Episode Transcript
Transcripts are displayed as originally observed. Some content, including advertisements may have changed.
Use Ctrl + F to search
0:00
As a contractor, I don't pay for
0:02
materials I don't use. So, why would
0:04
I pay for stuff I don't need
0:06
in my mobile plan? That's why the
0:08
new my-biz plan from Verizon business is
0:11
so perfect. Now I can choose exactly
0:13
what I want, and I only pay
0:15
for what I need. Right now, with
0:17
MyBiz plan, get our best price, as
0:19
low as $25 a line. Visit Verizon.com/business,
0:22
to get started today. Price per month
0:24
with five-plus lines includes auto pay and
0:26
paper free billing and special intro offer
0:28
discounts, taxes fees, economic adjustment
0:30
charge in terms of applying, offers in
0:32
June 10th, 2025. Nordstrom brings you
0:35
the season's most wanted brands, skims,
0:37
mango, free people, and princess poly,
0:40
all under $100. From trending sneakers
0:42
to beauty must-haves, we've curated the
0:44
styles you'll wear on repeat this
0:47
spring. Free shipping, free returns, and
0:49
in-store pickup make it easier than
0:51
ever. Shop now in stores and
0:54
at Nordstrom.com. This episode is
0:56
brought to you by State Farm.
0:58
You might say all kinds of stuff
1:01
when things go wrong, but these are
1:03
the words you really need to remember.
1:05
Like a good neighbor, State Farm is
1:08
there. They've got options to fit your
1:10
unique insurance needs, meaning you can talk
1:12
to your agent to choose the coverage
1:15
you need, have coverage options to protect
1:17
the things you value most, file a
1:19
claim right on the State Farm mobile
1:22
app, and even reach a real person
1:24
when you need to talk to someone.
1:26
Like a good neighbor, State Farm is
1:28
there. Welcome to the new books network.
1:31
Today I'm very pleased to have
1:33
the author, Ed Levin, with me. to share
1:35
some of his thoughts about his newest
1:37
book, The Promise of Sunrise, finding
1:39
solace in a broken world. Not only
1:41
is Ted and I neighbors in the
1:44
Connecticut River, Upper Valley of Vermont,
1:46
but at different times we both
1:48
went through the same environmental
1:50
program at Antioch New England
1:52
Graduate School. But before attending
1:54
Antioch, Ted was a naturalist
1:56
at Cumberland Gap Natural Historical
1:59
Park. and then was a teaching
2:01
zoologist at the Bronx Zoo in
2:04
New York. Now, after studying ornithology
2:06
in graduate school, he served both
2:09
as a naturalist at the Monthire
2:11
Museum of Science in North Vermont,
2:13
and also served on the faculty
2:16
of Newing College in Henneker, New
2:18
Hampshire. Now, this book is the
2:20
latest in a long list of
2:23
his books and publications, going back
2:25
to the 1980s. He has written
2:27
and illustrated a book for preschoolers.
2:30
contribute to photojournal on the Everglades
2:32
and has provided illustrations for two
2:34
books on poetry. His many articles
2:37
can be found in such publications
2:39
as The New York Times, Newsday,
2:42
The Guardian, Audubon Magazine, and even
2:44
Sports Illustrated. A particular note, Ted
2:46
won the prestigious John J. Burles
2:49
Meadow, a recognition that highlights the
2:51
best of natural history writing. Welcome,
2:53
Ted. Yeah, thank you for having
2:56
me. So let me begin by
2:58
saying reading your book allowed me
3:00
to gain a very intimate view
3:03
of your inner and outer world.
3:05
But to start, could you go
3:07
up to the 10,000 view, put
3:10
view, and provides a more general
3:12
description about the upper Connecticut River
3:15
Valley for our listeners around the
3:17
world? You imagine a cleft in
3:19
the landscape north to south, 410
3:22
miles long. That's the Connecticut River
3:24
Valley. And it separates the rolling
3:26
hills of New Hampshire from the
3:29
rolling hills of Vermont. And as
3:31
you move west in Vermont, you
3:33
reach the green mountains. As you
3:36
move east and northeast in New
3:38
Hampshire, you reach the bulbous white
3:41
mountains. And there are many thousands
3:43
upon thousands of streams and intermittent
3:45
streams. that feed into the Connecticut
3:48
River Valley and it provides a
3:50
north-south spur route off the Atlantic.
3:52
flyway for migratory birds coming and
3:55
going spring and fall. Hey great
3:57
thank you for doing that. Now
3:59
the book is structured as a
4:02
daily journal of observations from 2021
4:04
to 2022 and it is a
4:06
record of your quiet observations and
4:09
appreciation that truly reflects a sense
4:11
of place in what you call
4:14
Coyote Hollow. Now do you think
4:16
you would have reached this place
4:18
of review? election without the isolation
4:21
imposed on all of us due
4:23
to the COVID pandemic? Definitely not.
4:25
There's no, no way because I
4:28
would have been on the move
4:30
doing a variety of things and
4:32
I wouldn't have been stuck at
4:35
home for 18 months. Well you
4:37
say stuck at home, it makes
4:39
it sound not fun, but in
4:42
reading your observations it seemed somewhat
4:44
invigorating. Well, you know, it was,
4:47
but you can imagine, Michael, living
4:49
alone for 18 months during the
4:51
course of the birth of my
4:54
first grandchild. Yeah, it was very
4:56
isolating, and I had to come
4:58
up with ways other than watching
5:01
TV and reading books to entertain
5:03
myself. Okay. We've all gone through
5:05
that. Probably you. So as a
5:08
vibrator myself, your daily web report
5:10
gives me a real feel of
5:12
the ebbs and flows of the
5:15
seasons in New England. But also,
5:17
one can't help but notice each
5:20
daily entry begins with a quote.
5:22
So why did you add this
5:24
is part of the overall structure
5:27
of the book? Well I had,
5:29
whenever I come across something, either
5:31
on the web or with my
5:34
reading, I'll write it down in
5:36
a three by five file card.
5:38
And I just thought it was
5:41
a nice way to complement what
5:43
I was thinking of at the
5:45
time that I was doing my
5:48
writing. So there's two ways to
5:50
look at these quotes. Actually, I
5:53
spent one day just reading the
5:55
quotes all the way across. if
5:57
there was some kind of a
6:00
thread line that was going up
6:02
and down and but then then
6:04
I saw that you know some
6:07
of the quotes really did resonate
6:09
to what you had written that
6:11
day. So did you write the
6:14
day and then decide what to
6:16
quote? Correct. Yeah I wrote the
6:19
day well I guess I should
6:21
explain how this all got started.
6:23
I would go out with my
6:26
cell phone and punch in what
6:28
I saw, both weather-wise and animal
6:30
and plant-wise. And I began to
6:33
post it on the upper valley
6:35
birding listserv or regional birding venue
6:37
for people who live in the
6:40
Connecticut River Valley. Then I did
6:42
it again for Vermont Birds, which
6:44
is a statewide birding resource for
6:47
the state of Vermont. And it
6:49
was only when I was asked
6:52
by Rob Gerwith to provide something
6:54
for his online publication called Daybreak
6:56
that I was introduced to sub
6:59
stack. And kicking and screaming, I
7:01
figured out how to get on
7:03
to sub stack. And once I
7:06
got on there, I realized I
7:08
can open this up to a
7:10
lot more than I had been
7:13
doing just on the listserv, so
7:15
I was spending much more time
7:17
with additional writing. when substacks started
7:20
in May of 2020? Well, structurally,
7:22
the entries are also not just
7:25
about the present and the observation.
7:27
They're imbibed with reflections of the
7:29
past too. And so did you
7:32
come in and do the day
7:34
as you observed it and then
7:36
thought about that and added the
7:39
reflections that day or you just
7:41
went back through your daily entries
7:43
and those reflections sort of emerged?
7:46
Those reflections emerged. Some of them
7:48
were done immediately for sub stack
7:50
because it was pretty clear that
7:53
I was reflecting not only on
7:55
what I saw on the day,
7:58
but I was reflecting on myself,
8:00
and what I was missing, what
8:02
I had gained. Sometimes I was
8:05
even reflecting on the books that
8:07
I read as a child that
8:09
led me into wanting to be
8:12
a naturalist. Yeah, as I said,
8:14
it was a very intimate view
8:16
of your inner self that I
8:19
gathered from this, not just your
8:21
surroundings. Now, the book has really
8:23
beautiful illustrations. And can you tell
8:26
me about these? Yeah, and the
8:28
artist is Jeanette Fournier, and I
8:31
met her at an art expose
8:33
on the Green of the Elementary
8:35
School in Norwich, Vermont, the Marin
8:38
Cross School. And my friend Nancy
8:40
had kept her card, and when
8:42
I was looking for an illustrator,
8:45
she said, yeah, why don't you
8:47
call Jeanette up? We both loved
8:49
her stuff. So I did, and
8:52
I went to her studio in
8:54
North Woodstock, New Hampshire. with a
8:57
spirally bound rough draft of what
8:59
I was putting together as a
9:01
book. And she had told me
9:04
she'd always won the illustrator book
9:06
but didn't know about how to
9:08
go about doing it. So I
9:11
had to take a look. I
9:13
told her what passages I thought
9:15
would be wonderful for an illustration.
9:18
I gave her a list, gave
9:20
her the days, and we began
9:22
taking it from there. So how
9:25
did you finally... determine what species
9:27
to highlight with the images since
9:30
there were so many species that
9:32
were mentioned. Well, chickades were a
9:34
no-brainer. They had to get it
9:37
as three or four or five
9:39
separate illustrations because I saw them
9:41
every day and they were so
9:44
entertaining. They were so accepting of
9:46
my presence, you know, two feet
9:48
away, three feet away. I watched
9:51
them feeding young, I watched them
9:53
picking up my dogs, rush fur
9:55
off the front lawn to line
9:58
their nests with. So I mean,
10:00
I really glimpsed a lot of
10:03
their life, whereas a lot of
10:05
other things, like a bobcat that
10:07
wandered by, I washed it for
10:10
10 seconds, but it was one
10:12
of the more profound things that
10:14
happened to me in those 18
10:17
months. So I knew that had
10:19
to have an illustration. But chicken
10:21
is the only ones with more
10:24
than one. Okay. As a wetland
10:26
ecologist, I liked your wetland species.
10:28
the bobcat and that was in
10:31
your description on day 352. But
10:33
you stated in your writing that
10:36
this sighting turned the day joyous.
10:38
Can you tell me what that
10:40
means, why that animal, that particular
10:43
animal resonates in the way for
10:45
you? Sure. Well I've lived in
10:47
Vermont for nearly 50 years and
10:50
I had never seen a bobcat.
10:52
I've seen him in Florida, I've
10:54
seen him in Texas, I've seen
10:57
him in California, but in Georgia,
10:59
never in Vermont. I followed the
11:01
tracks. As a matter of fact,
11:04
when I was working on my
11:06
master's thesis, I followed bobcats all
11:09
over Southwestern New Hampshire, but never
11:11
saw one. So it was something
11:13
I had always wanted to see
11:16
in my home state, let alone
11:18
my front yard, more or less,
11:20
that's front yard in the big
11:23
term. Right. So, so, why are
11:25
these animals so elusive? Well, like...
11:27
Timberrattle snakes or great horn or
11:30
bard owls, they are ambush hunters
11:32
and they're not meant to be
11:35
seen. If they're seen too frequently,
11:37
they aren't going to feed themselves.
11:39
So they blend in, they're quiet,
11:42
bobcat walks on silent feet. Okay,
11:44
just one more thing about the
11:46
bobcat. I assume it hunts year-round,
11:49
it doesn't den up like some
11:51
of those species. It's a year-round
11:53
hunter. Okay. Mostly snowshoe hair. But
11:56
in my area, we don't have
11:58
that many snowshoes. hairs. So it's
12:00
taking a lot of other things
12:03
from your gray squirrels. I determined
12:05
that it raided a gossock nest
12:08
and pulled out all three of
12:10
the almost fledged chicks. So how
12:12
high is a gossock nest? I
12:15
don't know. This was about 40
12:17
feet up a white pine tree.
12:19
Wow. That's impressive. Yeah, and there
12:22
was there were down feathers. There
12:24
was a line of down feathers
12:26
going all the way down. stuck
12:29
in the bark of the tree
12:31
that you could see how a
12:33
bobcat with a mouthful of baby
12:36
birds backed himself down the tree
12:38
and the dressed feathers of the
12:41
birds rubbed against the tree and
12:43
the down came out and stuck
12:45
in it. Okay so I'm going
12:48
to ask you what's your third
12:50
on the list after the chickades
12:52
and the bobcat was of the
12:55
all the things you observed what
12:57
was the number three do you
12:59
think? Well it's a toss-up between...
13:02
yellow build cuckoos which I had
13:04
never seen on my property in
13:06
Vermont before and Otters which I
13:09
find delightful to watch and I've
13:11
seen many times but and I
13:14
saw it many times over the
13:16
course of these 18 months as
13:18
well. So you know my wife's
13:21
actually been in some of your
13:23
birding trips and is the yellow
13:25
build cuckoo really from this area
13:28
or was it you know off
13:30
loan over here for some somehow?
13:32
No, no, they're a really interesting
13:35
bird. They have no sense of
13:37
filipatry, meaning that they don't go
13:39
back to their natal neighborhood to
13:42
breed. They follow outbreaks of hairy
13:44
caterpillars. We happen to have, in
13:47
the summer of 2020, we happen
13:49
to have a bumper crop of
13:51
10 caterpillars. So they showed up.
13:54
And I think it was mid-June,
13:56
maybe. early July, and it wasn't
13:58
just one. There was a wave
14:01
of them. I heard about six
14:03
or seven one morning, and they
14:05
continued to hear them all the
14:08
way into September. Wow. So, now,
14:10
the book is rife with visual
14:13
descriptions, and you're obviously grounded in
14:15
biology and ecology, which were quite
14:17
evident in some of your early
14:20
books, like the one about the
14:22
Everglades and the other about the
14:24
Rattlesnake, but what struck me about...
14:27
This book was, how much sound
14:29
was part of your daily sojourns
14:31
outside? As a writer, is it
14:34
more difficult for you to describe
14:36
the world of sound versus sight?
14:38
It's a bit more of a
14:41
challenge, but it's not that difficult.
14:43
I would just relay it back
14:46
to things that I knew and
14:48
was familiar with, which in many
14:50
cases was rock and roll. I've
14:53
tried to do that for trying
14:55
to describe wood frogs, you know,
14:57
to people, you know, what that
15:00
sound is like. But I often
15:02
have to come up with a
15:04
metaphor of something to get the
15:07
idea of what the sound is
15:09
like, as opposed to just describing
15:11
the sound. Did you have any
15:14
of those challenges? I probably did,
15:16
but you know, in many cases,
15:19
wood frogs, I would call, you
15:21
know, disembodied ducks. Yeah, me too.
15:23
Yeah, but it always sounded like
15:26
to me. But for instance, one
15:28
of my favorite birds in a
15:30
beautiful, beautiful, colored songbird is a
15:33
scarlet tanager. And it's got a
15:35
raspy voice like someone who smokes
15:37
a pack of cigarettes a day.
15:40
I mean, if you can imagine
15:42
a robin as a chain smoker,
15:44
that's the voice of a tanager.
15:47
That's great. That's a great description.
15:49
I mean, it's sort of like
15:52
people then sort of understand the
15:54
sound. Yeah, or if you listen
15:56
to folk music... Tom waits. Yep.
15:59
This is great. Now you have
16:01
a real appreciation of what you
16:03
have and had but the whole
16:06
book stepping back is a snapshot
16:08
of that world in time. So
16:10
can you again step back or
16:13
step up and reflect on what
16:15
you see is the major threat
16:17
to this exquisite painting you have
16:20
shared? were this way of life
16:22
in the upper Connecticut River Valley?
16:25
Yeah, ignoring it. And you expound
16:27
on that a little bit? Yeah,
16:29
yeah, I mean, I think it
16:32
was a Dalai Lama that said
16:34
you only you only protect and
16:36
save what you care for and
16:39
you love, I'm kind of paraphrasing
16:41
what he said. And I think
16:43
that's the case for all of
16:46
us wherever we happen to live.
16:48
Okay. Dear old work platform. It's
16:51
not you. It's us. Actually, it
16:53
is you. Endless onboarding? Constant IT
16:55
bottlenecks? We've had enough. We need
16:58
a platform that just gets us.
17:00
And to be honest, we've met
17:02
someone new. They're called Monday.com. And
17:05
it was love at first onboarding.
17:07
They're beautiful dashboards. They're customizable workflows.
17:09
Got us floating on a digital
17:12
cloud nine. So no hard feelings,
17:14
but we're moving on. Monday.com. The
17:16
first work platform you'll love
17:18
to use. You know that
17:21
feeling when someone shows up
17:23
for you just when you
17:26
need it most? That's what
17:28
Uber is all about. Not
17:31
just a ride or generate
17:33
your door. It's how Uber
17:35
helps you show up for
17:38
the moments that matter. Because
17:40
showing up can turn a
17:43
tough day around. or make
17:45
a good one even better.
17:47
Whatever it is, big or
17:50
small, Uber is on the
17:52
way. So you can be
17:55
on yours. Uber, on our
17:57
way. Is there anything that
18:00
you would suggest in briefs
18:02
our desire for care? Yeah,
18:04
go outside and eyes and
18:07
ears wide open. Okay. Now.
18:09
Because I shared earlier there
18:12
are many entrancing insightful observations
18:14
over these 526 days with
18:16
many reflections going back almost
18:19
40 years. So now that
18:21
the book is published, is
18:24
there a particular passage that
18:26
you'd like to share with
18:29
our listeners? Sure, I think
18:31
it would be day 161,
18:33
which I use as the
18:36
introduction because it's introducing both
18:38
how I lay out the
18:41
book, even though it's not
18:43
chronological, it's taken out of
18:45
sequence, but it also introduces
18:48
myself and the life I
18:50
had for myself on that
18:53
100 acres in Thetford Center
18:55
that we called Coyote Hollow.
18:58
Okay, can you share that
19:00
with us? I can. An
19:02
introduction, day 161, 25th of
19:05
August 2020, Liddy's 69th birthday.
19:07
In three words, I can
19:10
sum up everything I've learned
19:12
about life. goes on, Robert
19:14
Frost. 6.05 a.m. Sunrise one
19:17
minute later than yesterday. 63
19:19
degrees wind south-southeast three miles
19:22
per hour. Sky. Dispersing ground
19:24
fog lifts, unveiling a lightly
19:27
rubble heaven. A mix of
19:29
overexposed blue and wool white
19:31
hints of peach across the
19:34
west. Permanent streams. Permanent streams.
19:36
Jittery flow flickering light running
19:39
out of water. Lower, a
19:41
single worried puddle, emblem of
19:43
the parched summer, wetlands, mist-softened
19:46
colors, across the marshy tree
19:48
falls, fracturing the lullaby of
19:51
the breeze. Pond. Sands mist,
19:53
sands most everything, no water,
19:56
no hooded regans or no
19:58
bitter, except for errant methane
20:00
bubbles in a lone turtle,
20:03
shiny disc with little web
20:05
feet right and sinking, a
20:08
reptilian marionette, frogs press against
20:10
the shoreline like S&H green
20:12
stamps to their pages, crickets,
20:15
early mornings metronome, a live
20:17
on the road, A-O-R, two
20:20
hermit rushes, wandering the edge.
20:22
Two little brown bats, Myotus
20:25
lucifugus, constricted figureates above the
20:27
front yard, trolling for flying
20:29
ants and mosquitoes, survivors of
20:32
their own pandemic. A solitary
20:34
tricolored bat pairing myotus subflavus,
20:37
a tiny, very tiny bat,
20:39
busily erratic, courses above treetops,
20:41
looks like a hummingbird moor,
20:44
a flesh-colored spark, combing insects
20:46
out of fertile airways, tricolored
20:49
bat, once known as the
20:51
Eastern Pipistrel, and little brown
20:54
bat both victims of white
20:56
nose syndrome ignored social distancing
20:58
at their own peril. Sound
21:01
familiar? Chickadee rips breakfast out
21:03
of a dewy spider web,
21:06
then sing. Reminds me of
21:08
the midwinter when spring was
21:10
a dream. Why sing when
21:13
the hollow faces autumn? Three
21:15
pewies join in, slurred whistles,
21:18
a dampened version of plaintiff's
21:20
summer song, equally longing, equally
21:23
sad, simple to mimic. First
21:26
winter ran, I've heard, in
21:28
more than two months, a
21:30
truncated version of the Eprovesant
21:32
Piccolo, which, when blended with
21:34
the drumming of a far-off
21:37
pilliated, ushers me back to
21:39
early May, when the mornings
21:41
were colder and bird songs
21:43
hotter, winter ran and pilliated,
21:45
the fife and drum core,
21:48
an unexpected engagement. Cat bird
21:50
meows, another pulse of red-breasted
21:52
not ashes, passes through karate
21:54
karate alo. nasal coals roll
21:56
off tree trunks like a
21:59
flock of tricycle horns. Ovenbird,
22:01
first I've heard Newmont, sings
22:03
a clip version of teacher-teacher-teacher,
22:05
teacher, more like, teach-teach, teach,
22:07
and encouraging note on the
22:09
threshold of the weirdest school
22:12
year I remember. Today, Lenny's
22:14
birthday, she would have been
22:16
69. When she died, I've
22:18
mourned what the boys had
22:20
lost and lamented her absence
22:23
from our lives, a litany
22:25
of inconsolible everyday losses, my
22:27
sorrow often masked by immersion
22:29
in family survival. I skated
22:31
around the death of hope,
22:33
stagnerly fragile, avoiding as best
22:36
I could, dwelling on personal
22:38
loss, the closest of friends,
22:40
companion, confidant, a fellow explorer
22:42
of the recesses of the
22:44
world. Oh how I missed
22:47
her burnt toast and her
22:49
infectious laugh, so buoyant and
22:51
contagious, but I had a
22:53
ship to write to write
22:55
Boys to grow. Casey and
22:58
Jordan loved to travel and
23:00
for the most part they
23:02
were easy to travel with.
23:04
Few complaints are outlandish requests.
23:06
The time they were infants
23:08
we took them everywhere. They
23:11
nursed themselves to sleep in
23:13
tents from Alaska to Newfoundland
23:15
to the desert southwest. A
23:17
hint of campfire smoke lingered
23:19
on the outdoor, Casey's outdoor
23:22
clothes. When Casey
23:24
was five and a boardwalk in
23:26
Florida, he lured a board owl
23:28
to within five feet, hooting softly
23:31
from the seat of his bicycle.
23:33
Jordan had never met a snake
23:35
or a frog he didn't like,
23:38
and he broadcast enthusiasm whenever he
23:40
discovered a strange-looking insect. Although the
23:43
boys loved the wonders of nature
23:45
and appreciated life's grand diversity, for
23:47
quite a while after their mother
23:50
died, I hardly took them anywhere.
23:52
Whenever we traveled as a family,
23:54
Linnie had been the organizer, the
23:57
program director. I'd been the consultant,
23:59
the mule, the cheerleader. She would
24:01
remember the toys, the books, the
24:04
snacks. Toniel clippers. After Linnie died,
24:06
life for that encompass seemed best
24:08
lived closer to home. Travel did
24:11
return to our lives, often with
24:13
a vengeance. But since the law
24:15
still lingers, yesterday Casey and Daughter-in-law
24:18
Becky texted me the sonogram of
24:20
a fetal heartbeat. I longed to
24:22
see Linnie's irrepressible smile one more
24:25
time. rising like the tide at
24:27
news should be a grandmother. Three
24:29
Phoebe chicks in the front yard
24:32
apple tree, wings drooping and quivering,
24:34
mouths cranked open, sunrise colors, begging,
24:36
begging, begging. I stop and watch
24:39
Phoebe destiny, mostly moise, a steady
24:41
progression of seasonal harvest. No matter
24:43
how much I ache, I can't
24:46
suppress smiling. Time has a way
24:48
of passing, of blunting loss. casting
24:51
light across dark shadows uncoiling the
24:53
future. Thank you, Ted. You're welcome.
24:55
Now, Linnie and your two sons
24:58
moved to this part of Vermont,
25:00
I think, in the 1990s. The
25:02
boy seemed to be off pursuing
25:05
their own destinies, and I'm truly
25:07
sorry for your loss. Well, thank
25:09
you. With a said, you no
25:12
longer live in that Vermont, and
25:14
the final entries are from... what
25:16
you call Hurricane Hill located in
25:19
another Vermont community. So was this
25:21
journal a form of closure for
25:23
you so you could move on
25:26
and embrace the next stage of
25:28
your life? Well it didn't turn
25:30
out that way because in the
25:33
beginning I didn't know that was
25:35
going to happen. Okay, in retrospect?
25:37
I guess it is in retrospect.
25:40
Yeah, but it was never planned.
25:42
You know, I frequently say this
25:44
was an inadvertent book. This was
25:47
not planned to be a book
25:49
when I started doing it. Oh,
25:52
really? That's very interesting. So, but
25:54
you did have... So how did
25:56
you come up with... the interior
25:59
structure of the days, you know,
26:01
from observation to reflection to quotes,
26:03
I mean, that just happened organically,
26:06
and it worked for one day,
26:08
and you decided to repeat that?
26:10
Yes. I mean, the quotes came
26:13
when I decided I was working
26:15
on a book. Okay, okay. The
26:17
quotes were not part of the
26:20
beginning, but what was part of
26:22
the beginning was sunrise time, the
26:24
difference between the sunrise from that
26:27
day and the day before. As
26:29
it evolved I began to see
26:31
that the one constant we have
26:34
on this planet is change. And
26:36
one of the easiest way to
26:38
see the change is note the
26:41
difference in the rising and setting
26:43
of the sun. As well as
26:45
the weather and all the little
26:48
parade of birds and animals that
26:50
I saw was different every day.
26:52
Well I found this book quite
26:55
different from your other books. If
26:57
you were going to have someone
27:00
read... a second book of yours
27:02
and you've got a number of
27:04
them which one would you point
27:07
them to just one just one
27:09
I would say America's snake okay
27:11
and that's about the rattlesnake it's
27:14
about the timber rattlesnakes and the
27:16
people that love them and the
27:18
people that hate them and its
27:21
place in American history okay great
27:23
which is significant if if there
27:25
was ever a national reptile reptile
27:28
it ought to be the timber
27:30
rattlesnake Listen, I used to have
27:32
a flag out here in my
27:35
flagpole that had, you know, the
27:37
Revolutionary War timber rattlesake on it.
27:39
Yeah, don't tread on me. Don't
27:42
tread on me, yes. Now I
27:44
know you... Icklin, Ben Franklin, had
27:46
an illustration of the 13 colonies
27:49
as a timber rattlesake, cutting in
27:51
sections, and he had a political
27:53
cartoon that divided refaul. Oh, that's
27:56
interesting. Didn't he also want the
27:58
turkey to be the national bird?
28:01
He did. Yeah. No, I know
28:03
you're headed off to Costa Rica
28:05
soon. And yet again, is there
28:08
any thoughts? a forthcoming book about
28:10
your experiences with that natural world?
28:12
I haven't really thought of that.
28:15
Okay. I haven't really thought, yeah,
28:17
there's a river in Southeast Arizona
28:19
that for years I thought deserved
28:22
a book. It's called the San
28:24
Pedro. It's the only undam river,
28:26
desert river left in the United
28:29
States. And it's a thorough, it
28:31
was where Coronado came up when
28:33
he was searching for the seven
28:36
cities of gold. There's a great
28:38
place to see Mammoth Dig on
28:40
the banks of the San Pedro
28:43
and Deep Southeast Arizona. It's the
28:45
avenue that jaguars and oscillates and
28:47
more gays cross into the United
28:50
States from Sonora. And if jaguars
28:52
were ever to repopulate the southwest,
28:54
that's one of the places they
28:57
would come. And of course now...
28:59
with our current political climate, if
29:01
a wall really did get built
29:04
there, that would end any chance
29:06
of those kinds of mammals returning.
29:09
Well, thank you. The book is
29:11
The Promise of Sunrise, finding solace
29:13
in a broken world, published by
29:16
Green Writers Press. Thank you, Ted.
29:18
You're welcome, Michael. Six
29:31
months from now, you could be running a
29:33
5K, booking that dream trip, or seeing thicker,
29:35
fuller hair every time you look in the
29:37
mirror. Through hers, you can get dermatologist trusted,
29:39
clinically proven prescriptions, with ingredients that go beyond
29:41
what over-the-counter products offer. Whether you prefer oral
29:43
or topical treatments, hers has you covered. Getting
29:45
started is simple. Just fill out an intake
29:48
form online, and a licensed provider will recommend
29:50
a customized plan just for you. The best
29:52
part. Everything is 100% %
29:54
online. If prescribed, treatment ships
29:56
right to your door. No
29:58
No pharmacy trips, no
30:00
no waiting rooms, and no
30:02
insurance headaches. Plus, treatments
30:04
start at just at just
30:06
month. Start your initial
30:08
free online visit today
30:10
forhers.com .com f-o-r-h-e-r-s.com/talk. F -O -R -H
30:13
-E -R -S dot com
30:15
slash talk. safety products are
30:17
not FDA approved or
30:19
verified for safety, effectiveness,
30:21
or quality. on required. and
30:23
Price Marys, based on
30:25
product and subscription plan.
30:27
details for full details,
30:29
restrictions, and important safety information.
Podchaser is the ultimate destination for podcast data, search, and discovery. Learn More