Talking Florida Panhandle Plants in a Longleaf Pine Forest

Okay, there we go. You ready, Yeah, okay, welcome to
another episode of Crying Pays. But Boden, he doesn't podcast. I'm here
with my friend Lily Bird Lily and a semestic and we're in uh, we're
in the Western Panhandle, what fucking county? And you know what county is?
Oh? I should look, I should know for sure, but I
don't even matter. We're in the cut. There's not there's no cell service
here. It's really nice and there's no bugs out, which is blowing my
mind. But that's okay because I got I spent the last four days getting
murked by chiggers and then ticks and oh god, it was brutal, but
we saw some really nice sandhill habitat. Anyway, we're sitting here drinking near
beers and a pinus pollustrous forest, watching lightning bugs go off and uh yeah
they're so high man. That one is like high up in a cannedy.
I'm canopy. It's like I'm confusing it with stars. This is a very
pleasant Florida experience. I didn't think it would be like this. I'll be
honest with you. I kind of don't want anybody else to know about it.
They're not gonna know where it is, you know. Yeah, people
think it's all moccasins and alligators and mosquitoes and tweakers. Don't know how beautiful
it is that Ron the SANTISI is pampered penis how old? He's only like
forty three? I don't know that young. Really, he looks like a
fucking ventriloquist. I don't know. I don't even want to talk about.
I gotta I gotta shit at him a little bit. You gotta be a
little bit of negativity's starting off? Um, oh do you hear that?
Cootes man? So this used to be there were red wolves lurking around.
Yeah, I was. I saw a bad earlier. Yeah, this is
such a pleasant Florida experience. Man in the Panhandle. I had no idea.
And thank you to your husband Connor for letting me take these clogs that
I'm wearing now, which are so nice, because my boots are covered in
poison ivy and they're wet from that ball we went into. And my fucking
feet look like well, why would you describe my feet? My ankles?
They look like a smallpox victims, it does. It looks like a really
bad venereal disease. Said, my ankles have a herpie's upbreak. That's the
worst I've ever had sugars before. We've both got them really bad. I
hadn't had them this bad in a long time. But you saw them on
your phone, which was nuts. I've never actually seen them before. How
often I noticed that they're in the area because I set my phone down when
I'm doing whatever I'm doing, and then I pick it up with the black
screen and I see the little red bugs crawling over it. They're very miniscule,
smaller than the size of a pin head. Yeah, I've just seen
it come true. But there's the oh yeah, there's a lot of fucking
stars. I didn't think you. Oh my god, the fireflies are blowing
my mind. I rarely see those anymore. Man, It's really it's really
How does it feel drinking tasting a non alcoholic beer. It's weird, It's
surreal. It's been a long time. How long you've been sober? Oh,
don't ask me that. I don't even know. I got seven years
in July. I'm fucking okay, I'm stalked. You know, it's been
over fifteen years. It's like California sober for meatle because I still do psychedelics
and like once in a blue moon some pat Yeah, but certainly not any
fucking booze that there was a hindrance. But uh, anyway, so what
is a substrate that we rubbering? Not everybody what the substrate is on it?
This this stuff that we're shitting on it. Yeah, well, this
this spot is kind of interesting, like it's kind of in between a sandhill
and a clay hill because there's quite a bit of clay in the substrate,
but also sandum and red clay. Yeah, that red clay you saw,
so I guess we'd be this is more clay hill. Um. So you
know how it is with habitats, it's hard to use one term for each
one is slightly unique, you know. But yes, we have dominant long
leaf pine over story. Um. We have a variety of shrubby you know,
undergrowth here and there, some plocos rracacious stuff that viburnum, all kinds
of There was ernamsm haw what's it called possum? Possum? What's a haw?
You know how it is usually hot orne like critagus. For some reason,
that one is called a possum, the southern stuff. You know,
this was this is so new to me, man, I've been in deserts
for so long. Is this is but this is kind of like you got
an arid thing going on here. Yeah, I think, yeah, we
have these because of the an immense amount of sand, you know, deposits
in different areas. You have really well drained areas that are dry and arid
and hot and sunny. So no, it's slightly more moisture in the air.
That's sight we were at today. That was, Oh god, that
was nice. The sand that yeah, oh my god, with the little
what do you call it? A steep ravine, steep ravine, steeped ravine,
And you get that because you've got sand on top of bedrock. You
got like what twenty thirty feet of sand. Yeah, the water's got a
percolate through that one hits that bedrock, then runs out laterally and comes out
of that hill at an angle rather than eroding from the top. So that
creates a very steep I use the hose analogy, right, like if you're
spraying hose from the top of a pile of sland, versus sticking the hose
in the pile and then sticking it out halfway up. But I had no
idea that was a thing though. So it creates ravines with a big bowl
shape end like an amphitheater, right, but but super fucking steep and very
steep because the because it's a roading mid slope, the upper part, the
sandy upper layer above the mid slopes caves in and creates these extremely steep ravine
slopes because of the gem are literally almost vertical because of the sand on top
of the limestone. Correct, And where that's the whole region here, like
where those are, those are not common and in fact, that's why you
know, we're talking about the ranges of a certain endemic Florida endemics the other
day, and and I said, kept saying, like all of these endemics
that are on the eastern side of the Appalachicola River. And it's because those
steep head ravines primarily occur almost only on the eastern side of the Appalachicola River,
and they create with that steep, you know, ravine slope, it
creates this micro climate where it's cooler and moister, and that's where the indigo
snakes spun spund of summer. Yeah, they spend their hot summers down in
the ravines. And then where the where do all the copper heads and Eastern
diamondbacks. The copper heads are typically in the ravines as well, or in
the swampy you know, floodplains, and then the diamond backs are up in
the sandhills. They're up tops like where we were ye with the tortoises too,
gophrist polyphemous, yeah, gopher tortoise. So there's this whole. It's
it's so weird to see this plank of me because I was not I had
no idea, you know, yeah, I mean I knew there was sandy
sites because I knew about that crimaria. I remember, yeah, Brandon Quarter
posting that thing, which was weird to see a fucking cromaria out here,
because that's a desert plant. That's to you. It is, well,
yeah, I mean all the other species I've seen from neuvo leon to fucking
Chile, the out of Coma to however, many are in California and Arizona.
Yeah, totally. It's yeah, well we have scrub which is like
desert like right, well, that's where it can exist. And yeah,
these arid micro sites because I mean, driving along the ten, you see
all this thick forest, you know, and you're like, what the fuck,
there's no way. But then there's cactus and we saw that a stragglest
velosis. And yeah, only that was a great fine too. Yeah,
because that's not common at all. Only two a stragglest species in Florida.
Yeah, but uh, what else? What else are we say? Oh?
Yeah, the conrad Deena. Tell everybody about the conrad Lina. So
we saw we've seen two Conradina. The first one you saw, Conradina connessnce,
is somewhat common in the dryer sandyear sites. Um, the one we
saw today is you know, Conradina connessnce is all along the Gulf coastal plain.
But Conradina glabra, which we saw today, Appalachicola wild rosemary only occurs
in a fairly narrow region in the Florida Panhandle. So it's a Florida endemic.
And it, um, it looks a lot like Conradina connessance, but
it's glabrous rather than slightly you know, fairy. But these shrubs, I
mean, these are like shrub mints that smell like rosemary. Rosemary too literally
have much finer needle like leaves, and they got four statements instead of two
like most salvious And yeah, they smelled to me like a cross between lavender
and rosemary, because there's like hints of lavender in there. Um. But
they smell amazing. They just smell delightful. But neither one is that common
though, huh, because is somewhat common along the coast, I would say
the the glabra is pretty much isolated to these inland prehistoric dunes. You know
how many Floridians think you think know about the genus Conradina that you got like
a native I mean rosemary. Yeah, I don't know. They're the Ceratiola
that you were looking at. Also in the book, um that is also
called rosemary. And I think a lot of Floridians probably know that there's like
Florida rosemary. Yeah, but they probably don't know the difference between either of
those. It just seems it just seems like there's I mean, again,
this is the whole thing, like spending so long in California before you know,
before I dipped out where there's a big native plant movement, like every
fucking town's got like a native plant society. It feels like yeah, and
then out out where I live and then here it's just like there's no there's
and I understand why there's not much, because there's just not much habitat leth
Like it seems like I don't see many sandals, like because that's probably where
all the good land was, where ship would get built exactly. But god,
it was cool that fucking loop and blew my mind. Man, that
loop and that Lionia lupinus. The thing I've noticed about the loopins here we
got eight looping species right, oh yeah, two of them are not named
still, so they're undescribed. Where are they in the peninsula, like like
central Peninsula? What um? I'm I can't tell you exactly where they are?
Yeah, probably Lake Willes. We like it like it's classified. You
can't tell me. You can't tell me, it's like that, or like
you just don't know. No, I don't know for sure exactly where the
undescribed species are with their ranges. I'd have to look it up to know
for sure. But they must be recent. They must have a small range
if they're undescribed though, Yeah, and they're all they all grow in full
exposure sites, right, like full sun, like I don't know, lupenz
Yeah, alls grow in full sun. Yeah. See, it's so weird.
It's so fucking weird to see these genera that I'm familiar with out west,
you know, full exposure genera, full sun, you know, often
very you know, arizonum, kind of glaucous, and then see them here
in the southeast. That's so cool to me. And I like that.
Ariagadam, Yeah, fucking buckwheat. Ariagadam told and told the things incredible bright
green leaves up top and then that that you know, dense white on the
underside. Yeah, I know, I'm sorry. I probably something like a
jackass now, but I'm just like, oh my god, you know,
I just because I love I love dry Lambodni, I love ari lambody.
It's so fucking cool to see. But I love the bog, I love
the absolutely. Yeah. But I don't know something about the the exposed site.
So this, this site we were at today is dependent on fire to
keep the oaks down, right, to keep Yeah, so these sandhills,
um, what happens if because you know, we know now from dendricological records
that they would have experienced fire on a one to three year return interval,
So fired wood spread throughout the majority of the landscape of Florida on a one
to three year interval, with you know, different little regions you know,
not necessarily were experienced. This wasn't even natives burn. It's just like the
peak lightning season. May I mean, if I lived there, I'd be
sitting shit a frail of time because I like it open like that. But
so what happens when you know, you know, white people came basically yeah,
and uh, you know, suppressed fire because they saw these trees as
valuable resources that they wanted to take and they didn't want it to burn up.
And so rather, you know, they stopped wildfires, prevented wildfires.
And then once a sandhill experiences suppression from wildfires from a certain for a certain
period of time, the oaks begin to pop up and spread into the sandhills.
And the oaks do not burn readily, they don't carry the fire across
the landscape, and they also shade out all of the herbaceous species of grasses
that we were there to really grasses that carry them. Do you notice it's
so fucking dark out that that plane that went over, like I could see
the light reflecting off. Yeah, that's insane. That's that's that's that's never
happened me before. That's been kind of close. But anyway, so okay,
So the oaks we primarily saw were Quercus and cana Quercus levis, Quircus
geminata, that one with the Quircus margarette. I don't think I remember you
mentioned iteminatus. The white family one that we saw, geminata is my favorite
though, because it's got that white and dumentum the white velvet on the underside.
But anyway, so those those come in and shade out if you don't
get the fire, and so what carries the fire throughout these through like where
fire grass? The aristida what's what's the full what's the full name? Well,
there are many aristed a species that the most common one is aristed A
stricta in the upland sandhills um and so yeah, the wiregrass is the staple,
like one of the keystone species, along with a long leaf because it's
I mean, and you know, ecologists now consider sandhills and long leaf pine
sand hills essentially to be savannahs because they're mostly grass and herbs with a few
trees they should be originally a few trees spread out, you know, in
large you know, large spaces. Not you should be able to I remember
reading like it from an old riding from early colonists. They could ride through
these long leaf pine sandhills on their horses, like at a full speed because
it was so open. Jesus. Yeah, it was just open. And
you can look back at photos of this old photos of the long leaf pine
sandhills and see how open it was with these big old long leaf It's so
nice. It's such a nice yeah. But so anyhow, Yeah, the
wiregrass is the main tell people, but we should describe it too. It's
a bunch grass with like a three to four foot tall inflorescence, right,
these kind of about inch long ons that poke out when they're um in flower.
Yeah, it looks beautiful. It's a really pretty grass. And when
the when the wind picks up when it's blooming in them some spring, summer
and fall, it's the wind like you know, moves across and creates these
undulating waves and the wiregrass it's really beautiful. God, that sounds incredible.
Man, I can't believe we're seeing fireflies in a forest right now. But
it's like a it's like a but this is really like as issue. Yeah,
it's not a dense forest. There's like thirty feet between the much healthier
and the Western Panhandle here, which is where we are is is has just
has a much better fire um program regime. Most they're actively burning out of
the burn they've been burning for a longer period of time and just been more
on top of it than the area that I live in. So how did
they figure it out? I mean, well, the reason that they burned
better over here is because we're near an air Force base that has DoD money
to pay a cologist and botanists you know too, and burners to have a
really that Eggland Air Force Base has a really good burn regime, and this
state force that we're in now, like near it benefits from it because they
the same cruise come out here to burn. But when did people first you
were telling me this yesterday. Why did people first figure out the fire was
so important? There was in the thirties, right, Yeah, it was
Henry Beadle brought Stoddard down because it was a quail plantation that was the quail
populations were plummeting and he wanted to know why all these rich Northerners would come
down to these plantations in the south the hunt quail. The quail were decreasing
because they were suppressing fire. And when you suppress fire again we mentioned,
you lose the herbaceous species. Those are the species that all the wildlife depends
on. I mean not all of them, but most of them. You
know, they need the grasses and forbes, they need all of those plants
in order to feed them and also feed the insects that feed them. And
so Stoddard figured that out and they started burning, you know, in the
forties. I think I could be off on the correct decade, but it's
it's um it took a long time for you know, our federal government to
like take that and take that scientific data and actually put it to use.
So why because well, there's that, but I think also just to inherent
like danger of prescribed fire and allowing fire to take off, especially out west.
As you know, when you suppress fire for a long period of time,
the fuel load increases and then when it does burn, it burns too
hot and too asked and dangerous. Right, you got to come through clean
everything out every So a regular good fire maintenance prevents the fuel load from overburdening
the ecosystem so that when it does burn, you know, if it hasn't
burned in too long, it can become the fire can get out of hand
and burn so hot that it might even kill some of the trees. M
Right, that's some Kyle Libarger's talking about Native Habitat project at the time it's
doing in Alabama. He'll go out to go out some like landowner's property and
just be like, hey, you want you want to you know, I'll
explain it though you want me to burn it. They're like okay. He
goes and does control burns and uh and then films it later on and watches
all this cool shit come back. Yeah, but it's not some of the
some of the ship we were driving by, we just looked like hell,
like it was just so so thick. I mean nothing not no animal would
want to go through there, you know, like that like that spot,
Yeah, there's nothing in there. That spot we went yesterday where we saw
that that conrad zina and a cool looping and the lyonia. Yeah, and
then we saw that sand pine scrub that hadn't burned in so long, right,
and it was, and the only reason that was cleared was because there's
a power line there. It's not like, yeah, a power line and
a firebreak that they had cleared and right, yeah, so yeah, So
that's one of the reason why a lot of our wildflowers are relegated to roadsides
because the roadsides are mowed, and the mowing mimics what fired us for the
landscape, which is take out there, the woody plants take out the competition,
right, And I should say that, like, you know, I'm
talking about fire in Florida. All of these you know, practices and like
recommendations as fire return are not the same, and fire seasonality is different in
every right, and it's it's much different here because it's so fucking human all
the time too. Yeah, It's it's not like you know, doing seasonal
burns and Nevada or something where it's like it's yeah, I mean they still
it's still important to do out west, but it's it's much you know,
there's a lot more to look out for. You really gotta be Yeah,
I don't know the fire ecology out west. I just know in Florida,
you know, you need to burn in the growing season. It's like April
May June, and I mean that's ideal. That doesn't always happen. And
then depending on the habitat, you know, it's like one to ten years
or so. Jesus Christ, I just saw a fucking fireflight. It stay
lit for the whole time. It looked like someone was carrying a flashlight.
Oh my god, that was creepy to freak me out for a man,
I was like, damn, it's someone. I got that Oakland mentality.
So someone's running up on us. You know, you don't sleep, you
know, any opportunity someone's gonna come rob your ship. Hold it. I'm
yeah, I think like they stay lit. I'd be curious as to what
it's just. It's cool because I've never seen I mean I remember seeing fireflies
like like over lawns in like a park, you know that ever in a
forest like never in especially God, it's so incredible. This is such a
cool ecosystem, man, Yeah, it is, really it doesn't It just
feel good too. It just feels like it feels good. It smells good.
It's yeah, like your body, and it feels it's super safe too.
That's the thing. Like I've never got it. One like city people
get freaked out, you know, like people who don't think I understand it.
But I think that's really sad because it's you know, they have so
little experience with it and they've just had all of these When I first started
doing this shit, like ten fifteen years ago, I got free. I
was always you know, and then the soon I realized, the more I
did it, I was like, Fuck, I feel so safe out here
compared to Yeah, but you grew up like in a suburb. Basically,
yeah, I grew up. I grew up like thirty minutes outside of Chicago.
I could ride my bike to Chicago. I did. That was how
I got back and forth because I didn't have a car. Thought it was
like twenty five, but it was. It was you know, it was
like an older suburb, so it was right on the train tracks, and
it had like it wasn't cold to section, you know what I mean.
If you could we could ride our bikes around, you could walk around,
You could get around easy. Was built for walking, you know, which
was which was cool. But uh, look at this firefly right here by
us. It's coming right for us. That's probably a different species than the
one that I've seen. Stays up. Oh my gosh, that's so cool.
Yeah, I want I want to get a photo of that later document.
I don't know if you can get a photo of that. I mean,
how are you going to get a photo of that? I find them
when they post have enough exposure, you can get like a oh you gotta
flash. You gotta built if you gotta built in flash and you're you're rubbel
but uh but yeah, no, I mean when I first started coming out
to these places, I was you know, we had fire frillies in my
backyard when I was a kid, and I remember we would catch them in
jars and look at them. But yeah, I spent a lot of time
outside when I was a kid. My parents were very anti TV, so
um, yeah, I think I think I felt comfortable being outside by myself.
But I mean definitely benefited from that and in the ability to just go
somewhere and wander into the woods, which I see the hesitancy with people I
friends with, I like, take them off and they want to stick to
your trail, and I'm like, I don't. I just always just walk
something, you know, where it's clear, where right, and walk right.
I mean, well, growing up, we would hang out we would
like hang on on the train tracks or like industrial areas and stuff, you
know, shit like that. Those were the places where we wouldn't get bothered,
like you know, power line easements. But there wasn't really anything like
the forest reserves in Chicago are all over run with invasive buckthorn, like they're
fucked up. There's the ticks are horrible too, because the deer are so
bad and no one haunts them and all the predators are gone. So you
walk off trail for like two feet, you know, you get worked by
ticks. But I I mean I stopped living at I stopped living at my
mom's house when I was like thirteen. That's when I got sent away,
and then I didn't. I lived there for two more years from when I
was like fifteen to seventeen. Then I left Chicago when I was seventeen,
and then I was, oh, you left at Sea and I was going
to school in the city by Chicago Avenue, Chicago Avenue in Auguen, like
on the nearer northwest side, which was all industrial. Now it's all like
you know, expensive condos and ship but that time it was still like there
were still a band of warehouses and the train tracks and ship I was probably
like sixteen fifteen. Yeah, so that was you know, but it was
just different. I mean, and you when you live in a city too,
you've got that constant roar, that like subtle roar, Like you don't
realize that you've got tonightus until you come to a place where it's peaceful.
Yeah, it's fucking brutal, man. But um, okay, so then
the bog. Let's talk about the You didn't call it a ball, you
call it a wet slope. No, no, no. Where we were
yesterday with all the taxodium oh um. Oh yeah, that was a cypress
swamp essentially or cypress Yeah, I mean, I guess kind of a cypress
dome. But although it doesn't have the dome shape because they're all dwarf.
Yeah, but it's like if to me, it parts of it felt like
parts of Monterey, California, like by the coast. Yeah, when you
go through that, because you've got the Pinus radiata, you've got radiata pine.
We're the only the only place that Radiata pines actually native. It's planted
all over the world. It's invasive in the southern hemisphere. But uh,
yeah. So it was a dwarf cypress swamp that we were in yesterday,
right, but it's but then it's like open too. There was pines too.
There was like this flat woods, right, wet flat woods, that's
what you call it. And that was Pinus eliatia yep. And there was
also Pinus rottina pine pond pine that we saw in there too, but no
Pinus classa that was that was more that wouldn't be the dry areas, right,
sand fine, and that's the one that dies every whenever it has a
complete standard replacement, complete standard replacement, and the just reseves it. Stuff
like the like the California cypresses. Do I think the cones only open?
You know? They require fire to like seratinous? Yes, God, that's
Cyprus, that cypress said. Yeah, I can't believe that was the first
time you saw camera Cyprus. Yeah. Yeah, I've seen it plenty of
time. I've grown up before. But camera Cyperus diorite is the Atlantic white
sears. Yes, it's what a stately tree mean. Yeah, it's beautiful,
it smells good. It's got that like beautiful blue color to those flat
its great scales, tiny fucking cones got a nice money shut out of megastrobol
tones. Yeah, it's a beautiful species, and hopefully tomorrow we'll get to
see some real nice big ones along these creeks out here. In two species
of Marella formerly miraca, the wax myrtle. Yeah, we could have seen
more if we had tried. But yeah, we saw Marilla carolynina or I
can't it's Carolinia something. And then Marilla serifera, the common one. But
we also have Marilla pumeila pumila. Those have nitrogen fects in bacteria in the
roots, you know, the frankie. And then what we should we should
try to see tomorrow. There's Marilla in a in o'dora out here, which
is a really weird one that grows on the creeks. It's really Jesus lovely.
There's so much What was the other Seratiola? You said, well,
we see that that that's a menu. Yeah, we gotta go to the
coast. That's Seratiola, Eric Cordis. Yeah, God, there's so much
cool. I was looking through that Rare Plants of Georgia book too, yeah,
which had a bunch of good ship that I had no idea genera I've
never heard of before, gaylu Sacchi. No, you've really overlooked the East
Coast. Oh I haven't. I just haven't been here. Was trying to
get you out here. It's as far away as you can get from where
I've spent the last twenty years of my life. I want to North Carolina
in twenty nineteen for five days for a friend's wedding. But uh, yeah,
what the fuck? What else? Oh we saw that closes? Oh
yeah? Or a camporum, which is a it's a it's a dupe orchid.
It dupes bees. There's no reward offered. It dupes them into thinking
that there is. They call into Yeah, they check and see, they're
thinking there's pollen in there, and then they realize there's not. They got
to back out of that narrow clo right exactly. Yeah, except not on
that one because said that orchid always reminds me of an upa loompa. Really
why, because it's got there's like three pedals, you know, oh,
the three rear s. Yeah, it's it's just something about the way they
curl back. It looks like theopa like curls the three Okay, well that's
a bit of a stretch. It I get you, I get you.
I understand orchid that we're talking about that grows in these boggy areas. And
we just saw another terrestrial orchid that also grows in these boggy areass a calipoga.
No, it's Pogonia afio glossites right this spot which we only got the
lurk on for twenty minutes before it got dark. But that was that was
fucking nice. We saw pinguicula what pinguicula was it? That was Primula flora
a butterworth, the carnivorous rosette of sticky leaves, not even why they're sticky,
but they're not like they're not like the drossers like, uh, they're
mucilaginous, right, yes, yeah, and they catch little little tiny invertebrates.
And then there was what was the other was forget nutricularia there too,
Yeah, mutricularia subulator. Think it's just that's staying lit. That fireflies just
staying lit too. You hear that cricket? No, I don't know.
You can't hear that. God, I'm so fucking how can you tolerate me
for this long? How long we've been rolling together? Like four days?
Yeah? I haven't gotten on your nerves yet. No, No, you're
fine. I mean it's that you are flow. There was one or two
times I got on your nerves probably maybe I just I gotta get I mean
this is all new to me though. Yeah, yeah, so I was,
especially the chiggers. Was struggling with the twiggers. I mean, I
have to admit you did get really fucked up by chiggers. I mean,
so did I. But I took Bena dril. I thought you got more
fucked up when we first got up, because I was like, you got
on my beadroll. I knew I was gonna go que no, but but
they didn't get that many on my Now, oh god, I found a
tick on my nuts too, fun a tick on my nuts. I mean
i've I mean I don't have nuts on my thigh, Yeah, on my
thigh, on my knee. I usually get him on like on my neck.
Now I got chiggers in my belly button, God damn it. But
at anyway, that first day I saw you had him, I was like,
oh, I didn't get them because I sprayed my pants and permethrin.
But then they just went under. They went to my fucking ankles. Mark
the shit on my ankles. God, they're so terrible, man, you
can't see them. There's nothing you can do. Yeah, and they're they're
in all the cool spots, like the sand hills where that croton was that
nice croton arganthumus. Yeah, that thing's amazing. I've seen a lot of
crotons in my life eupour bias, but that was one of my That's one
of my favorites. Probably those orange scales, yeah, because it's just such
a nice color, man. Yeah, it's real common in the sand hill.
Doesn't get that big. It's got the mint green on it at the
orange scales. Yeah. Stylingia aquatica because I was I just thought of Styleingia
aquatica too, because the same family, it's got the female flowers in the
bottom and the moniches with the male flowers of top. That is just such
a killer plant. Stylingia aquatica. The color of that is just But that's
dominant in the swamps too, and that's nuts because I don't know if I
would say dominant, but it's there's a fucking lot of it though in those
open areas right where it looks like they take from this non alcoholic beer and
a beers Like I was hanging out with a railroad or friend of mine in
a San Antonio like two months ago, and I drank like four of those
at once and it just felt gross. I don't know why. I guess.
I mean, I drink like four carbonated waters too, but it's all
bad for you. I should have just been drinking water. But um.
Yeah, Stone Aquatica looking beautiful, that lime green color. But that's not
because I've seen a lot of stylingias. Yeah, that's what Matt said when
he came here in the dry areas, like mind growing on sand I just
saw one on the sandsheet. Yeah, it was just like, how the
fuck does that happen? How does something too, which is up in these
sandhills and Clay Hill. So yeah, but yeah, just to see one
that evolves to yeah that swamp. That swamp last night was so beautiful.
I'm so that's so cool. They got that tower. You could sit up
on that tower, and you got to land unities, and you got the
USNEA, liking that it's named after. In these trees that are probably eight
hundred years old but only ten feet tall, and like you know, some
of them are even shorter. In the areas where they think the bedrock is
closer to the surface, they get even short. Yeah, they're just dwarfed,
and there they flange out at the base like an hourglass, like drastically,
like not just like all all the techs sodium kind of buttress at the
base, but these were like hourglass. Yeah, they're beautiful. It's really
fun to walk through one of those dwarf cypress swamps. What was the styrax
that was there? That was a grand of folius, grand styx, grand
folius um. Yeah, it occurs in the swamps out here, in the
wet flatwood. And then that weird fracsin is too the waters an aquatic ash
which Rob Nazi believes is undescribed species. Rob Nazi, Yes, he's the
botanist of the New York Botanical Garden, and he's um the person who you
know, described and you know, differentiated our Saracinia rosia, which was lump
shooting start. Oh my gosh, oh wow. So maybe Chinese satellite.
You know, it could be trash, It could be space trash. I
knew. I used to know a punk rocker name Rob Noxious. Well,
so Rob okay, stop making fun of his name. He's a well I'm
not making fun of his name. I just said rob in ac Zi,
but it's he says, it's pronounced Nazi unfortunately, which I'm sure he doesn't
love rob noxious name. Okay, he was a good man. He's an
incredible botanist and a really great guy. And he um noticed that our Saracenia,
which was lumped in with Perpoia, was very different than the perpoia that
occurs further north, all the way up into Canada, and ours um is
a different species. And and so he was instrumental and and describing that species.
And then the naturally occurring hybrid between Saracenia rosie that's a species that he,
you know, helped describe and Saracenia flava is now called Saracenia nazi I,
after him, his honor. Yeah, but it doesn't look like you
know, Nazii. It looks how does he suppose the nam in a czi
sz Oh, Yeah, that's cool. So but it's probably most closely related
to the one that was formerly lumped in with It's probably Yeah, it looks
a lot like perpyria. But the flower, the flower escapes are much shorter
than Perporea, and the flower petals are rosy pinkish as opposed to like the
red of the Saracena propria. And then there are other differences with the leaves
as well. It's so weird to think about how these populations shift, like
how how illeal frequency shifts in these populations and they end up just eventually specia.
Yeah. And then but then of course there's you know the classic where
do you draw the line between species? And yeah, I mean it's a
fine line in some cases, it's still happening all around it, right,
Yeah, of course, And that's that's like the that's the crucial understanding with
any of this stuff. It's like, you know, we're still just bipedal
apes trying to wrap our heads around how all this stuff works and put it
into boxes and it doesn't want to go there. Um, So, what's
up with the diversity in Saracenian down here? Yeah, So Florida has the
most Saracenia diversity of anywhere in the world. So we have several species.
We have Rosia citacina, the parrot. So I'll name them and give the
common names for all the newbies. So we have Saracena rosia, the golf
picture plant, Saracinia citacina, the parrot picture plant, Saracenia flava, the
yellow picture plant, Saracenia luca phila, the white top picture plant, and
then Saracenia rubra of our golf fensis. I can't remember the common name for
that one. And then we also have Saracenia alabamensis as well, which is
so that's six species. How do they diff How do all these things differ?
There's some that are low growing there. Yeah, there's a variety of
differences between them. But what's really super cool and why so many people obsess
over Saracenia, and my opinion is because they hybridize so readily. They're a
very slutty genus, and they create all of these incredible They create all these
incredible naturally occurring hybrids. They cross and then they bat cross again, and
it's like you get all of these weirdos, all of all different shapes and
sizes and colors, and it's just really a charismatic genus, I think,
and it eats insects. They got a lot of tricks up their sleeve.
They do they do all, you know, I don't know about that.
They got like hidden alleles, hidden hidden genetic tools in a back that could
pull out, you know, and swap up when they do the whole genetic
recombination thing. So Lucophila is here, yeah, and then there was flavor
was that big fucker, Yeah, the big three feet tall, and ours
is um. So there are many different Many people grow and collect Saracenia species,
and a lot of the collectors and growers have named these different forms as
varieties. But weekly you know, who's flora I use? He says that
there's not there's not enough differentiation between them. And also if you grow them
from seed, they don't come true from seeds, so he doesn't recognize the
forms or varieties. He just calls him form. So it's kind of like
astrophytem and that there's a lot of a ship ton of variation. There grow
thousands, you grow a thousand seeds, a whole bunch of weird hip popping
up. Yeah. So our Saracenya flaida has that have that red throat at
the base of its hood, you know, and so some people call it
the cutthroat pitcher plant. But the Saracena flava that occur in the Carolinas are
pure lime green like all green. Jeesus. But yeah, and we also
saw saracenias. Have seen a little low growing one down there as well,
but Luca phile is probably it's quite showing, pretty very shows. You got
that white tie on a full moon. Tell everybody about the moth. You've
seen the moth you would tell me about that's over there with about the obligate
moth. So there's a extra moth. It's felled e x y r A.
And there are several or a handful of species of extra moth and they
are saraceny obligates. So they host on Saraceni and the moth goes inside the
picture plant tube. It lays its eggs down in there. The caterpillars hatch
in the tube and then they begin to eat the interior part of the wall.
It kind of skeletonizes the leaf. So the tubes, the pitchers are
modified leaves that form these tubes, and then they produce digestive enzymes um down
at the base. Yeah, and they have downward pointing hairs on the interior
of the tube that once in vertebrate goes in it, it's hard to get
back out, and then it ends up falling into those digestive fluids and the
plant digestive down at the base. But this moth has evolved with the species
and it, I mean, it's very well protected from predators down in there,
you know. And so the caterpillars eat, they don't go all the
way down to the base, and then they eat and then they pupate in
there, and then the moth spends most spends the day inside. The adult
moths in the day inside the tube. And so sometimes if you'll if you
see a tube with some insect damage on the wall of the tube, you
can peer in and you'll see these little extra moths and they're yellow and black,
just a small about an inch long moth and um. Yeah, and
then sometimes they come out and fly at night. I assume they fly at
night because they're always in the tubes during the time. It's so cool.
Yeah, I wonder if they do any I wonder what kinds of pollination they
doing. Yeah, that would be really interesting. That night blooming road a
dendron here, huh's not night but white, but it's white and pollinated probably
by moss. Yeah, does it Oh yeah, definitely. It doesn't start
releasing scent at night or does it smell good? Old I think it smells
good most during the day too. Yeah, so it probably has a you
know, regular moth day day. Flying moths also pollinated, and maybe butterflies
too. I mean it's got a long floral tube though. Yeah, Jesus.
And then that is scleepiest too. We should talk about that another sandy
bit. Yeah, that is just the scleepiest human strata. So that's got
a four foot taper what you said it can Yeah, and you've seen that
because guys were those when they were winding. Yeah, I've dug them forum
when they were widening a highway. I've dug and relocated them. Um.
And you have to dig straight down. It's wild. And is it like
a like a thick thick Oh, it's thick like Um, it's a thick
root thick tapper and it tapers out. It's a thick tapper. It's like
a carrot, you know, Jesus. And then but it goes it stays
thick in these it kind of separates into thinner sections the further you go down.
Um. But yeah, that makes it incredibly resistant to drought and the
resistant to fire, which is you know regularly it should be occurring in those
sandhills. Long lived, Yeah, and it's a very long lived plant.
It would be so cool if we could figure out how long how old one
of those plants are, But there's no great way. Some guy rolled me
in steady was growing it. Yeah, it can be grown, it's especially
if you're growing from seed. Planting in directly where you want it to grow,
you can grow it. But growing it in pots you have to have
long tubular pots because that tap root, it forms a really long tap root
before it hardly has any leaves. Yeah, so it'll grow like, you
know, a foot and half long tap root, but they're only it's only
like an inch hot tall above ground, so it's and then also it's a
long it's a slow growing plant. So growers, you know, they have
to charge a lot for it because it's taken them a long time to grow
it. And then people balk when you tell them it's twenty five bugs for
this tiny little these four leaves. That's the best thing to do then is
just so the seed seed years some clear someome grown, and it definitely requires
sandy soil. If you do not have well drained sandy soils, then it's
just gonna peeter out and die. The leaves on that are is fucking beautiful.
Leaves are almost more pretty than that, Yeah, I would say so
till they're like rubbery waxy you can like wipe the wax off them. Green
with pink venation. They're kind of like I was thinking, like almost purple.
Some of them were purple. Yeah, some of them are purple too.
If there's there's a lot of variation in them between individuals, and some
of them have green leaves with white veins, and some of them have kind
of purplish leaves with pink veins, and then some of the flowers are white
on those like you know, green right, like to pink yellowish cream cold.
Well. Yeah, as the flower ages, it turns like this yellowy
cream color. Once it's finned fertilized, they smell fucking incredible, like like
all milkweed flowers do, all milkweed humbles. Yeah, And they get all
sorts of cool insects on them. And the leaves are huge till they're like
four inches five inches a couple inches wide at least God that was so cool.
And then they light those those stems lay prostrate on the ground. Sound,
and then the tips of the stem kind of leans up in the flowers
are at the tips of it. What are some other rare milkweeds you get
there, Well, we're right near Sclepius rubra, so that's pretty rare in
Florida. Um. And then yeah, we have twenty one native species of
milkweed in Florida, and we have two endemic species um. Yeah, so
endemics. We have Esclepius fai the Florida milkweed are fairy milkweed, and we
have Esclepias curtisii, which is also a scrub endemic. They're both central like
peninsular Florida endemics. God, I gotta get down the central That sounds incredible.
Now that's definitely your jam. That Lake Wales, the Lake Wales,
it's beautiful. Yeah. The ridge that's all the bunch of the xeric stuff
or what. Yeah, that's where all the xeric scrub plants are. Goddamn,
it's so cool. You know, is there's Lupinus velocis grown on there.
It does that thing, that thing was not as common. I don't
know how far down it goes. How many of the lupins here do that
where they've got that that quasi uniform leaf with the two Yeah, most are
like that. In fact, Um, it's just the parentis that isn't I've
never seen that before, so they I mean, yeah, they must all
have the same common ancestor. Yeah, or they've just adapted, I mean
similar you know pressures, we would the adapt the benefit being losing No,
I don't, I don't know, but who knows. You know, it
was cool though, it was cool to see. I saw it. I
just thought it was only a one leaf. Then you look at the base
and you've got these two vestigial leaves, these two little ones lift. Yeah,
the which we that that one that we saw? Which one one of
them had more vistigial leaves than the other. I can't remember if westy Ana's
had less vestigial leaves on west end because I pulled some leaves off the west
Enus and I couldn't find really hardly any Are there any oaks that actually stay
scrub oaks here that don't get very big? Um? Yeah, well we
have the like Quircus Eliotti. I Quircus minimum, which are only get a
few like a foot to a foot and a half tall, because like murder
Folia, we saw it as a scrub oak. But that'll get bigger,
yes, insane with bigger Geminata too. Oh, gemin on I can become
like a tree, for sure, A huge tree. Not huge. It's
usually because it's in full sun and sandy soil, you know, but it
doesn't get huge, but it can be. I think it can get big
in the right conditions. Well, I guess we should talk about that fucking
X subisidium too, because that was so that was so weird. We saw
that at that Jonathan Dickinson spot further souths just north of four Lauderdale. Yeah,
but this that was I mean it was the same species in same host
species, but it didn't. These were fucking massive. Man, these look
like I think they are just the flowers. I think the fungus just hijacks
the flowers and hypertrophies. And yeah, because they look like floral structures,
like they look like like an ai rendition of I guess because one of them
looked like a rose. It had like multiple pedals. It kind of still
looks like an eric casey flower, but just you know, I don't know.
I've seen crazy shapes on it of Exobacidium. It looks like an eric
flowered fetal alcohol syndrome kind of. You know, it's just and I think
that's all it does. It just hyper I think they can hypertrophy, which
is just caused like a drastic increase in the size of the cells. Um.
I think they can hypertrophy leaves too, but I think they mostly do
it the flowers. And it was at the distal end of these branches where
the flowers would be. Yeah, but it was nuts. Got I was.
You're out to him like, is it wait, is it kitan?
Is it like fungal tissue or is it plant tissue? Is it cellulose or
I don't know. Yeah, I have no idea. I cut one up.
But you could see spores on it though, Yeah, you definitely could.
That was so fucking cool man. You should probably explain to people.
Oh yeah, okay, So there's the there's this plant Lionia for Eugenia,
which is uh the genus land is an eric cacy. Uh. It's got
woody capsule fruits. I've seen it in the cloud forests of Dominican Republic.
There's like three or four species up there. There's a bunch, there's a
bunch in the southeast, right, and each species of Lionia. Well that
first off. Then you got this genus Exobisidium, which is another genus.
It's like extremely species rich also in Asia. It's a fungus. Yeah,
and it's a parasite on members of eric Hayles, specifically members of the family
eric Cacy, not just the higher taxonomic level of order eric Hayley's um plocos
Tinctoria, which is in eric chals has a species of Exobsidium on it.
But this species Exobasidium perusini is named after this Lionius species species of right.
And but they all do that. They all create these like kind of conspicuous
structures. Some resemble flowers, some resemble they're just like brighter colored than the
leaves of the host plant looking and fleshy look, and so insects land on
them and then pick up spores, and it's just basically a way to get
insect you know, get insects to disperse your spores for you. But but
these structures we sell, yes, they were the size of a baseball,
right. Yeah, they were fucking huge, and they were like these really
weird pink rubbery bigger even on Lionia before. They were so weird and just
so funky looking. Yeah, and like genuinely trying to resemble a flower,
like that's the thing. That's why I'm one of them looked like a rose.
Yeah. It was crazy from a distance. I mean, you know,
it tricks people all the time. I've had people send me photos asking
like what is this flower on this plant? Yeah? Yeah, I would
I would love to. I would love to like sit with the mycologists and
look at that thing under a microscope, you know, like have them yeah,
check it out about it? I just and I wonder how it does
it too, Like how does it hijack the cells and the program them the
hypertrophy and does it does it cause like does it does it put hyphae in
there? I wonder too. You know, it doesn't seem like it.
I think it just causes the cells to get all fucked up. Yeah,
but does it only like is it systemic in the plant? I wonder it's
just an end of fight? Yeah, I mean, because none of these
plants look sick, right, I mean, it doesn't look like it's knocking
them back. It just like grows on where the insect that carries the spoor
lands I guess right, And it doesn't produce an overwhelming amount of these fruiting
bodies on one planet. It's like another shooting two or three. It's space
trash. We got so much trash up there now, you know, think
of all that, the fucking stupid shit we put up there, man,
all the garbage. How long you think it's gonna beat though, some jack
off tries to put a fucking billboard up there now. But we need to
end billionaires right now. We should shot. We just start shaming them.
We should just start publicly executing. I can't sit on a podcast. They're
gonna, they're gonna, they're gonna take it away from me. They need
to be ashamed of themselves, like they could be doing so much and they're
hoarding. Yeah, it's disgusting, it's discussing. It's that was like we
need like an intervention like show like Hoarders, but for billionaires. People should
be people should be as uncomfortable with the idea of billionaires as they are about
people sleeping and shitting on the street. It's so sick. It's no one
needs that much money. No, we can go on this, We could
stay on this wing for a while. This is fine. It's I just
feel like so many people we've been brainwashed to like idolize them in they're sick,
sick people. Like anybody who has them amount of wealth is I feel
like sociopathic and isn't using like ninety percent of it to take care of their
their people, their community, their their their planet. That's a fucking mental
illness. And you gotta look at it. I mean, you gotta look
at it like this too, Like we're fucking we're monkeys. I mean we
are. We're just we're fresh into this shit, you know, in terms
in the great perspective and in the overall context of geologic deep time. We're
fresh into this consciousness shit. And so we don't for someone to have that
much money and power, Yeah, when they're just a fucking ape like the
rest of us, it's gonna live eighty ninety years at best, is fucking
deranged, you know, so deranged. And the fact that the idea that
people believe that they could have had some sort of special uniqueness that or something
that they earned it, you know, like these people did not earn it,
They didn't work any harder, they're not any smart, or they're just
you know, lucky, or are they inherited like Jeff Bez enough to rich
and so it's just so yeah, I just hope everybody who's listening to this
realizes. I think most people probably, I mean, what type of fucking
mark looks at that sort of wonder who looks at people like really amazing if
you think back like ten years ago, everybody thought Elon Muss was like a
prodigy, and then you realize human, arrogant, he fucking says, dumb
shit, he spends all this time, you know it just't it reminds me
so much of that that like, um, that children's story about the Emperor
having no clothes. You know, do you? Did you ever? I
mean, I know that I know what that's about, but I don't I
never read the children's stories like this this, you know, con man Um,
I don't know close clothyar you know somebody who like so is clothes,
et cetera. He comes and he says, I I have this the finest
you know, cloth that has ever been seen, and only like the smartest
people or whatever can see it. And of course you can see how beautiful
it is, dear king, right, you know. And so the emperor
is like, yes, make me. He pretends like he can see it,
of course because he's a mark, and so he's like, make me
make me robes with this cloth. Oh, because he's a circle fue.
Yes, yes, he's like. And so he the guy fools him into
buying this expensive nothing, you know, and the Emperor thinks he's putting on
these finery clothes that he can't see because he's not smart enough or whatever.
And then he parades through the town naked, and everybody's and pretending like they
can see the clothes because they're all buying into this whole story. And then
some little kid is like, the Emperor, I saw it. Man.
That reminds me that when you said people just pretending to, you know,
to kiss this guy. That made me think of this time that when I
was working for the railroad, and I was in Sparks and the Sparks Yard
like Sparks, Nevada and the Reno, and these fucking railroad managers were like
the hot shot, main bloated pig like railroad CEO or whatever fuck was coming
to town, like they had this special train form and shit, and all
these managers, these fucking pigs, like dressed like used car salesman with the
kekis and you know what I like in cologne and just and they were all
kind of acting like that. It was so fucking gross to see grown men
behaving like just that total sycophant stuff. You know that. I mean people
have been doing that for thousands of years, of course, but still it's
like, you like to think people have the potential, you know, for
individualism and critical thinking skills and standing up for what they believe in and you
know, saying no to people and not being afraid of conference, even you
know, just diplomatic conference, just you know, disagreeing with someone. But
uh, yeah, anyway, I forgot how we got to talk about this,
but I will say these fireflies, it does look kind of creepy,
like when you're standing a hundred yards back and you see this light moving through
the yeah, coming towards you. I love it. It's fucking cool,
but I've just I've never seen whatever species this is. I see the ones
that light up and then go out, light up and then go out this
These they lit for five or six six seconds. I'd be really curious to
find out what species they are. Yeah, I think there are more than
one out here, right, but the ones that stay lit, Yeah,
that kind of the kind of I really want to see. The Like there's
a species in Thailand that like, they all are synchronized, so they all
light up at the same time, and so they like they just like,
um, do you want another night? Oh I'm still working online over here,
but thank you. Um, they all light up and just so it
goes from like bright and completely lit in this golden glow to complete blackness and
then back and forth and back and forth. That sounds like have you seen
it before videos? Yeah, there are videos on YouTube you can see,
but I could see. How does someone see that and just be like we
need to build a fucking shopping center here. No, I don't think anybody
sees that. But it's like a slow it's a slow cross. I know,
I know, but it's just it's that even makes it all the more
ship For brain. It's just like, what what would you guys do that?
You like, what did you do? Like you had all this wonderful
shit and you got rid of it and built like the dumbest garbage. Like
I remember, you know, I was telling you about that botanist Ingus Skulson
from this region for from that the Terreya region Chattah, Yeah, Leatrisi.
Lauren Anderson named that species after him. I read this remembrances of like people
along the applectrical river and he's there's a quote from him talking about, you
know, the loss of them, the loss of so many species and the
loss of so much beautiful habitat, and he said, we just took it
all for granted. And I think that's just the case, Like we always
think that there will be nature somewhere else to enjoy, and we think that
we can just keep taking piece by piece by piece. Yeah, it's just
ship for brain nothing. But you know what is like startling to think about
it. I think if you took a lot of the more educated people from
that day and transplanted them to like the ship we drove through forty minutes ago
to get here, and showed it to him where it's just endless oceans of
asphalt and that fucking stucco in glass, just the most banal, mindless bullshit.
That is what most of America looks like they would be fucking so bummed
out. Yeah, I mean even if they're probably you know, we probably
have a lot of you know, difference of opinion on things otherwise, but
they would probably see this and be like, no one who's intelligence sees the
American landscape today and thinks it looks good like the human built American landscape,
Like no one. I mean, I think some people, I mean probably
some people, but fucking a man, you got that's the point, is
it? Yeah, But it's you're talking about shifting baselines like those people would
like. That's the thing. It's it's it's we're like frogs being slowly boiled,
you know. It's like we the little incremental changes we can't see,
you know, but big changes we can. My point is they may not
even care about nature like the people from back in the day. They might
not even care for it. Maybe they think Jesus put it all here for
us. Maybe they think there's just an intermediate space. But they would still
see the ship we've built today like the arcrum, you know, landscape illustration,
and be like, what the fuck this is hideous? This is ugly
a sin Like you guys don't even try to make your buildings look, you
know, look nice at all. You don't. There's no ornamentation, you
don't try to make them. You compare architecture from Cross America. Yeah,
the same strip malls. You could be anywhere, stuck a rectangles and glass
windows and then asphalt and like plastic cartoon logo. Sick capitalism if you want
to get into I don't really want to get into that. But yeah,
I mean everyone knows. I mean, yeah, it's but anyhow, back
to plants. I like shitting on this every every because it's such a fucking
I know, no, man, I think just people don't well, yeah,
I mean there's just I would say. I don't want to dwell in
the negativity though, you know, like, oh you could do it if
it's mix it with humor, it's fine. You know, you're like letting
it actually bumm me out, because I mean bombs me out. But I
also know it's not gonna It can't last forever. There's no fucking way,
you know, I mean, I don't why, and I'll go down,
you know, I'll go down screaming and you know, cursing at it and
lapping my ass off and praying for it's the mise like I'm not. Yeah,
you know, I got a thick skin with some things, you know,
very sensitive underneath. Though. Well, yeah, organize everyone out there,
get get organized or just yeah, I mean I don't know, I
don't even know about that again you know again that organized organized or like organized
criminally organized, criminally around it. You know, we don't, we don't.
We don't run for office, we don't go protest. We find the
criminal answer cares about nature. We need people like you in our representing us
in our political system, so please, oh my god. Yeah, it's
terrible. I'd rather I'd rather drink my own piss every day straight for ten
years. Well, some people are cut out for that kind of work and
have the drive. I couldn't last in academia. I couldn't last and curl
jelly, but that I wouldn't Why you couldn't pay me to be around those
kinds of people? No offense, no offense, I just you know what
I mean that running for office? I mean you and you would like to
hang out with me, so there you go. Yeah, no you could
do it. You're like, you're like the friend I would bring with me
to like, you know, you if I had to like go into some
sort of formal professional building and like I needed like a friend, you know,
a more adult friend to hold my hand and walk me through the process.
You know. Yeah, I'm sure there are listeners out there that might
be interested, and I encourage you, if you're listening, to do it,
because we need more people who care about nature and understand ecology to be
in our government. I mean, we just need more people in general too,
because it's so fucking cool. It's just just this giant puzzle you're putting.
You're putting together the pieces. You're understanding how it all functions and how
it works and informing a basis of you know, that's what it does for
me, Like I figure out where I fit into all of it by assessing
the things around me and just becoming fascinated with them and getting an understanding.
And it was that was what got me down this road. I was realizing
I didn't know shit. I had no idea how any of this stuff worked.
I had no idea why the rocks and the fucking railroad road cuts were
wavy like that. I had no idea why certain animals were out at night,
why certain flowers looked the way they did. Why certain nothing? You
know, how old the earth was? None of that, and so you
know, it was like the original origin story and that's what I mean,
just that would and that that was the real world too, right, like
the ship, the ship that we grow up and that's not real. It's
just human make believe it's recent. You know, I've been around a few
hundred years, so I don't know, ble annyway, is there anything else
you want to talk about or what? No, this is good for now.
I think that's it. I'm cold. I got to get a sweater.
I want to just enjoy the stars, man, because I wish those
fireflies didn't taper off. They're only out at dusk and then they could sto
cold or one about that, I guess. So, I don't know.
I'm still seeing a few here and there, but not nearly as many as
we did original does Coyotes sounded funny too. They don't sound like Western coyotes,
man, it sounded like a stray dog or like, I mean,
they could be dogs. They're definitely straight hunting dogs that get left out all.
I mean, that's how I ended up with three dogs. Yeah,
So you're gonna get two or three more. Maybe, I don't know.
So people take them out hunting. What are they hunting? They hunt,
you know, hog whatever, and then they just leave their dog their dogs.
It's well, you know, if the dog doesn't come when called,
or if the dog something happens to the dog and they don't come, um,
you know, then they get abandoned. And then a lot of people,
I think, you know, they view these dogs as tools and not
as like members of their families. So it's like, oh, I left
my hammer, I'll just get a new one. Yeah, I guess.
I mean, I don't know, but but dogs get lost all the time,
and I end up. You know, you see a lot of straight
dogs. I mean, and I think in most rural areas in the South
you see a lot of straight yeah dogs. Yeah. The Burden of a
Southern Future. That was a song by some shit new punk band I Forget
Forget anyway. All right, Well, Lily, thanks a lot. I
appreciate that being down to do this. Yeah, all right, all right,
all right, goodbye everybody, goodbye, go fuck us bye.