Or listening to Neil Young and his song and in diverse. Gronk what one of my. Listeners Gary called a few weeks ago and said Can Mr Scott you've got to get these songs on your program and I'm so thankful he did not because they're very much in line with work you mention and. Second hour of. The Earthmen show. And it's going to be the best maybe ever. To show we're reaching a new height I want to thank you underwriter for the 2nd Dr Mark Green mine. Spammy dentistry on the device in all phases restored of dentistry most insurance plans are accepted located at 2770. Or a minor split the buffalo heel center in Georgetown hours or a Monday and Thursday from 8 am to find pm in Friday 7 am to 3 30 pm and they can be reached for appointment at 530333 cool 11. Nicholas. Really. Can't. Wait. To hear. What she. Wished. NEIL YOUNG I sure as thank you for your your perspective it's a good one it's one we have to have well hair and this is the moment I've been waiting for that you are already we have Taylor and Leslie and the studio and this is where we're kind of need to John all right tight in this studio and K.F. OK but we're going to we're going to do this and we're going to enjoy it let me tell you a little bit of bought both of these wonderful women they're the Graham says she'd rather be outside than endorse and she loves thunderstorms her natural language seems to be poetry she stumbles on a lot in prose one of her favorite things is being on the trail with a dog. And she watched a baby chickadee fledge in her hand that that's Cline a treat after trying out Alaska there Ginia and various parts of California she believes she belongs right here on the Georgetown divide and I agree with her I think she does well there has been hatched Taylor Graham moved to this county in 1984 for 40 some years they've trained German shepherds for search and rescue and until recently they responded to hundreds of searches for lost people and clued in 1985 Mexico City earthquake Taylor is a widely published poet and last year became the Eldorado county's 1st put laureate she tries to make poetry more available locally through monthly readings and read rounds at libraries and the senior center and a weekly workshop an old there on an Arts Council all of these are free and open to everyone she also started a quarterly poetry workshop at the American River Conservancy these walk a Matsu community farm and helped organize the poetry segment at this year's orts in teacher festival which I got to hear and which just why we're here today Lucky me now Leslie Leslie Bennetts it's all on it's almost always lived within hiking distance of the American River What a lucky woman she moved to the divide in 2003 to live only 10 minutes from the South Fork her husband Frank is a photographer sharing her love for nature Leslie is an artist and musician and a writer with a child heart for creatures of all shapes and sizes. As a teacher Leslie loves to learn and as a communicator Leslie loves to puzzle truly understanding her art work songs and stories are flavored with imagination and with the human or life lessons and hope she finds in the natural world so I think that's a pretty good. Introduction to some very very fine fine poets and friends here on Georgetown divide people who look at what this meant NO percent natural world we live in and see the beauty of it and then able to express it so hello to both of you hello TAYLOR How are you but it's old school nice to have you here and Lesley so good to have you here thanks for having It's my . Privilege it's really is something I'm very excited about because I did have a chance to hear you had the arts and nature festival and we're just totally synchronized and what we think about and how we feel but you do it from your perspective so you're you're the information didn't tell me how long each of you have been actually writing poetry can you just feed me and a little bit on how when you started and how. Well push. I started well I I want to start in high school but it took me 10 years to actually write anything that was worth keeping. But that still gives me 40 some years well that's that's enough time you must you must know what you're doing if you can do it and you are you've got got the distinction of being the poor laureate of our county and I really feel privileged that I have you on the show and of course lastly you just are one of those people whose retirement you've got a voice you guard the musical ability and you write so tell me when you started. Well I started scribbling on the walls when I was very. Lonely buttons on everything I drew. I started writing things as soon as I could write but I never really thought of it as anything worth keeping except for for myself and just for fun and singing of course I'm a flute player so melody oriented adding the melody to poetry that I wrote but I never really realized it was poetry and so it's just been fairly recently that I feel like. Poetry is something that I want to kind of in an isolated way go after it's very it's very fun and it's very enriching. Well not that I like to scribbling on the wall I didn't know what poets did to start but that's a good artist you know I mean my grandson is probably going to be a poet because he's able to do things like that well anyway you use you to lobby ladies have brought a nice program for so I don't want to delay too long so I believe you're going to start us off and let's go let's do it yes I'm going to start with some poems that I wrote while scouting out the nature area with the intent of having a poets gathering there for the arts and nature festival and I love I love the nature area for years because we sometimes train our dogs there but I had a chance to spend a little extra time and so. This poem is come along down the woods trail and past the ponds let's pry the lid off what we know find a way to Meadow in the midst of forest blooming white and yellow How many kinds of April Willow step inside the house of bark watch the sunlight every gap and crevice see the weave of honeysuckle vines to bind the trees together sit still become a basket maker of your mind listen what's that tap tap someone hammering with the tiny hammer sending Morse code through the woods Let's give every bird a name of its own. Your head is room enough to take this whole meadow with you home. And this one is called eve of Earth Day storm has rinsed the sky blue a few white clouds this morning down the creek trail festival signs point the way from meadow with that cedar bark tepees into the maze of Canyon tomorrow school kids will learn about the abandoned gold mine from 40 niner days hard labor by pick and candle flame ever deeper into earth will they run their fingers along rough hewn walls that still exude a tactile charge of the close dark the fever for gold I felt the pull of those added shafts and tunnels would be rotting with time bad air leech of metallic remnants with their neurotoxins die off of tadpoles silence on the ponds let us learn our lessons well this morning has done its laundry rinse the sky I'll walk under a canter of clouds. You get in all that that really was a visit to the nature there was a nice visit. And eve of Earth Day one. The girl money and you know we do you so much to celebrate that part of our history but there's so much of it and it's really hurt us and hurt us all so well Leslie I see that the 1st. Poem you have you have one more to do you know you one more sure can go ahead. This is a sort of fantasy on something I read. In the news. When the bear wandered through the teachers had the children sit in circles on classroom floor by the shadow of the bear they told bears stories and drew trees and tepees put themselves in tales called Shadow of the bear the teachers told them how lucky they all lived close to trees and wild and shadow of the bear who was interloper in their school their town who lived here 1st the shadow of the bear then the bear wandered off and the children went out to recess to the shadow of the bear but the bear was gone away leaving nothing but drawings stories and the shadow of a bear. Great wonderful hen and that's something that happened and that's a poem of talks about something that happened appear where Leslie Oh you've got some poems forus and I the 1st one I see you have up is one that I heard at the nature fast and I said you know. I'm going to Unlike to have been on the show and that started this whole thing so you called the same grub and this is this is kind of about celebrating change. That same old grown. Once upon a time there was a grub his face was kind his tail was an ugly No but he lived beneath an apple tree in a hole he dug out with his teeth and he took baths every morning in his tub he did nice things for everyone he met there was nothing he could think of to regret he worked hard morning until night and read long books by candlelight and dream sweet dreams without a single friend one day he met a frog beside a pond the frog said grow you act like nothing's wrong your entire world is about to change and all you've known will rearrange and I guess you know from now it won't be long the grove had never heard of that before how will I change for August CAN YOU TELL ME MORE will grub he said it's hard to know a bug that flies or one that glows there's no tellin grub exactly what's in store I'll be a bug he asked You mean it's really true or of beetle said the frog that green and blue or you might just be a better fly now wouldn't that be a big surprise it's going to happen and there's nothing you can do the grub went home and packed his bags to leave a change can't find me if I'm out at sea I'll be safer there he cried at least I'll know I tried I'll always be the grub by I think he said sail that day in a nutshell but with his life vest on because grub don't float and he played himself a happy tune and he fell asleep in the light of the moon any dream sweet dreams till suddenly he awoke. Shoni Schimmel and I'm blue and green the grub was amazed and shouted can it be I would here with water all around I didn't think that I'd be found but change did find me while I was asleep. So the grub went home a beetle bug and he took a bath in his same old tub and he still worked hard from morning till night and he still read books in the same old light he loved his shell and he didn't miss his book he still was kind to everyone he met and he still could think of nothing to regret it changed did it thing he laughed with a shrug but I me inside and that same old grub any happily ever without a single fret crew. That grow up tells it all he really does. So you have you have a couple of hours in this segment I do this is about this is a tribute to most people that live up here on the divide that go for walks early in the morning when you're walking along and you run into a spider web or some sort of web that hit you in the face. I just want you to know this. The song of the collector as sung by pertinence turtle Esquire who you will find in Beyond the week and thread of a that I wrote. When the skies are clear and starry and the spiders feel the whim they'll probably leaving weaving laundry lines from about about a limb and all across the forest the spiders do their wash and hang their socks and releases on the lines they home they hang their socks and releases on their aprons babes and pants their overalls and blouses gloves and shorts they whistle sing and gossip and they play board games and dance while the starlight drives their laundry all night long who will bring the Lions in they will clean up all the mess they sing to one another before dawn they hope for a collector one who wanders through the trees breaking all the empty laundry lines as quickly as he leaves and if your the blessed collector in the morning in the trees and the lines get tangled all around your head you might be prone to worry that the spiders will be peeved rest assured you have their gladness is instead. OK yeah. OK Hard to know what to say to that when you know what I say to it is that that when we ask of what we may animals like us it's a way for us to approach. In our life who they are and and understand we have this house cat who Course does whatever house cats do they got things to do but we always interpret him as his actions as something that we would do like when he goes out he's going to work he's got a job to do and we talk about what his job might be and when he comes back he's on break and so forth and it amuses us but we also find that we really can care for him by just playing with him in that way and for these critters who are in the natural world that we don't get to spend as much time with and actually spiders or people who live with us and we really have a great deal of time with. It does help us to break that barrier that they're separate because they're not we're all that we're all here as one's being seems not one species but is one lifeforms that share this planet so I find it quite quite good to do so you know you have one more but I do this was dedicated to Locke Hanson She's a local poet Judy I'm going to ask you I mean Taylor sorry I'm going to ask you about luck and how long you've known Locke Henson. Oh I wish I could remember exactly 3 or 4 maybe 5 years. She suddenly appeared as a poet. And so I've been trying to sort of get to know her better and she comes to our reader rounds and our other readings. And I enjoy her very much he's She has a horse which makes her a good person just there. And then talkers and various other critters are all she's a true critter lover. So because she is a critter lover and she shared a poem about saving earthworms I wrote this in dedication to her love. Of all life there once was a kind girl named law she often thought more than she talked the story I'll tell is of how the rain fell and of 3 friends she saved on her walk easy he'll grab and the 3rd was especially grateful to her the ground assault be with rain she saved him that day and took him home in her can full of dirt but on her way she encountered a Wren who had fallen from where he had been he was wet we can scared so with sweet loving care she wrapped him in the scarf meet her chin the wind whipped and rain stone her face so long quickly picked up her pace then she heard a cat cry from a storm drain nearby for a cat was it hideous place over thunder she managed to shout hold on my friend I'll get you out though the rain though the drain wells were steep and the water was deep she could do it she hadn't a doubt the rescue took courage and grit she was clever and nimble and swift the cat came out wet and admitted regret I'm sorry I howled Histon spit. The storm threatened to sweep them away so lock promised her friends they'd be safe over hills Adele's and streams ducking tall falling trees she tracked on through the wind and the rain and today in walks warm cozy home the rinsing is a song of his own. Easy kewl reads while the cat purrs and needs sipping chai tea with Allman to milk. Yeah OK. Again. Very thrilled that I have you to hear and on the program you're making earth man show expense even include truly. Raised your are worthless and actually. And of improve the overall. Tenor here I spend I spend so much time talking about how we're harming the earth and what we're doing that sometimes it could be a little depressing maybe very depressing but to look at it through I don't appreciate what we have is really really very special it's what we have to do it's hard we have to live here and let me just ask you what were the start that year appreciation of the natural world I mean that everybody doesn't have it but you seem to have been an extra amount. I didn't realize how much I really need. Natural landscape but I grew up. Back when there were a lot more bacon lots and places to wander and my folks were both they work for the schools and so they had summer vacations and we traveled all over and camped and. And then in grad school I got hooked on backpacking and then of course search and rescue and I just. I can't do without. Woods and fields and well I'll 2nd that it is vital vital and of course looking on the divide we have it in such access and we have it's right out our door we're so blessed and fortunate to have such a world at least some of the so much of Eldorado County so much of it yeah it really is in northern California as a whole but. Yeah to live here is a real gift and. The more we become aware of how to care for art and to appreciate it the better but all the how but you lastly what is your. Connection to. Nature that went as well Taylor didn't mention it but I am I'm sure that she also climbed to trees as as often as she possibly could so sitting up in a tree thinking having a true thinking spot before I heard that that was a cool thing to do by Winnie the Pooh and. It's always been outside and trees and sky and all of the. All of the creatures all the friends that are wandering around and and I do truly think of them as friends yes mosquitoes are a little annoying but they just haven't learned yet Michael. You know it's just a life long thing and that is in. Sometimes it's almost. Below our level of awareness that we are so connected but once we start opening up to it then we really do see that the beauty and the wonder and really in my sacredness of our planet and. So yeah we share all that. There you go one the next segment here is about FOX Yeah I guess I have a thing about foxes because every time I see one I end up writing a poem. Still trying to. Figure them out or connect with them the way I oughta can I don't know but this poem is called Fox. In spring green landscape cut by asphalt I walked booted on one side on the other Fox I with my projects Lupin on the loose blue sky April breezing Oak Leaf bursting quietly a fox inevitable spark when Fox eyes meet human not love not terror morning belongs to Fox at my feet her kids slipped into a roadside culvert their tiny house out of sight gone a kind of sword cleaves the garden myth makes a new one in both of our minds man slash Fox listen no matter how cautiously I step a twig breaks. And from foxes I would like to move on to my my supreme love dogs because I've been working and living with dogs for. Decades now and the continue to amaze me well I would guess so I mean your part of you that raise these rescue dogs must be incredibly fascinating and I would you know when I hear your poems today but I would also like to hear that story as well sometime. The dogs you learn to read the dogs the dogs lean they don't learn to read to you they just I guess naturally know how to read you and you try to use their natural instincts to your advantage like finding somebody out there in the woods. But. The dogs have taught me so much and that's sort of what this poem is about it's called Shared breathing and it's for our own dog Tucker that leaves a cowboy we've had a whole lot of dogs for a cowboy who we lost last summer but he was 13 years old which is pretty good for a German Shepherd he had a good long life shared breathing my dog leads the way into the woods shows me snapped off twigs proof of someone passing he asks Can't you smell it dog snow forest stories if I glimpse flicks of yellow plumage in the brush fragments of flight my dog knows the bird and where it nests where each wind comes from and all its histories. If I follow my dog I'll find what I was looking for or something different. My dogs alert might set me listening for the soft tread of Cougar tribal memory I have no words for that shadow behind my eyes. Yeah it's true it's true they do sure and and the the an especially the dog but so many built by their gift of being able to take olders and understand orders as well as their side in many cases they are they have facilities that are so much greater than ours and their hearing is and it is incredible Yea