you know, you never know who's
been there before, what other organisms to have been there before. Just think
to give back. That's the key word. Their respect. Yeah, you
got a respect, and then you know, more you respect where you're from
and what used to be there, the more you enjoy, you know,
being out there and seeing things and and using the landscape and being a part
of it, so you have a relationship with the land, you know,
where you're you're not just you're not just exploiting it. That's not just a
sense of entitlement. That's yeah, that's the thing. Man, it's so
hard to get away from that like mindset of exploiting things. You're like,
uh, even with native sometimes like native plants. I'm like, I'll post
something and people are like, what good is it? Like like the age
old question, right, what does it do? Yeah? What can I
use it for? You know, like you don't have to know that answer.
I mean, it's it's useful to something that's doing something in the ecosystem.
And it doesn't have to feed you or look look nice or you know,
to be worthwhile. Like it's, uh, everybody wants to use everything
and exploit it. What does it do? It's it's an integral part of
a functioning yeah, machine that's been here for millions of years, you know.
But again, I don't know. I think it's you know, people
listening and as long as people as long as that message is communicated like a
diplomatic and cool and you know, calm way and a better way of showing,
which I think you're really good at doing. You know, people start
to listen and picks up. So that's what I want ask you too.
I mean, so you've seen have you seen a lot of people respond positively
that just didn't consider this stuff before, just random people like you were talking
about knocking on some dude's door to be like, hey, you got this
cool plant and you're where was that at? That was like a mile down
the road from my house. It's northern Alabama. Yeah, just north Alabama,
and um he uh. I drove by one day. There's a bunch
of prairie rims around and so, like you know, as I was learning
all these plants, like i'd see like you know, mower's rosin weed and
butterfly weed and like. And I think the more you see that stuff,
like the when you drive around, the more your eye will like pick up
on that on it like may have driven past something a hundred times. And
so one day I saw a bunch of mowers rosin weed out there, and
I pulled over to knock on this guy's door, and I told it,
like I said, last night, he was he was out there and his
and his wife. He answered the door and his whitey tidies and uh and
uh I was like, oh, I was like, hey man, Like
I was just driving by, like I lived down the road. I saw
this mower's rosin weed out there. It's in s one in Alabama, so
that means, you know, fewer than five populations, and and uh,
I was wondering if I go look at it, and he was like,
yeah, I'll go out there with you. And I was like, well,
I'll let you get some clothes on. He's like, no, I'm
all right, and and so I just wanted to get out there. So
he was using flip flops and whitey tidies and we walked around for like an
hour out there, and uh, you know there's a sense of that sensitive
brier and tons of mountain mints and um. You know that's I've introduced uh
Porter's goal them right out there too, because it it's the only there's two
populations in the state of Alabama. Now there's three populations in the world,
and the other population is like a mile and a half from that spot.
So that's been one of my places I've reintroduced it to. But yeah,
the guy was he mos yards for a living and he hadn't mow like we.
I've burned that spot for him and he's just been letting grow up for
I think about three years now and and so that's been cool to see somebody's
mindset change from wanting to mow everything to being too crowd what's out there?
And what's this? What's neat? Man? It's like people can't appreciate something
they don't know about it. So like if you can stop, pull over
for you know, five minutes, knock on somebody's doing, and just be
like, hey, like what you got out here is really cool, That's
what I love. Is Like, that's probably why I enjoyed educating folks so
much, is I was seeing that because you know, if you don't stop,
you're gonna come back by in a week and it's gonna be mowed down
and you're you're gonna be like dag gum. And I wish I would have
stopped and told those people about what they had and uh, but yeah,
I really enjoy doing that. So the message here to anyone listening to of
course, is like if you're you know, if you live in an area
where there's not a lot of appreciation for this stuff. You see something cool.
You know, if you can give an extra couple of minutes to talk
to a landowner, just knock on someone's door or I mean right, that's
like that's the reasonable thing to do, and just you know, calmly be
like, hey, that's really cool, just so you know, I mean,
you were just approaching this guy asking if you could look at it or
check it out or what. Yeah, I just wanted to look at it,
And that's a good that's a good segue into like, you know,
tell them about what they've got. Yeah, just stopping by. You always
I don't want to want to walk around with somebody's property without permission any right,
so I always stopping asking and uh, yeah, it's it's a good
opportunity to tell them what they have, that's the thing. Yeah. It
give us an opportunity to bond with people and be like, yo, did
this guy have any interest or like, did you have any awareness of what
was what these plants were before that or no? No, he had no
idea. And it was actually a really good post oak Savannah. There's some
short lived pond there too, and just massive post oakes that were that were
they're probably three or four hundred years old, there's and so I think that's
why those plans are still there because it was like never farmed or never had
cattle on it or anything. So damn that's and so it was just had
been in his family for a while or what he grew up there. I
know that. So at least probably six fifty sixty years. You were talking
about a lady yesterday who moved nearby somewhere and you were talking to her about
junipers and croaching. It was this is Dahia, right, Yeah, which
we should talk about that too, But what was the what was that case
last night when you mentioned last night? Yeah, so she uh so there's
there's two properties in Alabama where there's leafy prairie clover daily foliosa um, and
this first one I went and talked to her and and uh and knocked on
her door. And she's old. She had like three hundred acres and uh
this leafy prairie clovers growing on the side of the road on maybe maybe like
an acre or two. And this is a this is like a critically endangered
plants federally endangered. It grows in Alabama, Tennessee and Illinois. Um Actually
in the Chicago area on some of those dolomite glades, it loves limestone.
Um so, but it's growing right on the roadside, you know, the
only area on the property that's open enough for it to grow. In Alabama,
if you stop burning or mowing, like it turns the forest like that.
And so the rest of the property is closed canopy and lots of cedar
trees. And so I was like, I told her, I was like,
look, we're trying to raise money for daily of FOLIOSA selling t shirts
and I want like to use some of this money towards, you know,
conserving this site. And I was like, it's gonna until, you know,
cutting down some of the cedar trees and bring sunlight back in and and
these are you know, they would have never been in this in that density,
and they're shading out the ground year round. Yeah they yeah, cool,
cool native plant, but yeah take over. Yeah. And uh so
I was like, I would just would need to cut some of these down,
try to extend that roadside population to the interior of your property, because
they're getting sprayed on the side of the road right here. And yeah,
as soon as I say cut a tree down. She was like, she
was like absolutely not, like you know, I bought this property to you
know, to conserve what's here, and uh, I'll never cut a tree
down on this place. And I'm like, man, like, that's just
she just didn't get it. No, she had good intentions. The intentions
were there, but the education was like, like, there's a ton of
chinkapin oaks and post oaks. You couldn't pay me a million dollars to cut
like those down, like those old post oaks that are supposed to be there.
But I'm yeah, I'm going to cut down the trees that aren't.
So those trees also grow up and got a lot of light in beneath.
But junipers are like shaded a man. Yeah, and and there they hate
fire, so um naturally they would have been kept at bay and really they
would they grow in rocky areas. But they're growing in those rocky areas that
fire can't get to and they're not growing and you know that the density that
they were on this property. But they're spread by birds, so they're everywhere.
Yeah, yeah, do you think they're I mean, is there any
reaching her? Or what I mean is I don't know, we're I've gone
back, and it's just I don't know, stay persistent. You never know.
Man, Yeah, that's one of those I'm not too confident in him.
But it's weird that she wouldn't. I mean, does she know what
you do? I mean, does she know? Yeah, she just doesn't.
Does she just want to privacy screen or something or what? I mean?
Why would you not just very particular about what happens out there? I
guess yeah, Um, which rightfully. So she's a single mother and right
has a bunch of kids and stuff. So um, but yeah, I
don't. I definitely don't want to force somebody to do something, right.
Yeah you can't. Yeah, yeah, you can only try to like kindly
convince to the point that they just get annoyed and her like, you know,
scram But even that is still worth it. That worked out nice though,
because then I was like, well, I'm on to the next population
in Alabama, And turns out that place is up for sale right now.
So when we get from this, I'm hopefully going to buy one of them.
Probably the largest population of leafy prairie clover in Alabama, and it's about
six acres, and damn that's amazing. Yeah, I'm excited about that.
There's a ton of You're having a fundraiser through patreons thuff, just selling t
shirts and and so it's it's like a twe property. But we're only gonna
buy like a little section. Hopefully we're going to find a buyer for the
rest of it, you know, reaching out to conservation groups, trying to
find somebody to buy at least the parts with leafy perie clover on it that
we can't afford. But until then, I'm it's up for sale, so
anybody can buy it any day now, and I'm trying to just make sure
we can serve the important spots in this place, so at least there is
there's now gonna be one protected side. Do you guys look at the six
acres where it's for sure established, and there's like trying to get someone else
to buy the rest where you can then maybe reintroduce it. Well, the
rest has it too. There's like smaller populations on the rest, like you
know, anywhere from you know, five to twenty thirty plants, but this
like maybe some more than that, a thin soil area or because so it
loves limestone, Uh, it loves like that you know how you'll get these
on these limestone mountains we call them like knobs off of the Cumberland Plateau.
You'll get these limestone mountains and they have you know, all these kind of
terraced their way up and you'll have these at the bottom. You'll have like
these seats or water seeping out of the ground, and so they kind of
like that moisture soil at the base of those rocky slopes, it seems like.
But if they grow on dolamite prairies in Illinois, those are pretty like
those are more definitely drier sights, and so you'll see them like in the
edges and stuff where there's more and more. God, there's some cool man.
There's some cool fucking dolomite and eat in Chicago, like in Hodgkins,
Illinois, which is just like a suburb. You know, it's like there's
like a movie theater in car dealerships, all this garbage and stuff. That's
my own eloquent description. But but but there's a dolomite glade there, or
a dolamite prairie that's got all this cool stuff. It's got the lakeside daisy
where they reintroduced it. I forget what it's. I forget the name of
the genus. I've got so many planned names in my head. But you
know, it's so rare. It's it's all the stuff that you'd see further
west where it's dryer, but it's growing on this area. And then there's
you can walk out there and there's no soil. There's like little pockets of
soil that's got some really cool and those cool stuff. Those get really wet
in the wintertime and they might yeah on the summer. Yeah, that's usually
how our like Glady areas are. So what's out there is it has to
be adapted to that those kind of conditions because they don't seem to you know
a lot of invasives don't seem to thrive on those kind of soils. No,
there's nothing for them to grow on. It's so cool though, because
it's it's like it's in a Dafeck Island. I mean it's you know,
it's there's prairie all around it or woodlet forest or whatever, and it's stuff
gets big. But then here nothing, there's no soil. It's just like
bare rock. I mean it looks like someone paved that in some areas,
and so yeah, it's a they're really cool ecosystems. That's that's that's how
finding a lombstone bearing. That's kind of how I got into native plants.
It was really cool property and lots of lots of unique stuff growing there that
you just don't find growing anywhere else. That was kind of what drew you
went like, you went here and you were like, this is different,
this is kind of cool. I was cutting down cedars, actually trying to
get more sunlight down on the ground for deer hunting, and then all this
stuff started popping up, and I was like, what the heck is this
stuff? And then then Kevin I posted pictures of it on Facebook and Kevin
England saw him. Kevi. I think Lily had went up to see Kevin
last year to look at a bunch of carricks. But Kevin that was about
thirty minutes from me, and he's he's take he's collecting like thousands of herbarium
samples a year, just doing a lot of great work for for Alabama native
plants. And he came out there and he was like just super pumped about
it. I saw his excitement about how he was like, man, this
place is cool. And there's a yellow pumprental out there. It's to Nidia
and that's like probably one of the biggest populations of it in the state,
just one hundred to prairie plants that are just super cool, lattresses and milkweeds
and all kinds of stuff. And that's where I got hooked. I started
just opening it up, more of it and bringing in more sunlight. And
every time you did that, you just created more of the prairie, more
of that limestone barren. And um, that's uh, that's I guess how
how I got bit by the bug there. And because you will you do
it too. I mean I want to talk about you. I see it.
You do a shift ton of seed collecting, you do prescribe burns,
you do all this stuff that is like pretty unique. I mean, you
know it should be more common than it is, but yeah, but you're
one of the only people I see doing it, especially in that region,
like you know, or advocating at large scale. It's pretty remarkable. Like
when you get into the burning, like it's thirteen twenty fourteen, Like as
soon as I started in college at Alabama A and m uh, they have
a they had a burn team there called the fire Dogs. So like we
got to learn how to do prescribe fire and then fight wild land fires.
And so there were already people, I mean there was already like it was
already known and that like burning can be good, like not really And further
south you go in Alabamas, like where you get into those like you know,
long Leaf and and lab lally more rural southern Alabama, Like it's just
a culture down there burning, But in North Alabama it's really not as known
about. Um maybe in some places, but um so I learned. I
learned to burn in college. And then while I was in college, I
was working for State Fishing Wildlife and we did a lot of burning there.
So then when I left there and became a forester and just on my own,
I started burning private properties and doing a lot of burning on my home.
What time of year you generally do it though there it just depends on
Like that's what's cool. That's why it's called prescribe burnings because you get to
you know, it's a prescription so when whatever you're dealing with, you kind
of base that off, you know, what time of a year you're gonna
burn, So if you've got a lot of if you've got a lot of
cool season grasses you're trying to kill, you're gonna you're gonna want to burn
um in the cool season and fall, winter and maybe early spring when they
green up. If you're trying to promote like warm season grasses, you burn
in the spring. Um. If you're trying to promote forbes, you want
to burn in the fall. If you're trying to get rid of uh,
you know, woody encroachment, you're gonna want to burn in the fall.
Forbes already going dormant, yeah, whenever, and before they kind of drop
leaves and put all their energies back down in their roots. Knocking them back
then works really well. And even in the spring after the green up,
but you're in the spring, you're going to kill some of your forbes as
well. Um, So summertime burnings good in some situations. It just really
depends on what you're dealing with. But it seems like more predominantly and late
mostly mostly fall to spring. Actually more people burn in the spring, And
so I've tried to been I've tried to promote fall burning more because I think
it it's a better for forbes and arms, you know, just promoting natives.
But like Kansas out there, they're burning on the spring and then they
end up having a problem where there's mostly warm seas and grasses and like sumac
and stuff like that. So you got to mix it up. And that's
on my own property. That's what I do. I'll burn, I'll break
it up in like four or five blocks, and I'll burn one block in
the fall one evening, and then burn another one and later in like December,
and then burn another one in the spring or whatever. I just kind
of mix it up because different different species respond differently. It's and fire depending
on what time of year it is. And also that gives me an ability
to like leave half of it, so you know, whatever critters are hanging
out in there have somewhere else to escape too. Yeah, totally. What
about for you know, plants to produce seed and food for birds and stuff
like that. I mean, is that do you take that into a counter
or is that something to think about? That seed Actually, as you're burning,
if that seed falls and makes contact with the soil, it's not like
as soon as the fire goes over the soil, like if you if you're
right behind that fire and then measure soul temperature. That soul's cool, like
it's not hot. So anything that's on the ground, any seeds are pretty
fine. Then yeah. So the birds are gonna be in there like the
next day, like immediately just hammering some seeds. But also you know a
lot of those are gonna stick around for you know, the German next year
and stuff. Yeah. There, it's wow. Man, we just get
Like even just in South Texas where I'm if I'm doing yard, if I
clear a bunch of stuff, like if I if I lay mulch down,
like the grackles will be there the next day like picking through it looking for
they're on it. You know. Yeah, that's uh, that's how my
native plannings are. Man, they just get you know, the poor insects
that are attracted to all th in pollinating plants or all those plants like for
pollinators. They're just getting hammered by by birds. But there's a power line
like a right above my little prairie plant, so they got a spot there.
They're just sitting there just just ambushing them. But the birds love it's
cool. It's cool. Yeah. Yeah, the burning so you see more
people picking up on the benefits subscribed burning in or huge. There's a huge
need for it, man, like especially from stopping woody and croshman and forest
because it's not how many people like that. Ladies still just think that like
trees are great, like you want trees and well there's other types of ecosystems.
Well that's the thing. Is like our upland hard woods and you know
ponds, they're like adapted to fire like they need it. Um, what
what forests aren't adapted to is is there being like twenty to fifty years between
burns, Like what happened in the smoke he's up here. They hadn't burned
since who knows when, like because everywhere has cabins and little places. They
can't burn off the mountains anymore. So I think that was like twenty sixteen.
Well there was a bad fire here or something and it just took off,
took yea, It burned down tons of cabins, It killed like fourteen
people. M huge wildfire that they could not stop. Imagine it just it
was killing everything. It was killing everything, the trees, the wildlife couldn't
escape. Yeah, and it's because they let fuel build up for so long.
But that doesn't happen when you burn regularly, like every two to three
years, that fuel doesn't get built up, and that fire isn't getting hot
enough to kill mature trees. It's going slow enough to where a wildlife can
escape or it goes right over their burrows or whatever, and it doesn't harm
them. But when you got that much fuel, it bakes, it kills
the trees. I've seen forests like that in California that would just I mean
twenty thirty years of the fire suppression. If dead man Zuanita is an understory
and then they're like pine plantations and that it creates like a ladder of fire
opportunity. Like everything's dead bottom thirty feet of the pine tree, and then
it's they're alive up top and it's just but all the blimbs are still on
them. And then there's dead man zanita and animal brush beneath that, and
so it just lights up and it's just like a tender box. There's pine
needles on everything too, from you know when they dehiss and just drop.
It's nuts. Man. Yeah, it's like this is well, that's why
i'd listened to a talk in DC this year from a guy with like the
Redwood Association or something in North California, and he was he was talking about
how they've they had wildfires come through there. It's like, you know,
because all the fuel build up, it was killing like mature redwoods. And
he was like, historically those those redwood forests would have had had thirty fires
every hundred years, Like so yeah, basically every three years you're having a
fire, um and and when when you don't get that, man, there's
so much fuel and it just so what what's the interval in somewhat the prairies
in Alabama then, I mean it was it's it's more cant. I mean
it's you know, anywhere from one to three years in that range as well.
It's just like prairie oak savannah where like a lightning strike or more commonly
people were setting them those south slopes ridge tops, that's where you know,
they're really dry. They get a lot of sun on them, and so
those are going to be the places that burn. You're with slopes to get
a lot of moisture, your bottoms like like river bottoms and hollers and deep
ravines, places where there's a lot of moisture they're not gonna get as much
fire. So like up here in the Smokies, think about the places where
all the hemlocks are. There's a lot of moisture. There's probably not gonna
be as many fires there. But you get up in the ridge tops where
you know, you got a lot of upland hardwoods, that's where you'd see
a lot of fires. So what would you recommend as somebody who had,
like you know, it's like a relatively small pot of land like a few
acres or something. And it was like, I want to burn, I
want to restore a plan native. I mean when you do this, you
got like a crew of a couple of people helping her or how do you
I mean, how do you get people to do it and know they can
stop fire? You know I need to be I mean they create breaks or
what. Yeah, every fire I've ever done, I've always had a huge
crew, lots of equipment and permits, just some dope with like a gas
cannon. Look, that's what I tell folks like you want to dus,
you know, invite yourself along to fire. You know, find somebody in
your area that doesn't burning and learn them. It's good to have multiple people.
You want water on hand just in case. You want fire flaps and
rakes, um backpack sprayers. Leaf Blowers work really well at putting out grass
fires and creating fire. You can create a fire line through a forest super
easy with a leaf blower. Um so sway, Yeah, I'm just down
to bare soil. Um. So make sure you've got good fire lines.
Make sure the weather is good. You don't want to do it when it's
real dry, like you don't want you want the leafs to crunch when you
step on them, but you don't want them to be like too like sud
day. Yeah, so you want the time and to be right. Um,
you want to get a permit, which most states you can just call
and get a permit. Um, I'm registered in like, I'm a certified
burn manager in Alabama, so I can just write home permits online. Um
that's nice, but um it's it's pretty easy like that, being like I'll
I'll do all my burns on my own property by myself with I could not
do it some of them all doing flip flops in them and a lighter like
because you've got if you've got good fire lines and it's good conditions. Uh
my and my grasslands, I just use mode trail, so I'll mode a
perimeter down to turf grass. You've also been doing it for a while,
so there's not a lot of fuels build up. Yeah ready, Yeah,
so that's on your fire lines. You want them real clean, either really
green or just not a lot of fuel. And then you can just light
it and it gets that it gets to where your moat, where your mode,
and it stops um. And so if you set yourself up with good
fire lines, you could just light it um and let it burn to one
of those fire breaks and you go through again. Sometimes like not usually,
but if I have to, I'll go through and and stomp it out or
spray it and leaf blower over. It just depends on the situation, because
it depends on what states. If someone's in like the West where it's a
lot of fire. Two and yeah, what the forecast is the next few
days? And yeah, you want to have a lot of experience, Like
make sure you've done it a bunch because at this point I'm comfortable knowing you
know, what, what are you know which days are good for burning and
which days aren't. Uh, sometimes I'll do night burns too, because it's
just they it hardly wants to light because there's a lot of humidity in there.
So it's just really easy to control. But it's just it just depends
there's something else. I was gonna stay there too, and I forget what
else gonna be the way that I mean, it's something that people do,
like this is a well thought, well executed maybe been on a couple of
fires before and seeing it. Know your land though, your climate and all
the forecast type of things, and just like Willie Nilly, yeah, run
out with like if there's like a so if there's like a western wind and
you have a square plot, you definitely do not want to start a fire
on the west side with a wind coming from the west because you're just gonna
create a huge head fire and it's gonna just there's probably it could jump your
fire line. So if you got a wind coming from the west, you
light it on the east and that's called a back and fire and it just
burns very slow. Um oh yeah, I see what you're saying. So
then you know, if it's burning too slow, then go through there and
like you know, get like ten yards ahead of it, a light another
line and you might have a small head fire running towards, but it's going
to hit that other back. Yeah. Um, so yeah, it's you
just gotta be You don't want to ring it either, because if you just
ring fire around the entire perimeter, you're gonna trap wildlife or whatever. And
yeah, just be smart about it. You want to give them an oh
yeah. And so then there's a good podcast if you're interested in burning.
There's a it's called Fire University. I think Mississippi State does it. So
basically, if you don't know anything about burning, you can listen to that
or learn a lot about Describe fire University. Yeah, Fire University. It's
a good podcast. But either way, I mean when you do this the
next season, you just see like a booming, like a reinvigorated. It
probably doesn't lie for the text. That's the funny part. Yeah, and
chugars and stuff like. Well, so I'd never get ticks on me in
uh, in the prairies that I've earned, but this person's yard I've burned
last year. They have like eight acres of prairie out there, tons of
moors rosinweedum, tons of butterfly weed and and this uh, you know,
I saw. I burned it last fall, and this has been like hay
Field, Uh they cut it. They just bush hauled at once every fall.
They'd even bell hay off of it. They just left it. So
the thatch layer on this place. I burned it in the fall, and
I could have came back the next day and burned it again because there was
that much like thatch left just built up duff yeah, built up yeah,
and which this year we've had a great response from it. Actually found Latreus
spicada out there. That's the first time I've seen it in my county.
Um and uh, tons of great stuff. But the ticks out there are
crazy because they were it was like late fall. They had already like got
down in that duff layer already went dormat. There's probably a ton of mice
and stuff for them to be on. It just didn't kill them all.
It didn't burn all the way to the soul like it left so much that
that they just had places to hide. But so what would you do this
here? Then burn it, burn it again a little earlier or something to
make sure you get everything to burn it again. Yeah, it'll probably burn
through that that that actually our miss last years. Where does little bastards go
they go they just go to the ground or what. I don't know that,
Like they go to hill and then come if they go down to the
depths, check in with their dark overlord before they come back for the next
season. Man, Yeah, they plot their revenge on me. Probably,
God, they brutal, man. They were bad in Brazil too, really
bad. And they got Ricketsia down there, and all kinds of weird bacterials
that can spreads fucked. Yeah, there's a chugar. There's a chiggar in
South America. I guess it's here in North Carolina now too. They can
cause something called oh god, scrub typist I think is the name of it.
It's like a bacteria that this this chiggar can spread. Like you know,
chigars are normally a nightmare enough. Yeah, you don't really get in
my west. But and I hate those things. That's terrible. Man.
But one of the landowners I work with, he's he got uh, he
got him beef at like a meat allergy, red meat allergy from ticks.
Yeah. So now he rides around his property. He's got like an enclosed
side by side with doors and act because he's like, so he's so paranoid
about it, and I don't blame him, but he has cows and uh
uh, he was cleaning out. He was like putting water and with the
troughs one day and got some like cow saliva on his arm and dude heat.
He said it about killed him. He said it was so bad,
just that he had an allergic reactions to just how saliva. Just want a
saliva. And he can't eat red meat. Really, he's like eating fish,
so it's some protein just coming in contact with his skin reacts to it.
That's insane. Yeah. I had a friend get that. He can't
he can't he red meat anymore. Yeah, I don't know where he got
it. I'm just I'm so paranoid about that. Like I don't I treat
myself every day, like make sure I don't get to Yeah, that's so
good. And I've got sugars. We got ivermect then in Brazil because they
were bad. I mean it was because and that was what was recommended to
us. Actually because you could just I mean they say you need a prescription
down there, but you don't. You can just buy it over the Ibermectan
in docs is cycling because the ticks. I mean, it'll get the ticks
off you. You know, if you take it, it's good for like
eighteen hours or something. But the chiggars were the main thing because they'll keep
biting you. I mean they at least the ones down there, and I
think here too. When I've ever gotten sugars, they don't go well,
it's not just like a three hour thing and then it's over. I think
they hang out on you for a while. So ivermect and clears them out,
and I'm like, yeah, whatever, and it'd be fun. I
get to say it took ivermecting, but but uh but it works. I
mean it you know, gets them off. But it's yeah, it was.
And we were getting it down there too because the rickettsie is so bad
the I forget the name they call it down in Brazil. But people are
freaked out about it. You know, it's like worse than lame disease man,
I think. But it's yeah, it's brutal, man. But again,
you burn and they're not. It's not an issue. They need to
make a flea and tick pill for for humans. Yeah, they had a
lame dis these vaccine for a while, but they couldn't make money off of
it. I think was the because they've got a lames of these vaccine for
dogs you know better fucking nightmare though. But well anyway, so, um,
I want to ask you about sea collecting too. But then there was
another Oh there was a property you had that got mull What was up with
that? So that's a I called the Flint Creek Prairie. It's that one
of our boat ramps. Um. Actually it's across the road from like we
have like a it's like our C and D. They give grants for wildlife
stuff. They do a lot of education. Um. But I was going
to one of their meetings one night and I got there early, so I
was just parked across the road at the boat ramp and and uh, I
was on the phone, and I looked out there's tons of like Illinois bundleflower.
Uh it was that does manthis or something? I think that's it.
It's a right, yeah yeah, and it's uh that's a cool one.
That's yeah, it's man. The little the seed heads looked like roses.
Um. Yeah, they curl up yeah yeah yeah, and they like they'll
like drop a little bit of seed in the fall. The wind blow they
dropped, and then the spring they'll still have all they'll still have seeds like
it's like a it's like a bird feeder, but like dropping seeds throughout the
winters. And thus, um, but uh, mower's rising weed like hundreds
and hundreds of butterfly, milkweeds, big blue stem, little blue stem,
Indian grass, Gama grass, tried and grass three on grass. There's so
much native prairie species out there that's just been able to hang on. UM.
But it's TVA land. What's what's the Tennessee Valley Authority. UM,
there's like a power company. Yeah, yeah, they and and they they
have the have it licensed to the state to use as a boat ramp.
But then one side of it is on one of our state highways, so
that roadside is managed by al DOT. The other side is managed by County
UM and so they both that roadside, and then the Sheriff's office is actually
supposed to for whatever reason, it's supposed to be mowing the boat ram UM.
So I contacted all those folks and told them, hey, this is
like a prairie now, like we got permission from the state. I guess
I got ahead of myself, but the state gave us permission to manage this
as a found this hypered diverse spot and it wasn't getting mode for whatever reason.
It was like getting mowed like once a year, and that was that
was so I put up you know, I burned it this past fall.
I put trails through it so people could use it. Um and uh ton
man so much good stuff. I was out there on a Monday and somebody,
the sheriffs came through and they mowed just the edge of the road like
they're supposed to. And then Wednesday I had a had to bring like twenty
teachers out there to show them. I was taking once of fur tours.
I pulled up and with twenty teachers and like car pool and there's like a
trail of cars pull up and it's mode the whole thing. So all this
clematis and all the stuff I was about to show off, man spring it
too. Did they know? They didn't spread? They just mote bush Haug
the whole thing and uh and I was like holy crap, Like man,
what this is like the worst case scenario right here. I got all these
people with me, like all these things were in like peak bloom man just
covered in orange and all the yellow from moors and um, that's like a
scarlet scarlet clematis. This stuff's like just super like magenta. It's crazy.
I mean that's the confusing thing. It's like, who would Yeah, It's
like it looks really nice. Why would it doesn't like you can't mistake that
for weeds? Yeah, quote unquote weeds. And so I'm like, dude,
I'm just like, what the heck? Man? And so I it
was. It was. I will say this. It was great for content,
you know, like this is what's going on, Like I mean,
nowhere safe, nowhere safe from it's everything's at risk of me in mode,
like and so I don't they don't, they won't admit to it, but
it's I'm pretty positive it's the city of Decatur. Who wasn't even they don't
even have permission to Like, it's not that, but when you looked into
it, I mean it was because that I was like, damn, that
sucks. And I'm like being from Chicago and having that kind of a look
up like someone's fucking doing some purpose. That was one of my first thoughts,
Like because everybody knew. Everybody knew that this site was was being managed.
Um, and so of course I had an Instagram like everybody's like it
was like I had people like, Hey, I was going by there Tuesday
and I saw like an orange tractor. It's like the Boda and like so
we like tracked down like what kind of tractor it was and everything, and
and so I'm pretty positive it's the City Adicator. So um. But but
when you reached out to people, I mean where people had heard about it
bummed where they're like, oh, that's pretty shitty. Yeah, yeah it
was. It was. It's awful, man like it And what's so bad
about it? It was it. North Alabama doesn't have public prairies. We
have we have prairie growth glades, which is in the middle of nowhere without
maintained trails. There's no public there's not really any public preserves or anything.
Nothing in the public eye. Even Wheeler National Wilder Refuge, which is right
next to this site, thirty five thousand acres, not a single prairie.
Everything that's open they let farmers plant crops on. There's not a single bit
of prairie left on it. So this is like our first public prairie in
North Alabama. That's like an intact prayer in it that people can visit.
It's like four acres. It's like it's not big, but that's why it's
there. That's what a lot of our prairies are small like that in Alabama
because if it's if it's big, then it got turned into crop field.
Calipasher the Scott Savannai managed, which is one of my first sites, it's
like four to five acres and it's the same deal. It's you can't build
a house on it because it's next to a creek that floods. It's it's
not big enough to farm or cut hay on or put cattle on. Uh.
But yeah, that's that's the bummer is that it was our first public
prairie. TV has been great. They're gonna pay for signage and everything though.
They're oh excellent. Yeah, so that's probably won't happen again. No,
it's gonna be legit next. We're gonna have a good signage up and
um and I don't I don't want to fence the whole thing off. I
really would hate to do that because it takes away from the open prairie.
Look, right, we'll put up signs and make sure it doesn't happen.
That's so cool though, man, Yeah, that's so because I think I
can think of so many times that's happened to me at places I liked,
and I mean I wasn't you know, it wasn't making enough noise about them,
But and then just coming back and seeing it gone and being like so
fucking fund you know, and my god, that feeling like I can't do
anything. There's just this ship for brained attitude towards mowing and getting rid of
stuff. Yeah, but then there's a case where it's like, no,
it's never gonna happen again. This is there's like no tolerance for this,
and there's no it's so cool. Yeah, And I think that's just a
good example of like, if you see something cool in your area, like
that state land, like state managed land, they didn't know it was there,
so I mean I made them aware that that was there, and they
came out and helped burn this year when we burned it, and and you
were probably really calm and cool and yeah, and I think that goes a
lot. That goes a long way too, so that I mean, you
can you can make a difference in your area if you find something cool like
that, it's worth while, you know, pointed out to the rock people
and saying, hey, this should be this should be public prairie or something.
Yeah, or just look how cool is I remember there was a spot
I suck. God damn, I remember say. I think it was in
De Moine or something. It was like near a freeway on ramp and it
was lit up with salvia azarea and and and all these cool milkweeds and it
was just like neglected land that hadn't gotten mowed, you know. And I
was like, oh man, I mean I just passed through, but I
was like, that's so astonishing. There's this is here. It's yeah,
you know, like things could be different if maybe you know this should be
then that salvia is like somewhat rare in that area too. You can go
to Texas, it's not that rare, but in Iowa you barely ever see
in Illinois and yeah, and I was just I mean, it's someone there
could just be like, hey man, you know, even just put signs
up or like you know, reach out to finding who owns the land and
reach out to him. And it's It's what's crazy is when you find these
places. Is like everything had to align for this place to still be here
because we're a way out numbered by people who just don't give a crap,
like they could care less like mowing it down. That's like they wouldn't even
think twice about it. They think they're doing a good thing. Um.
That's what Jake and I were talking. That person's front yard I burned.
You know, all that lattress is coming up now, like it's like old
growth, pre species. I don't see around anymore. And I was talking
to him. I was like, man, what are the chances it's because
it's a huge estate, Like they got a really nice house on time the
ticks, and they've got it all fenced in. It looks really nice,
like like just looks like presidential, like really nice house upon the hill.
And I'm like, what are the chances that the person who built this house
here didn't turn this whole front area, like whole eight acres that are just
opened into a line, and wants the chances that the people who bought it
from him didn't turn it into a line. Um, It's just the things
just had to line up, yeah, for whatever reason, right, just
like some mistake of history if one. If if anybody else would have bought
this place, they would have immediately started mowing that as their front yard and
just had this huge lawn. And just like I thought they were. You
know, everybody in my area wants just a huge mode lawn. But where
does that come from? Man, that's the thing that does in my mind.
But yeah, but then by this mistake of history, you know,
there's a the parcels left and you can be you can you get a snapshot
into what it was like, yeah, and you can fight that shifting baselines
phenomenon. You know. Yeah, Yeah, that would uh, that'd been
a cool thing to talk about, like, you know, kill your lawn
like this is this is what happens if you don't put in a lawn,
if you you know, if this is just stuff that's been here for forever.
We might do a season two and they might they they're gonna do it
in DC or Atlanta. I'll try to see because that would be awesome if
you could come out for that, you know, would be great, that
be that'd be amazing. Atlanta would be a cool spot to do it.
And I see a lot of lawn was there. Yeah? Yeah, And
I've got some folks I can reach out to in that area. I spoke
at the Chattahoochee Nature Center over there. I think that's I think I said
that route. Um, but uh, there's yeah, there's a lot of
native plant. There's a native plant movement in Atlanta for sure. It's taken
off. Man. It's like it's I think it's a lot of stuff that
probably started during COVID And there's like you were doing when you were doing.
We're with Prairie Moon Nursery too at all. I've talked to them. They
with brownstone. Um uh they brownstones were all the seed that we collect in
Alabama and we just send to them and then they roundstone where they are is
that you're there Kentucky um, and so may have Kentucky eco type, but
um, you know, we send them Alabama eco type stuff. When they
have people from Alabama order they just send them to Alabama eco type and they
have like coastal Georgia eco type. They have Arkansas eco type. For anyone
listening, ego typees the same species with populations where it that were collected from.
Yeah, locally in that region. It's so weird, man, Like
the blazing I have some Blazing Star from like Prairie Moon and uh, because
I'd ever thought i'd find it in my area. And it bloomed like a
month and a half before, like the Wild the Wild Blazing Star or Latris
Spicada down the road from US is like just started to like show the top
blooms when I was leaving a couple days ago. Oh whoa, And the
other stuff bloomed like two months ago, like it was. It's Minnesota stuff.
It's already done. Oh yeah, because it's not a quicker it's not
a faster phenolog. That's because it's getting colder up there sooners. And I
think that's you know, ecotype is like there's so much you know, it
depends on species and stuff like that. There's so much to it. But
to me, that's why I feel better about using local stuff. It just
makes more sense. It's blooming when it's supposed to be blooming, and it's
it's like tens of thousands, if not more than that of years evolving in
that place. With that same thing with red maple grows, a main grows
in Florida, Like why would you plant I mean, could you plant main
trees in Florida? And there's maybe, but it's the ones that have involved
here are going to do better. You know. It's not something to be
a purest about, but it just makes more logical sense, you know.
And there's a conservation factor to it as well. I feel like if I
can grow that in my garden and Mike and it's thriving and making seeds,
I can share those seeds with other people in my area and then that's then
they have act system or where eco tide. Yeah, it's a I don't
know, I just feel better about it. Do you know what anything about
Native American seed in Texas? They do? They seems like they've got some
cool stuff. I've heard of them. Yeah, they saw that that selfie
um a floram. That white rosin weed too, which is cool, which
is like a Texas endemic like grows on these really thin soiled limestone prairies.
It's a it's and it's like a rough, mean ass selfium too. It's
like kind of scabbard. The filers are kind of like spikes on around the
flower head and it only gets like yate tall, but it's you could tell
it's most closely related to liciniatum, what compass plant which is like a big
you know, yeah, that's well, let's reminds me of like that daily
a folios so site in Alabama has that it's tansy rosin. Well you just
like, uh is it penatifido or something like that? Not familiar with I
want it's they they call it compass plant. Looks just like compass plant,
but it's different. It's not. It's the flat the like the leaves are
like longer. I think, um, are they really like sandpaper like too?
Yeah? Yeah, so that's such a cool Plato. Yeah, Bambert
Seed and Panhandle of Texas is a good one too, which I guess how
you're pretty far from the Panhandle, aren't you're Yeah, yeah, I'm like
Mexican border basically. But I go to West Texas too, which is remember
passing through like Junction that's where Native American Seed was. I think they're in
New bron Falls an hour or something. But it's cool. I wish it
was a directory for a lot of these native seed places. Yeah, I
know, And that's I mean even some of them, even those native seed
companies will be like if somebody calls them from somewhere else, they'll tell them
like yeah, you'd be better off by from these folks. They're pretty,
they don't stomp on each other's toes much. I think they're pretty pretty.
They get along pretty good. It seems like a pretty chill crowd. Yeah,
yeah, good stuff. I wanted. I wanted to do a video
a Native American seed and of the time, and they were like they were
entertaining, but like just you know, they saw the videos there, like
just don't you know, we're keep it PG. I'm like, yeah,
of course I would keep that, totally keep it PG. Man. I'm
not trying to give you guys like I'm surprised you even associated with me.
I don't want to give you guys bad pr I'll keep it, you know,
but I would. I would have done it, but I just haven't
had time. I've been just swamped with stuff to do. But um,
so you go, you would go out and collect seed for uh for round
stone? Yeah? And how would well they? I was just doing it
on our own, honestly. Jake and I've been collecting seeds for a couple
of years from like over one hundred species. He's even collected down at the
Piedmont of Alabama, which is a different eco top um, but uh,
Jake was like yeah, we're just like I think we just need to get
this up and go on. We can see clean all the seed and sell
it on our own. And then we went up to Kentucky for the Native
Plant or Native Eastern Native Grass and Posium and we got to tour round Stone
and I had told him. I was like, man, no, like
we need to get we need to ask round Stone if they He was like
na. And then we get there and he sees their place, He's like,
holy crap, man, these guys have got it going on. Like
you saw like an effort like like this, the seed cleaning, like the
amount of work that goes into that, the machinery that goes into that.
There they have like these little rice combines from Asia, like they're own tracks
and it's just different different size grades and each grate it's like five hundred bucks.
Like so you they have like hundreds of them. Like starting from scratches
be impossible, but they have these all these combines that they just they just
they'll get a brand new combine and just like cut it. They got a
brand new and I just started cutting on it with a with a settling torch
and just just changed it all up to make it work for native seeds.
Yeah, and where are they collecting from? Where they growing their own or
they yeah, they grow, they grow their own. They'll travel. They
even have like a wild land team with like that's who comes down to Alabama
and collects the seats we find, like we'll find pretty big fields of like
panic grass and east like we found like Nash's blue eyed grass. We found
a big field of that this year. And they came down with their combine
cut it um and and Jeremy up there was like, I think this is
gonna be like eight pounds of nashes, which Nashes is super small, super
small seed, and I was like, I don't know, I think it
would be more than that. I think. We came up there to Kentucky
to watch them clean itt and it was like over thirty pounds. Oh wow.
And this seed is like microscott like it's tiny, Like what does that
plant? How big does it get? It gets like maybe foot like blue
eyed grass, it's like a it's like an iris. I think, oh
okay, yeahs a rinki Yeah yeah yeah, and uh but that's a that's
a cool one. And so that's the actually the first time anybody's ever as
far as we know, combined or collected Nash's blue eyed grass and made it
available to the public. Like, yeah, that's amazing. So that's that's
a pretty It's it's crazy how that there's still such a paucity of sources for
a lot of these plants too, Like if people we experienced that do and
kill your lawn. It's like we having sourcing plants was we had to go
to backyard growers at the time, like just some dude who just was like,
yeah, I just liked this, so I started growing these and they
always had the coolest stuff, you know, I don't know, I think
so that's that's the thing I think they're you know, there needs to be
there needs to be like a ton of local nurseries, like in every little
physiographic region of each state. I feel like there should be a little nursery
dedicated to that area, like because that those are the folks who can do
it justice. Like if we try to get like lows and Home depot of
freaking search selling data plants, they're gonna screw it up. They're gonna screw
it. I think people should try still, but yeah, you're gonna be
getting, Yeah, you're gonna be getting those red maples from Maine that are
being shipped to Florida and it's skull fucked up and all over the place.
But the long term solution I think is like to have small, little local,
go top nurseries in each state. I mean, you can make a
great living off of that. Like it starts with the backyard grower. Yeah,
that's like the backbone on native plant movement. Some guy would just be
I mean that that's I've seen that so many times. Some dude just started
growing in his backyard. Maybe his wife in like that the fact that he
was doing it, or maybe it's you know, some random lay. There
was a lady in North Chicago and Evanston. We started on native planners.
You just started selling it like farmers markets, you know. But he just
someone starts doing it and they're like, I see this stuff. I really
like it. It makes me feel good. They start growing some stuff in
their backyard. They you know, a few years, they master it.
Now that's their backyards filled up. Now they're like, well, fuck,
got all open a nursery. You know. That's what we did. We
just started selling at farmers markets, and that's the crowd. Man. Like
you're selling to people who care. They like plant and stuff, they like
vegetables and stuff, but they might not know about natives. And so you're
you're selling native plants to people who might have not ever even heard of native
plants. But when you start telling them about it, they're it's just like
on board, you guys growing in tubes like paper tubes were grow and like
uh these like containers or like, um, they're like ten inch tubes that
are two inches around, and so you get these long tap roots. Uh
yeah, so you can you can plan them in the summer time ten times
as long as they are white, right, yeah, yeah, Like you
can plan them in like you use like a drill bit auger on a drill,
and then they're gonna be like you know, your tap roots gonna be
like deep down in the ground and get moisture even in the summer. So
but we were that was behind our house, and I didn't want the whole
internet no where I lives. We had we had to shut that down and
we're trying to hopefully find a location in But the point is anyone can do
this, Yeah, I mean anyone can just start collecting seeds and growing in
absolutely that's what I did. I collected local eco type seeds from roadsides for
a year. What we're using for soil, uh, Well, I had
like pine bark and um, you know they have like you have like pro
mix, but it's like pete moss based, right, and so you can
like mix your own like a lot of people use pine bark where we're at,
and and vixen sand compost. Right, you just need like a well
composted, pretty degraded organic material mixed with sand. And we're using pear light
or pummics or something or no no, no no, And just i'd had
a sprinkler on. Um, I just set it up in a square on
a black tarp and uh and I had a sprinkler in the middle that I
had a timer on. So it like it changed throughout the season, but
usually it'd be like fifteen minutes twice a day or something, and so like
it was hands free, like oh they got watered and um, you know
all I have to do is come and check on it and pull weeds and
maybe so your yeah, but your mix was just sand and yeah, like
pine bark, and we had the first year, we tried out some that
pro mix and it works really good. But then we ended up my actually,
my neighbor has a huge mound of of They used to have a horse
farm, Like the property they bought used to be a horse farm. When
I was a kid, we used to ride dirt by from this huge pile
of that, just horse crap and uh. And it was like a bunch
of bedding and stuff like that, like pine betting, and it's broke down
and so it's ten years of just compost. Oh my god. And so
like it's like, dude, it's like the deepest, richest brown um,
and it doesn't stink anymore. It's just like pure nitrogen. Yeah, so
we're we tried some of that the second year just because I don't like buying
all that Pete moss. Yeah it sucks, man, And you don't know
where it's coming from here. If they're like wrecking a bog in Canada.
Yeah, and so but the podart and around us, that's pretty rarely available.
So he just makes it with sand. Yeah. So it just depends
on the species. Like I'd cut it with stuff to try to just save
money. Um, you know, if like I don't like going out and
buying a bunch of it. If I can cut it with some of that
like stuff for my neighbors and save money on it, that's what I'll do.
But a lot of trial and error. So so are you doing I
mean, are you doing native habitat projects stuff pretty much full time? Now?
Yeah? I still do like consulting and prescribe burning, which I've always
done, and um, I just don't do the forestry stuff as much anymore.
And but yeah, just I mean I don't have time for anything else.
It's like, yeah, there were so many people asking me to come
you know, you know like visit places and uh, you know, working
with so many like round Stone and stuff like that. Just don't have enough
time to day. I still I still don't, honestly. Yeah, but
you got all your spots that you check on and keep tabs on and yeah,
and that's I love doing that. That's what I've done for forever,
and I did it for free for years. Just kind of feel so good,
man. It's like having a giant garden. Yeah, that's that's what
I told Keith. Keith Horne is the guy who was at Property, New
Illinois. I'm like man, I can't imagine being in your shoes right now,
Like you bought this place in two thousand, it's like twenty two,
twenty three years of this prairie. Like I can't imagine the feeling of sitting
back and seeing a property with over six hundred species. Now, yeah,
and it's all because he started. But the fucking sound and smell of it
too has got to be incredible, Like that's I mean, wolf rolled prairie
like that's and it's surrounded by office parks at a shopping center and fucking busy
roads. But being there and it's one of the most intoxicating feeling. It's
almost psychedelic feeling being there and like late August time and watching the sun go
down and you're like god, damn yea and all the all the bugs come
out, all the insects come out, like the cicadas come out. You
can hear it. It's just this, like your senses are just so pleasantly
assaulted. In the smell too, like all everything leaking out of those stomata
and the leaves, the prairie plants, and there's Helianthus cross the serratus.
It's like nine feet tall and just goddamn man, it's so nice. I
think it's ingrained in like if you've ever doubted that it like indigenous people burned.
When you burn for the first time, you're like, oh heck,
yeah, they burned like the like they were burning U And and I think
even like Europeans were burning back a long time ago. I think it's just
human like just instilled in humans to like enjoy a lot and stuff on fire.
So yeah, like that too. And we like open spaces and we
don't like ticks and all the other yeah crap that, yeah, but I
did. It drives me nice thinking about what some of those prairies must have
been, like man like they are the prairie is such an underappreciated ecosystem,
you know, it's god damn man. Yeah. I And and to think
that's play some of those places are still being destroyed and uh, you know,
that's what's crazy to me is like even places they know are prairies,
like they decide to destroy them, Like how are we're still making those decisions?
What kind of mentality? Man? It's like how disconnected and this oblivious
like Bellbow prairie Like that's that's that blows my mind. Right, that's insane.
For some reason, I got like my Facebook always pops up with like
Rockford, Illinois News. I never made it there, man. I had
people say hey, come come, and I was like, ah shit,
I can't. I mean, and then it was winter and I was just
like, I can't make it, and then it was gone. I didn't
think that was gonna go. Yeah. I didn't think it's gonna happen either,
because it's so obscene. It's like, it's twenty twenty three, why
are we still doing like this is fun? But anytime the Rockford News pops
up on my Facebook me, it's like the Rockford gets a new shopping center
or whatever. I'm just like, hey, what what about bell Bull Prairie?
Like ill I'm trying to slide shoppings that I just wondered too. Who
sees this stuff? I mean, and I've hated that that landscape of like
the just parking lots and retail for so long. And without being too negative
mount, I mean, I just wonder because I mean, even people that
had to go there for work or just to buy stuff whatever. People I
think think like it's it's in the zeitgeist of America that those places aren't really
nice places to be in. They're just a functional You go there to buy
stuff, you go, they're going to get the work or whatever. But
I think about who, you know, in an ideal world, we wouldn't
have places like that, Like that's not a parking lot is not an attractive
place to see, It's not an attractive place to be. Like why is
that? Why are we still building these places? Like why don't we find
a better way? Why are we still destroying these these places that should be
sacred? Yeah, for lack of a better word, to build that stuff.
You know, I can't I can't wrap my head around it. And
you know, like yeah, that's and then we're wasting space like to you
know, we're destroying prairies and Texas for solar yeah stuff Like I got photos
today of all these dug up cacti that people are trying to say a last
minute while the bulldozers are behind them, and it's insane to building solar farms.
Yeah, like hell accredible, we've got why are they not going up
above parking lots? But they'd also be providing shade for the cars so people
cool cool down the asphalt there, And I mean that's too logical. I
guess it doesn't make any I've only been in one place in the United States
where I've seen a part of a solar farm, like over a parking lot.
It was like in San Diego. Yea of all places I'm sure cuts
into their profits or something. I don't. I can't figure it out.
You think it would be something. I mean people watch shit, you know.
Yes, Yeah, it's just one of those things that seems so elementary.
Well to end it on a good note, I mean have you seen
have you seen a bunch of like launch killed native plant garden conversion type stuff?
I mean, where you've seen it start to pick up? Yeah,
people are seems like people have gotten interested in Ivan Klie this year. This
is the most people that I've ever been here like this is. This makes
me feel good, like being somewhere like this where there's so many people who
think like we do. Um, it's really promising. But you mean you
see people getting into it who aren't just like a typical Prius Subaru driver.
You know, I haven't seen any Priuses here on the talk about no,
but I mean people that would you know, people you wouldn't think who would
normally be and I'm gonna kill my lawn to put a native plant garden in.
Yeah, they've seen it tick up. Yeah, I've seen people putting,
you know, landscaping with natives and trying it seems like people are trying
their best, but um, you know the lawn thing that's gonna that's gonna.
Yeah. And I see a lot of people just letting their bermuda grass
grow up and thinking that's a good thing. And I'm like, like you're
now, you're just letting it go to seed and it's gonna wash down you
know, stream or whatever. Like it's it takes a little bit more than
that, Like you get it, that's in mind. And I just I
went in with the grass selective herbside and I've got you know, we're talking
about blue eyed grass earlier. I've got the really tiny one that's like,
I mean a couple inches tall, and I just haven't I let it go
to seed for the past couple of years in my front yard. It's gonna
be covered in that that's taking over and it's forming a ground. Yeah,
it's but it goes away after like it's already died back now. So it's
like getting taken over by other stuff now, Like but I've I'm introducing natives
and I'm using grass elective herbsides because I don't have any native grasses in my
front yard. It's all non native, and so I can just kill the
grasses and I'm I'm planning like strawberries and and uh green and gold. It's
like good ground cover mouse here, correy ops. It stays pretty low and
it's like an evergreen. So um, that's what I've been trying to do.
And I think that's going to take a lot of experiment and over the
years to see what natives really work well if you want to have something that's
short. Um. But there's also a case for maybe you don't need that
much low lawn, Like if you don't use this corner over here, or
why not you know, let it grow up and and you know, kill
the non native turf grasses there and replace it with native prairie species. I
feel like that's another movement. So there's a case for both getting rid of
your line and converting your line to native species that can handle the short you
know too, like just try it out, you know, come on,
just I mean, what do you think it is? An easy way to
get people. What do you think it's an easy end to that, because
I mean imagine if everyone did that, even like half the population did,
that would make a huge differ. It make a huge difference. That's the
life that would come back. That's our biggest crop in North America is turf
grass. That's crazy. You pass all these huge fields of you know,
agg fields, and then you think that we have more turf grass than anything
else. Like that's crazy. But that's where we can make a difference.
Like and it's just just education. You know, people need to you know,
know where to start. And I think it starts. That's why seed
needive like getting local ecotype seed available to people. That I think that's why
that's so important because that's where that's the easiest way to do it. You
know, kill a spot, make sure it's not going to come back,
and you know those invasive turf grasses, keep it. Make sure you're gonna
have to kill it a few times, so you know, I do.
I'd spray it a couple of times because you don't want to plant those seeds
in there and then it come up and all those non native grasss again.
But people just need to know where to start. And that's you know,
I think that's the best way to kill a spot. Plant seeds and uh,
you know, if you're in an area that has a lot of good
roadside stuff, go around and ethically, you know, go up to a
milkweed seedpot, open it up. You don't need all the seeds, Take
a few of them. The easiest thing, the easiest thing to collect.
It's yeah, and that's the way for somebody like black eyed seasons and and
it's so fun like to me going out and exploring and finding new things to
grow each year and add to your landscaping um and you're doing it a really
like you know, like what what's the what's the word like this? This
is like the purest form of conservation. I feel like like a person going
around the area, you know, a little corner of the road, a
little paralleline, collecting a few of those seeds and given that plant, uh
a place to grow on your property. And you think about milkweed, look
around if where I mean look at a map, where can milkweed seed land
where it's not going to get mode, where it's gonna get enough sunlight,
or it's gonna be able to germinate competition free in place, and it's not
get clear, so there's nowhere it's not gonna get grazed or plowed over.
Like look around everything's closed canopy your mode, Like, there's very few places.
So if you can collect those seeds and give it a place to grow
in your landscape, I feel like that's a great thing to do. And
to me, that's like real conservation work that everybody can do. Oh yeah,
and and even just collecting seeds, you don't need to have like pots
set up and try to grow it indoors and I'll just clear some stuff away,
you know, just clear. They just get a barrest patch of soil
you clear with like a sharp shooter, shovel or spray and let it you
know, five days later. So the seeds or whatever, just you give
them a you know, low competition spot to grow, they take off.
And I mean milkweeds are so easy to do that with two it's nice.
Yeah, if it's a native species down the road from you, you know
it's gonna grow good in your area. What do you get it? What's
the most common milk weed? Probably butterfly milk weed. Um, but we
got a lot is that two barrosa and we got we don't see common milk
weed much down our way, um, but we've got lots of them.
Uh green anaalope horn world milk weed. I think that's really cool. Yeah
yeah, and uh uh I discovered the state record off purple milk weed in
Alabama. So what species is it? I don't know. I'm guessing it's
probably sleepiest. Yeah, yeah, I was gonna name it, that's what
I name. Yeah. I discovered it in uh Atawall County a few years
back. Prairie or what ye, Savannah, savannah remnant. It's really cool.
A lot of a lot of other good stuff there too. I think
it's important to I mean, that's the thing. If you know, if
people are trying to do it, or if like say some kids is trying
to convince their parents to kill kill their lawn or even just a little patch
and plants something, that's the that ends up being a huge, like a
moment in itself like that, because he could show other people, by example,
you know, someone for it, the houses down or something'll see it
and be like, what's what's going on? Why are they doing that?
I actually looks kind of nice, you know, two three months down the
line you get Joe Pieweed or something, some big assa you know, beautiful
like the one you had like fifteen foot or something is so big right now.
Yeah, and it's like it's actually kind of nice. I like it.
It's covered in butterflies. I came up from work, or so much
of bees on it. It's actually pretty pleasant to see. It's maybe we'll
do that, you know. Yeah. Yeah. I had to cut that
one back this year, like, oh, I like some of it was
hanging over so much. I cut them. I cut the stalk, and
then the stalk you put out like four new stalks, and so it's gonna
be like flowers way up high flowers way. That's so cool. Imagine what
the roots that I must be, like, how how far out they go?
Kind of nervous is next to my house. I don't think it'll be
a problem. It'll be okay, but it's a man, it's the robbing.
Damn. I met a turkey call out of the out of it this
year. Really, you can make turkey calls out of at of like river
cane and they're just like they're like they're just like make a squeezer, just
taking a fibers and yeah, so I took it like a river cane mouthpiece
and I used a big part of a hollow joopieweed and put it on there,
and uh and it sounds good like, it sounds really good like.
But it's just just like a turkey butent. Yeah, that thing is.
That's such a cool plan. Man, there's so many good ones. It's
nuts. It's especially some of those cell fiums like portfoliate them in the Midwest
when they get like fifteen feet tall in a season. Man, yeah,
it's nuts. Or that that ambrosia, what's that? God trif at it.
I think it's a trifle anyway, it's just a ragweed. It's allergy
whatever. I like it. I like seeing it. A lot of ambrosias
can actually smell nice. But they can get upwards like twenty feet tall and
it's an annual. It's nuts. Yeah, it's fucking bonkers. Man,
it's so cool. It's just that was huge. Yeah, instant cars,
so yeah, that's and they those create ragweeds create a ton of seed,
yeah, a ton of seed for wildlife. Like uh, my buddies placed
down to the black Belt that I was deer hunting when we're down there burning.
He was riding around in his tractor and the bucket on the front of
his tractor was I guess hitting a bunch of ragweed we got like he stopped
back at the truck and the bucket was full of ragweed seeds. I'm talking
like that, like pounds, like you'd fill up like a trash, like
a fifty gallons of trash canful like um, and it just I guess when
he was hitting him and they just fell off the bucket. But um,
I was like, dad, gum, that's this is just a small portion
of the amount of seed that these ragweeds were dropping out here. And think
about how much food that is. That's when you realize that, Okay,
I see what this the role of this plant is. You know, when
it's not there, all that food's not there either. Yeah, yep,
that's crazyness and kind of connecting the dots for yeah, because it's weird.
I think, like, you know, I guess we'll wrap up soon.
But it's just like I was saying last night, I mean, people who
historically, culturally in our culture thought of plants just as always that esthetically pleased
or not. They don't think about all this other stuff, which is what
I think is really cool about what you do is you tie all this shit
together, you know, from an ecological perspective and be like, look this
is you know, you're you're bringing all this other life back. You know
you're providing. You know, you plant this, You're gonna have this.
It's not just about whether it looks nice or I mean it does look nice,
but yeah, you can have both, like you can, uh you
know, there's there's ways to have both, Like you know, you can
have wildlife and have a good look in the yard and uh, you know
it doesn't have to look messy, but maybe messy into't that bad. Like
I think that's a good place to start with. That's so subjective too,
Like messy, what is that? Even I don't like the supermanicured the daylilies
and the mulch and that it's gross. It's insane, man, it's like
a Monocu's still boring. It's yeah, I'll thrive, Like like that's why
I'm not like at coal. We here there's a lot of landscape designers and
I'm like, I'm not good at that at all because I want want,
Like I want to walk in the front portion, it'd be like wild,
it's I want to plan it dense. You want to start spilling out,
Yeah, you know, like a bunch of plants spilling out of a vase
or something. Just like you're like that, Joe Pieweed, like leaning over
it, like you know, it's like, God, damn, that thing
got big fast. And that's the funnest stuff to walk past too. It's
when you get all the pollinators and cool butterflies and insects and stuff. It's
just it's just it's a matter of a cultural shift to getting people to look
at things differently. But like, I never thought about it like that before.
That's actually kind of cool. I like that. Yeah, yeah,
And I think it's it's happening slowly, but it's happening. So yeah.
Well that's why I mean, folks like us keep pumping out videos and the
people are going to consume stuff. So if they're gonna keep consuming garbage on
the internet rather and consuming our garbage, make sure garbage is in there too.
Yeah right, right, man, Well, thanks a lot, good
talking to absolutely being able to do this, so yeah, good to finally
hang out in person. Yeah, man, for sure, all right brother,
all right, well thanks, that's not like I have a good rest
of you. Even go fuck you somebody,