The RegenNarration Podcast
The RegenNarration podcast features the stories of a generation that is changing the story, enabling the regeneration of life on this planet. It’s ad-free, freely available and entirely listener-supported. You'll hear from high profile and grass-roots leaders from around Australia and the world, on how they're changing the stories we live by, and the systems we create in their mold. Along with often very personal tales of how they themselves are changing, in the places they call home. With award-winning host, Anthony James.
The RegenNarration Podcast
Ancient Oaks & New Beginnings: When the right people show up
Last week’s episode on-location with a ‘community juggernaut’ restoration project in South Carolina drew some wonderful responses – like ‘I felt like I was right there’, ‘Giving me goose bumps’, ‘The future retrospective documentary idea is brilliant’, and ‘This kicks ass’! So here’s a 5 minute bonus to lift your spirits a little more.
It starts as we were winding up, but with mic’s left running, capturing a stunning moment by an old oak tree standing on the original plantation house grounds. (And the Angel Oak Joel mentions, is an even older oak he just filmed a story for, to assist in its preservation and celebration.)
Then another stunning moment, when Schuyler Clogston drifted by, and the tale emerged of her serendipitous encounter with the Project. And finally, some more context to the amazing regeneration at play, and the out-take at the end of the main episode.
If you’ve come here first, you can tune into that main episode 256 with Joel Caldwell and Dr Blake Scott, ‘The Marsh Appreciation & Restoration Society for Happiness’. You’ll find a few links in the show notes as usual, along with transcript, and a bunch of photos on that episode website, with more for paid subscribers on Patreon and Substack.
Recorded September 2024.
Title image: the oak tree we pass (pic: Anthony James).
Music:
By Jeremiah Johnson.
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Do you want this thing? back, or are you still going?
AJ:Well, I just sort of keep it running, because you never know what happens.
Blake:Okay, yeah, you just edit it down If we're together, I'll keep it running, yeah whatever you want.
AJ:Unless you guys want it off and you want to talk about stuff.
Blake:No, I don't care yeah cool. This is the original plantation house, lowndes Grove, so this wall is the current property boundary, but the whole neighborhood was the plantation.
Blake:wow, check out this oak, yeah this southern live oak. Yeah, this is like the specimen, that's like pre-revolutionary, a couple hundred years at least.
Joel:Oh yeah, I would say north of that. Grandmother oak here.
AJ:It's magnificent yeah, yeah, it's awesome yeah, has its own story too, though. Oh my gosh, how old do you think?
Joel:Oh, I mean, that thing's got to be like 400 or something. I mean, I have no idea and it's really hard to tell with those. I think even like the angel oak.
Blake:Yeah, sometimes they're like it's 1,000 years. Yeah, no, it could be, though it could be the angel oak.
Joel:They think it's somewhere between like 400 and 1,000 years old. That's a big, but it's just hard to, without cutting it down, I guess, or damaging it in some way. You can't really tell yeah, so not worth it.
Joel:Hey, I want to introduce you to one of our friends.
Blake:She's a professor at Clemson. Helping us design the ecological corridor.
Blake:She's got a couple of classes. If you've got time go visit their studio.
AJ:Magnificent. What's your name?
Schuyler:Schuyler Clogston. And the group that just sort of dispersed are my students. But this is our second semester working to design the ecological corridor, so they just finished up sort of a neighborhood study and analysis and they did case studies and precedents to break down ecological corridors into specific elements like bioswales, water retention ponds, native plants, um tree canopy coverage, things like that in urban areas, um, and then coming up here in a couple weeks we're going to do a community design charrette with, in partnership with the city, to get community feedback on what they'd want the corridor to look like and then we'll get to designing pretty soon.
Joel:so yeah, I think sky is the best example of like the community just offering exactly what we need at the time. We're like, we're like how about this, uh, ecological corridor idea? And blake, the designer literally takes like a google, like a google earth image of the charleston peninsula and draws a yellow rectangle over where we want to do the ecological corridor. And then Skye's like I'll take it from here, thanks. And she just like gets her students to like come up with all these brilliant ideas of how different areas can be you know that are just like laying abandoned, how they can be more productive. And you, I mean it's just been, it's been so weird, just like in awe of and don't feel any ownership of this, know, but just feel like yeah, wow, people are just running with this and now the city's interested and like I don't know, it's just been, it's just been really hard.
AJ:What you just said about the right person, the right moment yeah, this happens everywhere so I have 200 plus episodes in now of this podcast. This happens everywhere. Yeah, it's, it's beyond where you could possibly think lucky.
Joel:Yeah.
AJ:This is the way life works. It's cool when you get stuck in on the ground. Yep, in your hood, this is how it works. It's pretty cool. It's so cool To know you've got nature at your back or life as a whole at your back like that. It's like just keep going and the sky's going to turn up.
Joel:Right. The sky's the limit. The sky's the limit. Have you heard that a million times? I won't do it again. I promise.
Joel:Man. There's a monarch in the sun, it's like. Yes. Just getting some solar radiation. We had, like a butterfly, Hailey neither Haley and I had ever seen a zebra, something or other.
Community member:zebra swallow tail?
Joel:It wasn't the zebra swallow tail, but it was like it had. Like I can't even do it justice, I should just look up a photo of it.
Community member:Was it like wide with like this.
Joel:Yeah, and it had like these lines on it.
Community member:It was crazy yeah we were out the other afternoon A friend came by and stopped and like three types of wasps, five types of bees, a hummingbird, two types of butterflies and like five types of moth butterflies and like five types of moth, in like 15 seconds.
Joel:You should talk to this guy that's doing the podcast. He's over there with Hailey and he has this podcast called regen narration. Cool, he's from perth, um, but they've been traveling around the united states for
Joel:those are like authentic australians yeah, yeah, none of this fucking brisbane, sydney, east coast, bullshit yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you Just from Perth.
Joel:Yeah, you're like Mad Max. Yeah exactly.
