[Music] Hello and welcome to the Nature Connection Science Wildlife and Environment Radio with your hosts Lisa and Nancy. [Music] Hey everybody, welcome to Big Blend Radio's fourth Friday Nature Connection. This is a show we do in collaboration with our friend Margot Carrera who's an amazing nature photographer. I encourage you to go to our website if you go to CarreraFineArtGallery.com you can also find her under Margot Carrera on Etsy. Beautiful work and in all kinds of beautiful pictures that you can buy and then also of course obviously pictures. She's a photographer but scarves and all kinds of amazing gifts so I want to give a shout out to her on that. But today we're really excited to be welcoming two guests both ladies are ecologists and authors, Adrian Edwards and Rachel Schleiger. They're the authors of the new book that's out through Timber Press, "Fire Escaping Your Home", a manual for readiness in wildfire country. Nancy and I've been through wildfires on sadly as we travel the country full time on our "Love Your Parks" tour. We're also dealing with a lot of issues with parks that have been on fire most recently, Sequoia Kings Canyon National Parks and Sequoia National Forest have been ones. And now like today as we're recording this, Mojave National Preserve is on fire. So you know when we think about oh fire scaping for your home why are these two ecologists coming on our show? What does that have to do with nature? A whole bunch. So let's first welcome back Margot. Margot, how are you doing in San Diego? Do you have a beautiful day? It is gorgeous today and I am really into this talk because I had a similar child event where we had to evacuate our home in LA from the big big fire in the 50s was there and then I recently was in the fire in Napa when Northern California was on fire. So I'm I'm rare and they hear what you girls have to say. Yes, excellent. I think we've all been through them then. I know Rachel has for sure. Rachel's Liger is a plant ecologist and she specializes in restoration ecology. Definitely she went through the campfire in 2018 and you know you go through this evacuation and you said you mentioned this in the book that you know you get this guilt afterwards too and you can't let go how it just changes your entire life when you go through a wildfire. So welcome Rachel. How are you? I'm doing good. Thank you. Yes, the guilt is very, very much real, especially in fires that take pretty much everything from almost every single person and you feel guilty to have anything left over. Yeah, I know when Nancy and I went through the fires in the mountains seven in a year and a half, major evacuations, friends losing homes. I was photographing their the destruction of the homes for insurance purposes and it just was and we survived. We were okay and we lost all these bed and breakfast. It was a bread and breakfast capital of California or least Southern California and it was so unreal and it just everybody started to look at how they, you know, what plants. I mean, people had Vinka and then we're like, oh, we shouldn't be having Vinka but it's such a beautiful purple flower. All these things changed and as you know, but I also want to bring your co-author Adrian Edwards on the show, Dr. Edwards. She's a botanist, a plant ecologist, garden designer, environmental consultant and a teacher. So welcome, Adrian. How are you? I am doing very fine. We are so pleased to be with you today and looking forward to our conversations. Absolutely. So you both lecture and work at California State University in Chico. Is that where you both met? Yes. Yeah. Cool. Awesome. And I want to go back to you Rachel on this. Was it the campfire that led you to go, okay, I got to do more. That post after something happens, you have to do something. You know, we were doing fundraising for you. I think you went to what can we do to not, you know, have homes burned down. Yeah, absolutely. It's actually, you know, a pretty interesting story. So yes, I went through the campfire. My family and I evacuated. We had to take dirt roads to escape. You know, it was, it was a really, really interesting experience. And yeah, not anything I would wish on anybody, but nonetheless, I, even before that, my husband works in fire mapping. And right now he actually has a team who's mapping the Mojave Desert fire right now. And so he's been working in this world for about 15 years now. And since he's been working in this world, I was noticing, wow, he's gone so much more now and he's gone longer now. And I just had so many questions because I grew up in California. I grew up in the mountains of California. And I've been, you know, preached about fires by every single fire fire that we saw every single year for every single field trip. I feel like we went to the fire station and learned. But I had never seen one. I had never experienced one. And through him, I was experiencing all of this. And I was like, wow, is there something changing? What is going on? And so I started doing research. And I was like, nobody's learning about this. There's so much that there is to know about fire ecology, fire science, fire history, in our state, in the Western US, in the US in general and globally. Nobody's nobody's teaching about this. There's no curriculum for this. So I actually got to be in my bonnet before the campfire and was like, I want to teach a fire science class. And so I got an opportunity through Butte College, because I teach at CSU Chico and Butte College, our local community college. And they were like, yeah, do it. So I started designing it and really it was months later that the campfire happened. I had already been on this journey. And then after the campfire, I was like, I need to get this class in place. I need to do this. And so I was working on that. And then I also was trying to think about what to do with my yard. Although our house survived, our yard was completely burnt. For the most part, most of the stuff in our defensive space closest to the house, all those plants, pretty much were untouched. But the rest of our two acres completely burned up. Oh, yeah, yeah, and I was talking to Adrian about this because I was like, okay, I'm looking for some information, information about creating safe defensive space. But also about supporting my habitat because I abut pretty much just national forest where my property is. And so I wanted to balance those two things. And I was like, I cannot find any book that talks about both of these things. And the amazing woman that she is, she was like, let's do this. That's awesome. That's awesome. And because it's really a big deal when we went through the fires too. You know, they were telling people like, don't put hoses on your roof. That doesn't do anything but that actually saved a friend's house. And I mean, I remember driving up to Julian through Ramona and the San Pasquale Valley and seeing like one part where the road, like where the burn was happening on one side and the other side had all this cactus and it saved that part. You know, so we've, and I've seen that even on banner grade going down from Julian down into Ann's Barrago. And then after the fire that we saw plants that hadn't, you know, one had seen for years, like, I mean, decades. So it was kind of like this whole other like, Oh, this is exciting. But that's why I want to get to the nature connection part because it was like, yeah, everyone thinks you should be on our home and garden show, which I agree. So we'll put you on that channel too. But the nature connection part, Adrian, can you fill us in on that part of that real big deal because I mean, things are getting hotter too, right? So doesn't climate change have to do with this and also about not taking care, like habitat. I mean, in the book, I actually copied and pasted it says, putting gold for fire readiness and habitat health together. If we don't take care of the habitat, is that part of why we have so many wildfires and then also if we're not taking care of the have like real natural habitat in our backyards is that also hurting us with our homes. So much so, and there's so much to unpack there. Sorry, everyone. No, I get it. There are so, I mean, we all live in different kinds of habitats. And the first step really, if you're going to live in the wildland urban interface up in the hills up in places that a but naturalized or natural areas, you need to understand those habitats a little bit better. So there's a lot of stuff in the news about how, oh, we're not thinning our forests enough. We're not, you know, we need to slash and burn. But the way that different habitats should be treated differs depending on where you live in the Mojave, part of the reason that some of those places are burning so extensively is because of invasive species that are sort of growing in the intervening places where there used to be bare ground, bare ground is not fuel. And so those fires are being carried more easily and they're more destructive than they used to be. And then, of course, you mentioned climate change, climate change is complicated. It's not just a warming planet. And, you know, warmer temperatures at during the day and at night, but it's also going to lead to more extensive droughts and more extensive or catastrophic flooding. So things are a little topsy-turvy, right? But you have to start with understanding the wildland environment. And if we all want to move to these beautiful places, the last thing we need to do is destroy them and punch holes in them like Swiss cheese to make defensible space. And so this was something that really motivated Rachel and I to write this book because we're so passionate about wanting to protect the incredible biodiversity that we have here in the Pacific Coast region in Western US. I was just going to say, I love pointing out that native species are part of this big solution for our problems now, because I always noticed when, while we travel full time, so we don't have our own gardens anymore, but when we did. Well, the least of the nurseries, we always noticed that here's your one table of native plants and they all look called drinking sick. And then here's these beautiful ornamental plants all over the whole nursery that are in bloom and look really enticing. And I was wondering, you know, okay, native plants probably don't like to be potted, or, you know, nobody really thought much about taking care of them in some of the nurseries. You know, and, and so, you know, I always found like if you bought a native plant. It would take two to three weeks before it would be ritualize itself and then start to grow again. But many of you heard then like some of the ornamentals, you know, but still, you know, there's still beautiful and I understand the value of native plants in a landscape. Absolutely. And part of the problem is that the entire greenhouse industry and I actually have years of experience just working in wholesale nurseries in my in my sorted past right so we know how to cultivate plants that live in humid environments. And those are the ones that mostly end up in our landscapes and Southern California. There's probably a little bit more use of succulents than in more northern areas. But for something to be drought tolerant, the best choice you can make is a native plant that evolved with the climate in your region. And so part of the problem with the nursery industry is that there's just not enough production of native plants. We know how to do it now. We know how to grow them now. You just need slightly different soil mixes. And you need to plant at the proper time. But once those plants are established, they are incredibly drought tolerant and yet they hold moisture in the leaves with minimal watering. I wanted to touch on that with getting native plants. One thing, you know, we've noticed too is for getting them. A lot of times botanical gardens will be the ones where you when they have a plant sale that you can go and get them. Nature centers even, but the native plant part of it. It's a lot of the people buy them in box stores buy plants. And the box stores thing is really, you've got to be careful. And because if I remember when we lived in the high desert up in Mojave in 29 palms right outside Joshua Tree National Park, you'd go to a box store. And it would say, Oh, this is for the desert. Oh, but it actually would work for the low desert. That was just 50 miles down the road. But it would not live in the high desert where we were Palm Springs. Sure. High desert. Absolutely not. And so they just went like one desert is the desert and we did show all the same some growers for the major week. And we saw the underbelly. Let's just put it that way that wasn't that pleasant. And I really want people to understand the importance of going to local nurseries and supporting them because the big guys are coming after the little guys in that and buy them out just like what happens to bookstores and don't want to get all negative on this stuff. But don't start me. That's a whole other show. But you know what I'm talking about. Absolutely. Yeah. And I am guilty of occasionally buying plants from the big box stores. But if the big box stores, they are actually receiving random shipments that may also include invasive species like a press broom or a private because they just say send us a bucketload of plants that are in season and look good. And that's what the wholesaler send right to what Nancy was saying. Yep. Exactly. This is perfect. And you buy what's in bloom not even not even what's budding. You know, I'm like always buy it. The buds are closed yet. They haven't opened. Right. But you know, there's the small nurseries. Those are people who are working. I mean, blood, sweat and tears in it. And they have an affinity for the exact environment you're in. They love them. There's demonstration gardens. There's just so much you can do a demonstration gardens and communities are. I mean, as we document parks and public lands as we travel the country, Margot sent us on a garden tour. And you know, it's like she's going, we have to now start saving gardens too. And then we realize she's really right. And then it's gone into now we also have to look at demonstration gardens and these little pocket gardens. And it's something that ties back to your book and something we talk about on the show all the time is about habitat health and restoration. And not having so much concrete, not all the rocks and everything people put in their gardens about actually making these gardens flourish with the right habitat. So we don't have dead zones. Dead zones are fuel for fire from what I understand in your books. You talk about that where, you know, everybody just starts. Let's put gravel down Nancy's favorite, right? I'm being sarcastic. I know Nancy is going to go off there. But if you all gravel does heat. I mean, that's what we learned very quickly about the desert. Everybody started grappling everything. Oh, they got so hot. Yeah. Yeah. Damages and soil. And if I could, if I could jump in on two things. There's so much to talk about here. And I'm so excited. But another problem with purchasing from big box stores that are getting these plants from these massive wholesale nurseries is that many of them are treated with systemic pesticides. That so maybe the first year or so that they're blooming, they could contain toxins to pollinators. And as you probably well know, we have a pollinator apocalypse right now where compared to 50 years ago, we've seen up to a 70% reduction in the numbers of some pollinators. And for example, our western bumblebee used to be ubiquitous in most of the western US and it has now become rare. Wow. So that's another concern is sort of a hidden caution about where you purchase your plants, you know, local nursery growers who are growing natives understand their plants and they usually understand the pollinators and the interactions that they can provide the services that they provide in the environment. One thing we've seen that's really amazing is going into parks, parks and public lands, whether they're state, like small park park park park park parks or nature centers. They really do teach about native plants and have demonstrations showing you what you can do and I really encourage people to seek them out. But we're seeing more and more. I mean, we really travel this country and I'm not kidding. I mean, it's kind of ridiculous what we do. But we, you know, the Midwest, I, you know, I always think about what has happened with the Dust Bowl, right, wasn't that a big lesson for us. And now, you know, of course, and they had mass agriculture, which is just like in the Central Valley of California. And, and Southern, like, Southwest Arizona goes through this too. So this mass monocrop style agriculture brings in strong pests. And then, of course, here comes the pesticides, right. And I remember driving, you know, from San Diego to Tucson, where we lived at 1.2. Now, that's why we travel and seeing those crop dusters and I'm like, are we still doing that? Apparently we are going holy cow. I wonder why I cough all the time. So, you know, but going up to the Midwest lately has been one of our favorite things because, like, Minnesota has created the monarch highway. It's right there, even on your GPS, a monarch highway. And it is, and you go to the rest areas, all through the Midwest, and it was Missouri. I think the first one we saw like this is Missouri, Missouri, Iowa does it in the Annapolis, Indiana, excuse me. All of these areas are doing these habitat restorations in rest areas with actual pollinator gardens at a rest area, right? How many people come and go through that? So they show it, and we've seen them in all seasons, like also frozen over in the snow in Illinois or, you know, but, but you see how I've got this affinity now for the Midwest. I'm kind of stuck in it because when you see prairies come back and very grasslands and grasslands are so crucial. Yeah, there's a moisture that's there that, like, when I think about when the grass gets really dry in the hills of California, like even outside the Bay Area, there's just in Central California, you just have these golden hills, which I find beautiful, but at the same time, like in fire season. Mm, yummy fuel. Yes, and so it's amazing. Those golden hills of California, what you're seeing is mostly non-native annual grasses that we have brought in in the last 400 years. And so we have changed the fire ecology just by that one action. Yeah, all the trees are now connected. Yes. Yeah, you see the oak, the standing oak, the live oak, trying to hang in there. And I think our California Oaks are still in trouble, right? And, and it's, here's this grassland and, and it doesn't look normal. I mean, we lived in Africa and Nancy, the grasses, the grasslands, it is like prairies. Maybe that's why I'm just attracted to them so much. But that biodiversity in a square, like a square of, it's amazing. Yeah. I mean, it's actually really there. I mean, at first look, you know, it's just a bunch of grass. It isn't. You've got to get out of the car. Yes. Well, you know, it's beautiful that you're, you're focused on what's happening at the ground level because, yes, we've changed the ground level a lot. And of course, agriculture has disturbed a lot and habitat fragmentation is the biggest source of biodiversity loss. But what you put on that ground surface is going to have such a huge impact on the health of your soil. Oh, yeah. And if, if going back to this gravel mania where to be, excuse me, to be drought tolerant, people were either putting down gravel or astroturf. Those, you know, some gravel is good. Some gravel as accent and to break up fuel loads is great. So is bare ground, but then also having a mix of other sorts of living and organic mulches can work as well. But as Rachel will tell you, and may Rachel's really good at talking about defensible space, it really depends on where you put these soil covers or areas. And of course, some areas, you should always have a pocket of bare ground somewhere to provide habitat for the organisms that need to interface between the soil and the above ground area. Oh, so would that be like, would that be like, okay, you need to patch a soil where the water will collect so butterflies can go puddly. Yeah, that's a good example, or the organisms that go below. There's a rampant use of these weed barriers, the weed cloth, and I just cringe whenever I see that because, yes, water will percolate through. But number one, within about three or four years, the weeds just grow on top of the weed barrier. And number two, you are creating a barrier that prevents all of the native bees and other nesting soil nesting insects from going into the soil. And you're reducing the amount of carbon that can go into the soil, you're filtering 70% of our native bees nest underground. Wow, yeah, I didn't know that. Wow, that's interesting. And they're such better pollinators than the European bee or honeybee. Right, the honeybee is livestock, right? And we love the honeybees, but they are not, they're not our native bee diversity. No, no, we don't count those. I mean, again, they're great for agriculture and what they do. But a lot of people think that they're native, but they're not native and they're not as effective as native bees. So, you know, nature has it all planned out. Yeah, she does. She does. And then we come along and we change one tiny thing and think, oh, that doesn't matter. But it does. I wanted to go to Margot. How are you feeling about reading the book and having, you know, Adrian and Rachel here, because I know that you recently, you went through some fires, you know, you've been through them. And you recently moved back to San Diego, and then you have to kind of, you know, set up home and everything. Do you kind of look at what their book is since, you know, you're a homeowner, we're floating the country. But we do pets it as we travel. That's part of how we'd be able to do these podcasts and do our work. So we're taking care of people's gardens across the country, which is also very fascinating. That's so very interesting. But it's interesting because we meet people who are really trying to do that, like where we are right now. The lady is from California and run three acres in Arkansas and the Boston mountains, as we keep saying. And she's done restorative work and works with the land. And there's so many bugs here that I'm so fast and I'm going to have to do like an Instagram reel of bugs. But, but tomorrow for you going in and seeing the book and being a homeowner, is it changing you about like what you want to do with your home because I know you're always with working with nature. And when we talk about getting down with nature, Marco knows about that as a photographer too. Yeah, it's interesting also about the fire barriers. And I said I was up in Northern California where they had their big fires in 2017 through 2019. And then we move back to California, but up there, what I noticed happening. And we aren't doing it down here in San Diego is in the foothills where the grasslands were around the oak trees up there. They would bring in cattle and, or they would bring in goats and they would have the cattle and the goats. Actually, all around the house is in fact I had cows right behind my house. And they would eat the grass up. And so that would keep that grass from being so overgrown and and fueling the fires, if they should come closer to the homes. And this is in a close community that I was in. And the whole community would have would hire out the farmers and they would have the animals come in and. So there's a natural way if the habitat is not chased away, which the more we grow our home, you know, spread out with our homes, we kind of chase the habitat away. So they naturally like the deer would eat the grasslands in here in California, or moose, moose actually lived in California. And so I noticed that, and I think that's one way we could keep the grasses down. But here in San Diego, oh my gosh, I can't cannot stand the rocks around us as full of rock gardens and, and they're taking out the land and covering it up with with rock. And I am finding here for the first time in my entire life that I rarely can see birds. Birds eat worms right they go into the grasslands and they pull up the worms they pull up the grubs they eat the grubs and bird seeds not enough for them, you know that it's just not their net diet they take out of the earth. And so I'm not seeing very many birds around here. And I love love love birds so I am changing the habitat to have spaces for the butterflies to get the water, and I put in the. What do you call it milkweed and my backyard this summer is full of the butterflies. Yeah, so, and the milkweed plants itself every time at the wind blows. So we know why it's called a weed. So I ended up with two plants and now I have about 10. But I leave them and they're sparse and they're beautiful when they bloom their terrible when they've been eaten up by the butterflies but. I think they're beautiful. Yeah, I wanted to go to Rachel on that with in regards to the, you know, the space and, and what you're saying about the goats and cattle because I'm fascinated about this and know, you know, I've heard a lot of success but I wonder if Rachel can hone in on that about the spaces because you know the cattle part I'm concerned about personally because I know our national forest do it and things like that but I wonder because they're not necessarily native. Are they harming the soil but I think when the companies do it maybe they're rotating it better I don't know but Rachel do you have anything to say on that part. Yeah, actually. So thank you for, for asking. I was like kind of like waiting for an in. First you have to jump in here. There's like five women on one show, which is absolutely, which is absolutely fantastic. You know, we're powerful women here today. So first of all I just like to like note that number one in the West fires are a natural disturbance and at least actually talked about this earlier, you know that, you know, she saw a fire and then after the fire there was this bloom in the city, and this is because fire is the main way that these landscapes evolved over thousands and thousands if not millions and millions of years. So, when Europeans came here, they pretty much stopped the presses on fires and they're like we don't want this we want forests to be as thick as possible so we can sell them. And anybody who's lighting fires like our amazing indigenous communities that they have been using to shape the landscape and use to support their communities for their lives. We stopped them from doing that too. So we stopped about 200 years ago Europeans stopped this process of fire from naturally occurring. So over 200 years of us suppressing fires so much has happened in our wild landscapes that have made for a sticker, but thicker is not better. It actually drains more water, all these trees, they're more sickly because they're closer together. They're not as healthy. They're more prone to diseases and we're seeing massive die-offs because of drought as well. So there's a lot of stress going on in these areas. So right now, we're in a really complex situation. We need fires to kind of come back in areas that they can come back, right? Not our communities, but in our wild lands to clear things out to make things healthy again to get rid of pests, but it's so sick right now that it's really hard to do that safely. So what we need to do, and this is kind of what Margot was talking about, is come up with alternatives to being the fire. We need to play the role of what fire would be doing in our habitats that we love so much. And Adrian said earlier that every habitat is different. So we need to know, so like where I am, I'm in an area that would burn on a cycle five to 10 years. There would be fires that would come through, get rid of kind of the stuff on the bottom, the stuff, some branches, maybe some baby trees, and it would clear it out. But in Chaperrell, it is a completely different ball game in every habitat. It's a ball game. So it's, it's knowing the habitat. So you know what it needs, what it needs from what the fire would be doing in that habitat. So we can keep those habitats as healthy as possible, and where we can bring in fire. And obviously this has to be done safely, but there are a huge increase in what are called fire or prescribed fire associations. We have one here in Butte County, there's one in Humboldt, there are increasing. So what these are, are basically communities of the people that say, I have a, I have a big property, I need to maintain it. I need to keep it safe. But I also want to support the habitat. I want to burn it. I want to burn it. And I want to do that to help maintain it so I'm not having to rake hundreds of acres, which is impossible. So there are these fire burn associations that you can be a part of where they can schedule a time to basically come to your property and burn. Obviously, this is something that's coming and is new, and only certain people can do it. But again, Margot came up with a great thing that has been happening, which is bringing in big herds of critters to do this. And so, Lisa, you were concerned about cows. Yes, I am definitely concerned about cows as well. They are number one picky with what they eat. And number two, they're humongous creatures. They're not light on their toes. So goats are what is happening up here in Northern California, more so than anything. There's tons of different people. I actually know of two different people that have, basically, they run their goats out. They put up little fences and they'll set them up for a certain amount. Can you send them over now? Because I like to play with goats. And I'm just kidding. I mean, how many doesn't want to play goats are the best. I didn't even drop, but no, no, Margot is saying goats, and now you said goats. And I'm like, I want to play with goats. They'll eat anything. They'll eat poison oak. They'll eat blackberry. They'll eat anything. That is the problem. Hold on, Rachel. Hold on. You have to keep them away from things. Yeah, but one problem with goats is with Himalayan blackberry. This is a good example of an invasive species. We all love blackberry, but they're very, very invasive all over on every continent they occur. The goats will eat the leaves off of them and leave the canes or the stems. And then they just get fertilized and resprout even better. So the car drive up in Northern California and Oregon, Washington areas have been. They might bring in goats or they might burn, but they've also been taking bulldozers to pull out Himalayan blackberry. Wow. When they're really thick. And then they restore that habitat. I know that there are people doing restoration with along riparian corridors in the southeast where they will dig out what they can, where it resprouts. They actually have to cut the stems and paint them with a little bit of herbicide. Just on the stem. So, you know, having herbivores in the landscape is another option. Fire is an option. Fire will not destroy some invasive species like blackberry either. And so we have to use a multitude of different tools and then collect data to see what the responses are. Now cattle are just, you know, they're heavy and all but so are moose, right? So disturbances like hoof, what they do with their feet, their homes and feet are big, but disturbance is not always a bad thing. So, again, it's really, really important for people to get out there and make observations about how the landscape is changing or not. And for different areas, each place being very uniquely different. I think that's really, it's like a general garden. You have micro climates within your own garden, your own backyard. And so that's something so important to look at. And I think it's interesting because I think when what Margo's talking about two of these companies coming in, these, I've listened to interviews with the goat people. And I'm like, I want to come hang out with you. Can I be a goat? I want to be a goat person for a day. Yeah, but I think it is interesting because I am like, what about the cattle, but then maybe they're not there, you know, so much that they're creating too much of a disturbance if they balance it out correctly. And I think the people doing it probably know that terrain. Maybe. I don't know. Just have those conversations. And like you're saying, get that data in. But everything is different. And like the Blackberry thing is crushing because I do love Blackberries, but Nancy and I were just talking to friends going up the coast. And they're going to do a California road trip and we're like, you've got to go to Gold's Love Beach. And I'm Margo, you remember when we had saved the Redwoods League on the show, Sam, I was talking about this where we went down a dirt road. It's it's in Oregon, California, up in the Redwoods. And you go down the dirt road that winds and winds through the Redwoods with ferns. I mean, you're like in Jurassic Park, you get to the beach. And there's the coast, right? There's this beautiful beach, but it's not, you know, we're not San Diego kind of style. Like, we're like on the Redwoods side. It's a little bit rugged and it's gorgeous. And there were elk eating Blackberries on the beach. And I'm like, I'm not leaving here. Nancy's like, we're not leaving. We ended up in a very weird motel that had astroturf in the rooms. And every time we opened the door, Cheryl passed the drug in the room, we'd be like, Oh, all right. So we shared our sandwiches with them. You know, we're like, whatever. We're hanging out with cats. And that hotel has since gone because we drove through their February last year. But, but we love that. That was just those crazy road trip stories, right? But, but I didn't know these Blackberries, because you see them like you're talking about the Southeast now that I think about it. I've seen them in wildlife refuges all over there. Now there, we do have native species, but they're not aggressive the way that it's called Himalayan Blackberry. And they really truly are invasive on every continent, except maybe Antarctica. Wow. So they just harvest them and make a bunch of wine. Yes. Blackberry wine. Yeah, there you go. But the thing is, you know, the consumption of water by specific plants makes a huge difference. And so when we're looking at the climate change, which happens sometimes naturally, but mostly not. We have planted plants that use more water in an area than that area and the plant is staying, you know. And so we're killing off the natives by lack of water, because the non natives, for some reason, are way more aggressive. And they take more water and they take more nutrients out of the soil. And so it really is important to really understand native plants versus non native. That is really, really true because the, and many of our invasive species are really good at acquiring and sort of preempting the nutrients and water earlier in the season than the natives. And so yellow star thistle would be a good example of that as an invasive species that really changes the nutrient and water dynamics with at a site. Yeah. And something that Adrian reminded me of is that the Karug tribe has actually been doing a lot of prescribed burns and what they've actually found. In a couple cases, this areas where the forest was very thick, not necessarily thick with invasives that I'm aware of. I didn't see the full report, but a very, very thick forest, due to, you know, a lot of fire suppression, that their rivers have been getting higher, they have more water available to them, because they all of these plants that were very, very thick aren't there anymore. And obviously, you know, being able to play that role is really important of getting rid of the high, high densities of plants. And that's kind of like the point I was making with the goats earlier is sometimes you have a huge amount to digest. Like, on, for example, if you have like 100 acres, how do you, and you can't burn it, what are you supposed to do? You can't just go in and, you know, you know, hand pick everything. So goats are a really good starting point. If you need a place to start to kind of get things rolling. And, and then from there, if you have plans of concern, like blackberry, like very specific species of broom that will come no matter what you do, and you have to dig it up, just like blackberry. So you need to know what species you have so you can cater your plans around them. But, you know, you sometimes you do need to pick things to kind of get yourself started. And I know so many people that have, you know, a good amount of land and they're like, I don't know how to begin doing this to make it fire safe. But like Adrian said, you need a multitude of tools. You need to be able to go and know your land, know what species you have that are native or that are already there. And that's fun. The bases are there. Yeah, it's a fun thing to do. And it's like you live there because you love it. So go out and explore and learn about your land. Get the kids involved. Get, get eye naturalist. Get the seek app. I'm sorry. I'm so addicted to it. Yes. It's so crazy. So when you do that, go and know and then you start learning about what they need. I have all those different tools. We went to Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuges in Southern Arizona, just south of Tucson and it's on the Mexico border. And it has, I mean, I can't believe it's a huge, huge acreage, right? But it's on the border. So they were bringing back shortgrass prairie because the pronghorn left there and they were bringing back the pronghorn and also the quail, the bobwhite quail nancy is that I think it's bobwhite. I don't want to say the politician name, but you know, he was just a quail. And we don't want to talk about politicians who killed them and got, I don't know, anyway, we'll just leave that alone. But it is funny if you're going to go hand hunting and then you get shot in the face. I'm like, anyway, sorry. I didn't say it. I didn't say it. I didn't say it. I did. But anyway, the quail are cool. So they had to be like, look at this habitat, but they have in the same refuge, just up the road, a mountain setting with bear. And this is where Jaguars do crossover. And this is part of that area. And, you know, I think it'll have a went through there, you know, he's not there with us anymore. But, and then you go in the other area and it's wetlands in Arizona and Arizona has some amazing wetlands. And so, I mean, the biodiversity here was insane, but it was an old ranch cattle, speaking cattle, Marco, you got us on the cattle thing now. But it was this cattle ranch, and they took it over. And, of course, the community, when they first took it over, got pissy because, oh, it's our ranching community, but they're like, your water's going down. So they go in and they've, and we've talked with both superintendents over the years, and I know they have someone new, but they do all these prescribed burns at certain times in certain places. And Josh Smith, who is a pollinator expert, who was one of the refuge superintendents we went out with quite a few times. We went on different seasons. We had a really good monsoon season one year, summer monsoon season, and then he's like, it's time to burn. I'm like, but it looks so pretty burned. They burned. And the next few months later, we came back, he took us around. And I couldn't believe it. The water, there was this area that was for the cattle, right? There was water at Gary Lake. Actually came in, it filled up, and it didn't even make sense. One area where they weren't burning, they were losing water, but you could see that there was ranching going on around, but this area where they were restoring and burning, the water came back. And so he's going, this is some interesting stuff to look at. Then he took us out to where they had burned, and then came back, and he showed us what is known as Forbes. And now when I'm going places, like Nancy, where are these flowers? I'll look at them on like their Forbes. That means it's healthy. He goes, if you have Forbes, you're healthy. And there are all kinds of little Forbes flowers. I got addicted to it, and so I'll go out and photograph. And this is what he said would happen. When I'm going out photographing these flowers, I would find, and even, you didn't even see them until you bring it up close on your computer screen. And zoom in, there would be maybe 10 bug species on one poppy flower, for example. Now, you know the size of a poppy flower, 10 species of bugs right there. Worm spiders, little thingies that I have no idea. I don't want them on me, but I'm like, this is some cool stuff. And he was like, that is healthy. That's what we want. It's Horton. Here's a who. There's a little world in that flower. Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's amazing. It was one of the most interesting things to follow and see. It actually work because we always look about management in humans getting involved, but like you're saying all the tools. And I wonder about the water being retained there than on the other side of the refuge, because that's where they were doing the burning. I wonder about that. Yeah. Now, thinking about what you've written your book and your girls have put the tools in there, but I wonder if that can help retain water by just letting the actual natural ecosystem come back. Well, and you know the idea of gravel and cement. How can it not heat up the ground below and kill things underneath that are supposed to be there? Yeah. Well, gravel is it. I mean, underneath gravel, the soil can stay cooler. However, you don't have all those little plant air conditioner swamp coolers going. So you don't have transpiration. Mm hmm. And there we totally need to rethink and redesign the way we have built environments today because it is going to get hotter when it's hot. And we need to create more oases, if you will, of little plant air conditioners everywhere. Yes. A lot of, there's a lot of European influences in our gardening styles here. And it's like, this is not the UK. I would love to rain more here. But this is not the UK. We have a completely different environment. We can't have the same type of garden. We can't have the same type of plants. And Adrian and I are big advocates of getting rid of people's lawns, 100%. Hey, this place is in Minnesota where the towns are paying people to tear up their lawns and put in wildflowers. Yeah. And all foreign communities are doing the same. I'm very happy to see that. Yeah. What's your, I want to know who has a lawn. Do you have a lawn Mark? Oh, okay. So when I moved in, I had a front yard and a backyard lawn. We, we took out the backyard and we're about ready to take out the front yard. So, what do you recommend. We put in the front yard in San Diego. All my neighbors have gravel. Oh my gosh. You need to break up because that becomes a dead zone again. And remember my no birds either. What do you recommend based on your research? Absolutely. Natives. And I would start with, with thinking about where to put your trees. So I know in SoCal, there's only a few native tree species that might be appropriate, but you can think about the mature size. Start with those with respect to your defensive space zones. So within the first five feet, of course, nothing combustible. And then in the next, you know, five to 30 feet, if you're in a regular fire risk zone. Put in sort of islands of starting with the trees. And then you can have in those islands, additional herbaceous forbs and grasses, sedges. You can create have some sort of trickle of water that comes on maybe with a timer so that at a certain time of the day birds and butterflies and other insects can drink. That would be a start. In San Diego, I mean, there's so many options. And it's funny, you know, we, or I should say, Adrian, because Adrian is, you know, the amazing botanist in our duo together. She put together plant lists that yeah, like almost 100 pages of plants in in this book. And amazing. It is amazing. And so it's so much to sort through and that's not even all. In California alone, there's thousands of native species and obviously not every of those species is going to work in every place. But in San Diego, it's a really great spot to have so many amazing options. So honestly, like, it's hard to be like plant this because, you know, there's so many options and, you know, go have fun with it. Go like Lisa said, go to one of those really native botanical gardens that sells plants and just experience it like go take notes be like, Oh, I like this one. I like this one like, you know, have fun with it. Go see what you like. And then there's, there's also the testing of soil because, depending on what, what home you move into and what was done before you got there, especially if it's a brand new house. There's a lot of stuff in the soil that doesn't belong. Go ahead. Oh, yeah, and you have to take into account if it used to be ag fields, for example, that might have too many nutrients for native plants in the Midwest. I know this is a big problem and whatever they do. So, for example, if you have a plant that's in the soil, you know, you have to have a plant that's in the soil. So, you know, you have to have a plant that's in the soil. So, you know, you have to have a plant that's in the soil. Organic matter back into the soil. So, again, every place is different in desert environments. You know, I know we've been poo pooing gravel a little bit because of the overuse of rocks, but rocks can make a very fine localized mulch and habitat for reptiles and such. And if they're used strategically. So, rock islands. Yeah, the island in my house. I want to go back to the water feature. We sat for a lady who had, and she, I mean, this was magical. She was, it was all natural. There was not going to be, you know, I mean, everything was allowed. We even had to take care of Stumpy, the raccoon and feed the raccoon and the chipmunks. I mean, it was, this was, everything was natural, very much like where we are now. It's amazing, right? When you watch nature actually be allowed to be, and you're a part of it, it is the most exciting. I'm, I want to come help Marco. I'm, you know, Marco, we're coming through California soon. I'm coming in. I'll come dig. Whatever you need to dig. I'll dig. I'll do whatever you want to do. I'm going to come dig in your garden. I'll help plant. I'll do whatever. Like, really, I love it because you see all these little creatures and when you have good soil and you see worms and stuff. This lady had put in, taking over the big piece of, I mean, huge, huge tract of land in the middle of Iowa, our agriculture. And she had let things go to nature, like let nature be tons of milkweed, right? We were surrounded by milkweed and native, natives that have, you know, from there, it was like an untouched piece of land. And she put in this water feature, the pond. And boy, if the pond didn't work, she's like, I don't care what's going on, that pond will work while she was gone. And we had people come out and then we figured it out. Electricity was, she was like, that pond must go. I don't care what I don't care about this, that or the other. This pond will work. And she was so right. And you're right about this because the moving water was so key to these birds. And for butterflies and dragonflies, we couldn't keep up with the species. And we saw rose breasted, gross beak for the first time. Orioles, Orioles, like you wouldn't believe. Wow. I mean, blue jays, cardinals. I mean, Nancy and I could barely do our work. Go look here, go look there and we're like, stop it, stop it, go look. And what was interesting is, she did have bird feeders, but she also had so much native abundance. It didn't matter, really. It was the water that they wanted, and they wanted the moving water. And you could see them, you could see gold finches, Nancy's favorite. So cool. But like, you could see them going and getting the bird feed from the meadows. And I mean, honestly, when it's exciting when you see people do make, when they make these transitions like what Marco is doing. I'm excited for you, Marco. Yes. If you add those, if you add those components to where you live, you do not need bird feeders. I have found here in Northern California that it was, I moved from Illinois to Northern California. 17 years ago, and I found that having a bird feeder here was pointless because there's just so much to eat. But if you don't have the water, you're not going to have as many birds. The other problem that's just heartbreaking to me is that this year I live in a very small, on a very small lot. And it was such a good rainier that I had quail nesting in my little tiny flower. I had other bird nests, and they were decimated by cats. The cats attacked the nest and picked off the baby birds and they didn't even eat the birds. The birds actually dehydrated and start to death. So it's really important to get the message across it when we have these built environments and create habitat for all of these natives and all the natural wildlife. It would be minimally nice if cat owners could keep their cats inside from dusk until dawn, which is when they really want to hunt. The cats can't help but that's in their nature. But if you can just not let them outside during the peak sort of hunting hours, it could actually help promote. And it's a lot of amazing programs where I'm at, where, you know, they'll be like, is there any like random cats in your yard? Let us know. We'll come trap them. We'll stay in New York. Give them shots. And even if they can find them at home, you know, they will just kind of let them be again. Let them go. But they'll be stay neutered. So not adding to the population. And I also want to add something to what Lisa said earlier, because that actually reminded me of a really amazing tip, because even in, you know, in small yards, like what Adrian was describing, you can have, you know, little places, like little oasis for animals. So you can kind of like, like I have a galvanized bucket, like a big one. And I set it into the soil and I filled it with water. And I filled it with rocks. So any small critter, a bee, a lizard, a bird can access it and get out of it whenever they need to. And we keep it filled all, all summer, especially. And we have a wildlife camera on our little bucket. And it gets used intensely in the summer. By everything. Every animal boxes, deer, turkeys, bears, birds. No way. Every sized critter. And how do you ever get to work? I would be there. It's very difficult. I know, but that's the thing. Like Margot, Margot starting like this new project, Margot, like, we have to like do something on the show with this. We want step by step, like, because even you planting milkweed. I think milkweed is so beautiful. And it comes in so many varieties. Like when we lived in Tucson, we would go hiking. Well, hiking. We walked. We lived in Tucson. And then we were on the road. We've been on the road for 10 years. And stop for two years to redo our websites and everything. But we didn't know about pet sitting. We do this, by the way, give a shout out to trusted house sitters. It's not about making money. It's this amazing trade. And immersion, this immersive experience with people that you're taking care of their garden. They're teaching us stuff. We're teaching them stuff. They're traveling. We're hanging out with animals. It's the coolest thing on the planet. But it really is. I know, because we're seeing animals like here, I see deer in the morning and everything. But going through these changes and watching and going through step by step change, it's very exciting to start to like, if you've got kids, get them involved in the project. We learned that. Wasn't that Margot? When we did the interview with Asbury Woods up in Erie, Pennsylvania, we went there and I said to the lady, well, isn't this cool about your, you know, what all these programs you have for kids. And they do roof gardens, by the way, that's another cool thing if you have the climate for it. Dude, like, I want to be on the roof. I want to webcam there. But, and I said, well, don't kids, you know, their phones, she goes, you can't take the phones away. It's not going to happen. And that she introduced us to seek an eye naturalist. And now I'm addicted. I mean, it is so exciting to go start a new project, see what is there, what is thriving. Because don't you think that's part of it too, Margot? Don't you have to look at what is working? Not just take out the lawn, but is there stuff that's already working that you can see? Well, when we moved in, it was a sad story because they hadn't been taking care of the soil. So even what was planted wasn't growing very well. And we've been here three years and we've been putting a minute to the soil and changing the soil. And now, now everything's blooming and it's beautiful and it's lush and it's alive. So I can't go from, you know, what was there before. But maybe I can tell you about some plants that may have been roots that didn't grow before, but are growing now. Beautiful flowers, lilies that start to bloom. And I didn't even know that I didn't even know they were there and they're all over the yard. So, yeah, they just worked. The soil wasn't abundant enough when we came, but we amended it and it's starting to come back. Well, I think we does it. Yeah, going back to the milkweed that I was on that tribe and then I lost my, I got excited. I'm excited. But in Tucson, in Tucson, I was like, what is this vine I'm seeing growing out in the, you know, we lived in this department for this two years while we're doing everything and would hike in the fore in the morning. And you would still see snakes out hunting. It was cool and owls and every, I mean, it was four in the morning. You'd see the sunrise. It was like the spiritual walk we would do every morning, Nancy and I. And no matter what, whether you wanted to get up or not, it was like, we've got to do it because once you're out, you're like, Oh, my God, look at this. The joy is blooming. The bees are in the Choya flowers. It's like, you would see everybody wake up and the birds do their thing and it's like, no one's here. Yeah, cool. But there was this vine growing. I'm like, what is this vine? It almost looked like a Choya cross with a passion fruit. Turned out. It was a milkweed vine. And I'm like, wow, I didn't even know. And then I started getting into milkweed and going. There's milkweed for everybody. It's not the same typical one. It's everywhere. Like, we can. I mean, Rachel, you know, Adrian. I mean, milkweed, milkweed's all fine, right? Because when you go to, I'm so confused now. And I don't think I'm the only one. Like, you go to a nursery butterfly bush, good, bad. What, what is good? What's bad? What should we do? Adrian actually has some really, really great advice on milkweed. So I would, I'm going to turn that to her. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's actually been, um, there are, there are milkweed researchers. I actually did some milkweed research myself for my master's degree. And, um, milkweeds, the reason that they are so intimately tied to monarch butterflies is because the caterpillars. Um, when they eat the milkweed leaves, sequester these cardiac glycosides, these poisons, basically, that the milkweed is produced to try and reduce things from eating them. And so there are the, any herbivore that you find on a milkweed is pretty specialized to be able to detoxify the toxin. And, but monarchs actually store that toxin to make themselves less vulnerable to eat being eaten by birds. So if a bird eats a monarch caterpillar, they'll throw up, for example. So, but different species of milkweeds and even different individuals vary in how much of that toxin they produce. So there's a species here in the West, a sclepia speciosa, which is a very showy, commonly propagated milkweed species that isn't so great for the monarch because it produces such high levels of the toxin. Now, this is a little bit controversial, but the narrow leaf milkweed, which is a little weedier is actually a much better plant for the monarchs because it doesn't quite produce such high levels of toxins. On the other hand, there is a species of milkweed from the tropics that's been in the trade a lot. Gosh, a sclepius carisavica. I can't remember the company. How do you even pronounce this? I'm like, oh, well, it's like every day on the planet. But you listen to you. I'm like, that's like music, man. Well, I can't remember the common name of it, but it's a tropical milkweed. And so a lot of people grow it as an annual and it turns out it's not so good for monarchs either because it doesn't produce much toxin and it actually can kind of mess with you. It actually can kind of mess with their reproductive cycles, especially in warmer climates. So, you know, it's good to, again, plant your native species and have more than one kind of milkweed in your yard, but don't forget about all the other butterflies. You mentioned butterfly bush, which of course isn't a milkweed and there is controversy about wealth. Is it a good plant or a bad plant? It depends on where you are. So, I have one in my yard that was not planted by me and it does get a lot of visitation by butterflies. But if I lived in a place, say, in the coast range or in a wetter climate or near a creek, I would not want to grow butterfly bush because it can spread where I live. It doesn't spread and it's fairly well behaved. So, I leave it there. Oh, I looked up your tropical milkweed. I'm glad you explained that on the butterfly bush. So, it's like the butterfly milkweed flower and then they're saying, like, Mexican butterflyweed and I've seen it all through the Midwest and I thought it was the most prettiest thing and I got excited and then I found out it's not even really milkweed 100%. Very showy. Yes. Oh, yeah, it's great. Well, of course, then there's the butterfly, the very common one that's orange, butterflyweed, or I've got that that's all over the Midwest as well. But I've seen this one. It looks, yeah, and it's a tropical, it is a non-native milkweed. So, it is a milkweed, but a non-- Correct. Yes, Clippiest Carrasavica. See, that's right. You did a great job. You did a great job. I had fun doing it. It sounds like a good thing, but that's interesting what you're talking about. One thing in your book, you also put in creosote bush, which was interesting to me because in Julian, when all the fires happened, they came around and said, everybody had vinca and that turns into oil. Like, that helps burn your house by having the vinca because people literally had lawns of vinca and one house we lived in was like that. And so I started going, ooh, and then creosote, which I believe, you both are better plant people than me by far, is one of the most ancient plants we have, the Native Americans used to drink. And there's circles of the map in Lucerne Valley up in the Mojave forest, and when you get into the Mojave area and you will see them, so I'm really also sad about the fire right now. It's a creosote, but then I always thought creosote would be more of an oil burning, maybe scary thing to have in your garden. Absolutely, but if you have enough space and can plant it in sort of an isolated island away from, you know, away from your home and keep it clean. In other words, keep it pruned kind of sculpt it by pruning it and making sure there's no dead stuff around it. It will be just fine, but you don't want it right up next to your house creosote, which is a wonderful native plant for all sorts of organisms supports all sorts of I love creosote. And it smells when it rains, it smells like pee. Sorry, it's true. It does. That's a really important point that Adrian made, you know, there's a lot of native plants that are, you know, in the big no-no list, you know, in terms of like their potential flammability. But especially if it's like a shrub or a tree that's in the no-no list, like, for example, where I am, everybody's like, get rid of your pines, get rid of your manzanitas. The manzanita? Oh, my God. And it's interesting to me because it's, well, pines can be sappy and sappy can basically allow the fire to get up into the tree very quickly, which I get. And then with manzanita, it burns hot. It takes a lot of heat to actually light on fire, like a lot of heat. It's like what happened in Julian, manzanita was like, manzanita is bad. Yeah, but if, if you love a certain plant and you really want it in your yard, plant it as far away from the houses you possibly can. And like Adrian said, create space, give it lots of space, give it lots of love. And there are ways to mitigate certain, keeping certain plants in your yard and be as safe as you possibly can. So it's just about knowing as much as you can. And if you evacuate, pull it out and take it with you. Well, we've done so many evacuations when the one fire happened and it was the very first big wildfire. And it was from the DEA clipping down a power line after somebody growing some pot. And I'm like, okay, here we go. But anyway, so part of like the, I can't explain where it was, you have to look at, and that's a whole other thing in the mountains, man. But you have no idea if the fires really in your backyard are not because it moves and it's weird. But anyway, so banner grade at the beginning of banner grade, which is this mountain pass that goes down to the desert. It's beautiful. So this, it burned and it even had yuckas and it was like that high deserty, but not Mojave desert, right? And there was this wisteria that was growing there. And I know, and they had like wild lilacs, because lilacs, people grew grow lilacs all throughout Julian Daffodil's, all of that. They had wild lilacs and the wild lilacs came back the next year and I was like, oh my God. This wisteria came back. I remember driving up from going down in Borago and we're all so depressed, right? And I drove up and I saw this wisteria came back and I was like, son of a gun. It's not what I said, but you know what I mean? And I was like, I literally tears because it was still there. I know it's not supposed to be there, but the resiliency, and you guys talk about resilience in your book made me cry about this wisteria. And I remember coming to Nancy, remember? I was like, there was this beacon on this mountain pass right before you got into the mountains. And I don't know, but it came back and that area. The beautiful plant. The one that we really learned about fire go afterwards. You're gonna see, I mean, we had kuyameka forest with all those alias and we were actually on a hike before we really had to evacuate all the way to Arizona. And that is where it burned. And we came out of that hike and Nancy and I saw this fire and I'm like, oh, this is the one. And it was the one that Cedar fire made history at that time. You win with a campfire. I wish I didn't. But you know, I know, I know, I'm not kidding. I know it's not funny. It sucks. No, but it's important. And no matter what, going through a fire is going through a fire and, you know, we need to give any fire prone community as many tools as they possibly can have. To build, you know, really strategic plans for the community for families, for their properties, you know, and that's really what our book is all about is creating, you know, dialogue, allowing people to get to know where they live more. And, you know, support habitat, some more wildlife. We want to see these critters. We moved here for these critters. So we need to support. Well, thank you for your book. I think you've got so much information. It's, it's one of, it's a Bible for anybody living in the West, but honestly, I think it's, you know, maybe not the plant list will be the same for the East, but things are happening. I mean, look at what's going on in Canada. You know, so I'm just saying, you got some very solid advice for everywhere. And then look at the plant list, according to where you are. But it's also just, you know, I want to look at the plants, but you make us really think and, and I think going, going, yeah, the concepts and going through this makes you really look at where you are and have some value and kind of comes back to, you know, don't go through a fire and then get the book. Get it now, you know, because things are changing. Do you have websites, either one of you that people can follow you on or we are working on the website right now. So hope right now we have it. So if you have the link, you can view the website, but I'm trying to work on the techie side and get it available so you can just, okay, so it's a link so people can, what's the website link, do you know. I don't have it right now. Okay, yeah, we'll get it afterwards, we'll get it afterwards for everyone but everybody's available everywhere through timber press and go get it, it is a beautiful book well done. And we're on Instagram as well. Oh, what is the fire scaping the wooie. The wooie wildlife urban interface. Yeah, I know we get woo woo here on the show too. We get excited and, you know, fiery but. I'm like, who I would be saying that all day. I know. I know. I can say, what is wooie? I know, I'm, I'm in a wooie. That's it. That's my new thing for the rest of the day. I love it. Ladies, thank you so much for your work. Thank you for joining us. It's been more than a pleasure. Everyone, we are here every fourth Friday with Margot on our nature connection show. So keep up with us at big blend radio.com. Of course, career, fine art gallery. Come as well. You can find Margot career as work on Etsy as well. And we've got, we're gonna be talking more plants next month as well. And keep up with us at blend radio and TV.com. We have our nature connection section there too. And you will also find this interview coming up in. Our big weekly blend magazine and other ones as well. Thank you so much, ladies. Everyone take care. Let's go. Let's go to the garden. Yeah, let's go. Thank you for your great work. Yes. Thank you so much for having us. [Music]
