Episode 133: Trees

0:09 Welcome back to Record of my Father. Today we're going to be talking about trees. I remember 1 specific time when we planted an apple tree in the backyard and the apple tree made the most sour apples I've ever eaten in my life. And then you couldn't. They were inedible. And then you told me. But this is what all apple trees are like. And I'm like, I don't think this is what all apple trees are like I. Just lying to you. Yeah, I think that that was a, that was a pretty quick witted 1. Yeah. So it's very. Quick witted, you said that I'm like, how do they get? Sweet. I used to love little sour apples because we make sour apple. My mother would make sour apple pie, which is just really, you add a lot of sugar to it too, but it gives you the bite and also the sweet and it's really, really amazingly good. If you have, if you cut them off, but they're a little tiny green, you know, they're maybe 3 inches. Not, they're not like the big giant four and five inch red apples or the galos or anything like that. But since we're talking about trees, I have to read. I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree. A tree whose hungry mouth is pressed against the earth's sweet flowing breast.

1:14 A tree that looks at God all day and lifts her leafy arms to pray. A tree that may in summer wear a nest of Robins in her hair, upon whose bloom snow has lain, Who ultimately lives with rain. Poems are made by fools like me, but only God can make a tree. Joyce Kilmer, That's that poem. You know, when he when people think about trees, when I think about trees, weirdly, that's like the first thing I think of. I don't think of like a ogre or any other tree. Who's Joyce Kilmer, A poet, A great. American poet, come on, don't you know that she wrote a, a bunch of flippant shit like that.

1:57 That's sort of, they didn't consider it really good. But The thing is, I think she did it in the 30s and, and it became a, you know, it's one of those things that it's not a great poem, as poems go, because of the rhyme scheme and because of what it says. But it's not. What do you say it took off? Because simple minds like simple things, I guess. I don't, you know. Hey, I don't know, simple minds like poetry. I can't say that much. Well, they they like, you know, Kurt short, interesting things. Well, that was like where the sidewalk ends with. Oh, gosh. Shel Silverstein. Yeah.

2:39 And that was that really, I think, reinvigorated the American public back when we were literate in poetry 'cause this had a bunch of very interesting drawings, very good illustrations as well. Where the talk walk ends. Yeah, if you look at that, if you look at that, I. Never looked at that. If you see the cover and the style of which the artistry kind of is one of the cover, it definitely is. You'll you will be familiarized. I think it came in like 2005 or something, but that really changed the market for poetry 74. Oh, never mind. Where the Sidewalk Ends refers to a famous 1974 children's poetry collection by Chyle Shell Shell Silverstein. 1974 Really. Yeah, I guess it got reaped.

3:31 They say illustrations are crazy. That represents the structure of adult world, which is the sidewalk. Why did? That feel like that that came out in 2005 because it feel like it was re released or something crazy. 1974 Wow. When you start to look at like, what's controversial about it stems from its dark humor, satirical take on death, drug use, rebellion, and authority, it's sort of like, you know, don't stop where the sidewalk ends, you know, interesting, you know, and, and, and that makes a whole lot of sense. And when you think about it. And what is the world's number one banned books of all time? Well, it isn't that weirdly.

4:13 Orwell is #1 Huckleberry Finn's number 2, Catcher on the rise #3 Color Purple number 4, Great Gatsby's number 5. I Know Why the Caged Birds Sing is number six. So wow, wow, got into ban books from trees. When you think about trees, it's like I'm, I, I look at for me the they mark time in my life by how big they get, you know, and when you plant them, it's like when you where, where I live now. I've lived here since 98, so 2728 years and I've seen what the trees, how they've changed over the years. I have Cedars of Lebanon in the back. I had a pool put in an O5 and they were put in then and they were small and they're like 4 inches or five inches in diameter.

5:08 So they're good size. They're like 12 feet now. They're 35 feet and it's very strange when you look at them because it's four of them. They're all within 10 feet of each other. I've got ones that are that are, you know, 2 1/2 feet, 3 feet in diameter. I mean, they're huge. Yet I've got another 1-6 feet away that was planned at the same time. It's 8 inches in diameter. So, and I mean it's, it's, it's essentially the same climate, the same everything except for maybe the soil is different 8 feet away, which is it's kind of weird, isn't. It. That, that just does to me. And, and with the same, we have river birches. We have about 10 river birches and, and you can look at them and 1:00 will be, you know, 2 feet around, you know, circumference.

5:55 And another one will be, you know, 1 foot around. And you're like, how is that like that? You know, how do they grow? You know, and it's like you start thinking about it and it's the, it's the same as the strong survive. You know, they, they develop a stronger root system, they get more nutrients, they grow faster. They, you know, and it's, I, I look in, I think that's one of the things I love about Virginia is that the changing of the seasons where you get to see each and every year how the bark changes on the trees. You know, you look at that. What are they, I want to say sapling silk and what are they called the big trees with, you know, gosh, I can't remember this is what's so that's bad.

6:48 I think the reason why I mentioned. Shel Silverstein earlier is because there's a cover of a book called The Giving Tree and it's it's beautiful cover. It's green on a with a green tree. And one would think that that wouldn't work, but it does with this red apple that's falling off the tree and this kid is catching it. And that's, that's what always reminds me of trees, hence the apple tree, I guess. But yeah, I think about that Redwood that has been in the back since the 70s. And yeah, wow, more and more, it's kind of strange. I've been looking very similarly to you. I had things in my wardrobe that I'm like, Oh my God, I've had that for five years already.

7:36 I thought I just bought that. Oh my gosh, I thought I just bought that the other day. I've had that for seven years. Yeah, crazy. Isn't that weird? Yeah. Well, I mean, the same thing with trees, yeah. You, you, you, you look at them and it's. I have trees in the pack that I planted as saplings that were offshoots. I have a dawn Redwood, and it's probably about 130 feet, 140 feet. It's probably arguably the tallest dawn Redwood on the East Coast is in my backyard. And I mean, it's, it's 6 feet around 7 feet around maybe 8 at the base it but it throws off a lot of it's not saplings, but it throws off seeds. It's grow and and I get the little sprouts and then I plant them around the yard and I have about a dozen around the yard and anywhere from six feet to 30. I mean, I've got redwoods in the backyard that are 30 feet tall, you know, that I planted and they were, you know, knee high to a grasshopper that big.

8:45 Oh wow. Yeah. And I plant 2 together and they grow together. I've got one in particular that's it's growing up like a tuning fork and it's just so odd. And then there's one in the front that I planted in the middle of azaleas and that's probably that's easily 30 feet. And that has I saw when a hawk landed on the top of it and snapped the limb sideways. So weirdly, when you look at the top, it has a little curl in it and goes up. And that curl is where it snapped. And I saw the hawk that snapped it and that was it about. That was probably at about 25 feet because that's now about 5 feet down from where the top was, where the top is today, you know, And I just look at all those and then my deodorant Cedar's at the top of the hill. I remember when they were originally planted, they were planted and they were like 8 feet And we had a person come and redo the yard and they planted them right underneath the power lines.

9:44 And I didn't think. And I take you up to the and this is when Zach was probably like 5 years old. We go up there to the bus stop or seven. Maybe you were going, you're riding the bus. Then I, you know, you had me kicked off. I don't think it that. Yeah, that bus sucked. It would drive past my street 45 minutes and they go all the way up to the reserve and they draw the kids off the reserve and I was the last stop. I had an hour and 30 minute bus ride and I think I was 10 minutes away from the school you were. 1.3 miles from the school, this is crazy. And the only reason you couldn't walk is 'cause you had to go over 495 to get to that side. And it was, it was just, it was crazy. It was crazy that you were the the first one picked up in the morning, the last one dropped off. I think it was that's when I really started hating the bureaucracy.

10:37 Yeah. Yeah, it was. It was just sort of. Like drop them off at the end of the street. No, we can't do that. And you'd be like, whoa, my kid has a 50 minute bus ride at the end of the day. It was ridiculous. And I was retired, so I would go mess with you and then go visit you downtown. I really like that, going to school and having lunch with you and the other kids and then, well. I remember how we get off the bus. You'd make fun of me for sitting on the bus so long. Yeah, I did. I did. I used to say I was. It's. You're still short. You're still short. So funny. But we had but anyway, back-to-back, back to the trees. The the the four trees that are there. There's three. There's three.

11:18 Others. Oh, the Cedars. Yeah, the Deedor, Yeah, they're not Cedars. They're yeah, they're Deedor Cedars. They when we plant them, they're 8 or 9 feet. Doris, our neighbor of ours looked and said, what? Why are they planted there? And I'm like, well, you know, they're playing on the hill. She goes, well, did you did, did the people that plan look up? And I'm like, what? And I see the power lines right over and above them. And I'm like, Oh my gosh. So I call the guys back and then they move them 8 feet to the left and the right. Well, today, 21 years later, those trees are 60 feet high. One of them had grown into the power lines, you know, 10 foot limbs at the top caught on fire. And so then I, you know, and, and, and went out, caught on fire, went out and people were complaining that it was going to make the thing fall down.

12:12 And I so I contacted men in power and said, Hey, I got a tree, It's catching on fire. And they're like, call the fire department. I call the fire department. Is it on fire right now? No, but it's all black and it's going to catch on fire again. We don't do that. You got to call the you got to call the power company. So then I call the power company and they tell me, call me. I did that for a while. I finally found somebody in the headquarters and I think Southwest Virginia or North Carolina that was the head of the tree operation. I said, yeah, all I want you to do is cut the top off the tree or whatever you got to do to get it out of the power lines. And, and I've been through this. It took me 6 months to get them to put a little blue strip on it.

12:53 And it took 18 months after that before they actually did cut the top of the tree. And they just came in cut 20 feet down and just flat cut it. Now, weird thing is the trees like 12 feet tall now, but it's growing like a Bush and it's just it's huge. The the limbs are going out 15 feet on either side. So it's it's really kind of wild looking in itself. And then you got the other one standing in the background. I still have three very tall 123. When you think about, since we brought up the religion thing with Joyce Kilmer, when you think about the crosses, you know, with the three are together, that's what it looks like when you walk out there at night at like midnight or 1:00 in the morning. I've got three giant trees faced.

13:35 You know, one in the middle is taller. The two on the sides are there and they're all spread out really wide. And you can see them against the sky at night when the moon's bright. And it's just, it's just a scene. And then I have another one in the backyard is the same thing with the with the Cedars of Lebanon. And they have they're much sparser on the limbs. Then the dealer cedar, the dealer cedar something you put up that you don't want to see anybody on the other side of it. Whereas the Cedars of Lebanon is something that's just it's just a cool looking straight up tree, kind of looks like a lodge pole pine, if you know what those are. Those are in Yellowstone without the little birds that kill it. So and I had AI had a neighbor who was from Lebanon and he came in my backyard. He goes, Oh my God, you, you have my trees, you know, and that was just such a cool thing, 'cause he went over and he's like touched him.

14:26 And that was Wachty. He's like, these are my trees. I'm like, wow, you know, that was 20 years ago. You know, amazed by seeing them. You know, that, wow, they're grow here. And I was crazy. Too is that this is a familial thing 'cause your brother is wow, he's crazy. He's done something similar where he I think he's more on the scientific side of. He knows the scientific names. Yeah, which is crazy. Yeah, it's like, and, and his backyard is the jungle. Just it literally is a jungle. And he lives in Jacksonville and suburbia, you know, where there's perfect lawns, House, house, house, house, house. And there's his.

15:11 So funny. And his is just, you know, all the trees and ficus trees, and I mean just every giant thing you can imagine. Banana. Trees a year and a half feel like 5 acres somehow. Yeah. And you go. Back there and you, you can walk 10 feet into his backyard and he won't be seen from the house. So you can murder people in his backyard and you wouldn't be seen by people in his house, you know, So, but it's unfortunately, it's mosquito heaven for me, for him. He goes out there in shorts and short sleeved shirt. And I'm like, how do you do that? And he goes, they don't bother me. Like, what, did you beat one up or something? What is it that makes the mosquitoes not come to you? And I mean, it has bamboo and, you know, big, big giant bamboo and a hole like a stand of them growing together. And when the wind blows, if you've ever been in a bamboo forest, it whistles.

16:10 It is a really, really wild sound, the way the wind goes through because it's, it's, it's a very tight stand and you hear that and that's the, the bamboo moving together and apart because it rubs into each other and, and then the wind comes through and it makes that and it whistles as it goes through. And it's just like, well, he has a watering. System too that he built. That's like artesian well 7 feet off the ground or something. Yeah, When you drill it, you drill it down and he, he ran it up to a sprinkler system because when it freezes, one of the IT kills, it'll kill a lot of the vegetation. Is that he's a palm collector.

16:55 He said he has a round. I think he said 2 to 300 different varieties. I mean, he has every type of home you can imagine. You go in the back and it's just it's jungle city. And I can't tell one from the other, but he can. Oh, that's the OR two most. And this is the shock and spiel blocking spiel and this is the jabber slum blah blah. So and he had his friends in New Zealand, friends in Hawaii, friends in southern Florida, the guy that invented the Whirlpool. He is a avid tree collector. And the Whirlpool he invented. Whirlpool. I think it was the Whirlpool. He was the whatever the original Whirlpool hot tub was, He did that.

17:39 He was that. Yeah. And he made his millions and moved to Florida, bought 10 acres or 20 or whatever it is. And he has this huge. I did interview that guy. Gosh. Well, Edwin tells a story about going down there to meet him in his house and he shows up and he can't see his house from the road, even though it's like maybe 50 meters from the road. And it's kind of like Edwin's you, you go to the door, you go inside and Edwin had his his stuff he left in the car and he goes and he finds it and he said it's it's like 8:00 at night, so it's dark, so you can't see. And I knock on the door. I go in and we talk and they were sitting there talking everything. And then I eat a brownie and he has these brownies and I really like brownies.

18:20 So I had a bunch of brownies and then then he has to go get his stuff out of the car because he's sleeping inside, you know, but he forgot to eat and get a suitcase. And he's like, oh, I'm going to go get my suitcase. Well, turns out the brownies were loaded. So he goes out and he goes out to his car and he doesn't have a problem getting to his car and he gets his suitcase and he comes out and he can't find the house. He couldn't find the house. So he he laid down and went to sleep in the front yard. And I'm thinking like, Oh my God. And this is when he was like in his 50s. This was not like, like I remember, I remember waking up in a Bush when I was like 19 and I was face down in a Bush and I was just over the top of it, just hung over the top of it face down.

19:11 And that was that was bourbon and California since 1,000,000. And Quaaludes don't mix those three. It's it's a bad combination. It is a complete somebody just walks in as soon as they, they hand you the bong, you're taking a hit and then the lights go out. And then somebody cuts the lights on and it's 15 hours later and you're in a Bush and you hear the birds chirping and you're like, oh God, it's early 605. What happened? And then you would start wondering. And then you get up and you realized you killed the Bush and you can sneak out of there as fast as you can. And the neighbors are all complaining. Who killed our Bush? It's like, wasn't me. I don't remember.

19:54 Somebody could have been sleeping in before me. I don't know if it was just me that did it. There might have been somebody else, you never know. Trees are wonderful, you can sleep in them too. Yeah. Well, I remember first time I ever shot an animal, a deer in Southwest Virginia and I went down. It was our uncle Bob's Parson was our was the uncle and I went down, sat in the crook of the tree. I had a 3030. He said he can shoot anything on my side of the property, don't shoot anything. And he had like 400 acres. So I go to the back corner of the property where he tells me to go and he just sit. I sit, was sitting in the crook of a tree and it was shaped. It was like it, it was like this, you know, so you just could sit in the tree and I'm sitting in the tree and I, I bought some food with me.

20:41 I, I, I don't, I forgot what I had like crackers or something like that, which you always eat when you're, and you're just killing time because the, the sun is just starting to rise. And I'd gotten a little stoned. So I'm sitting in the tree and I see this deer walking down the hill, maybe 100 over 100 yards away. And I'm seeing I'm like, whoa, OK, the Hunt's on. And so I'm waiting, you know, I'm going to wait for me closer. And he comes down, he's on the other side of the fence. And then he said, don't shoot anything on that side. That's really not my property. They don't care. But I'd rather not piss him off, you know, it's that kind of thing.

21:23 And then the deer hops over the fence, comes forward and I'm in the crook of the tree and there's a limb. I just put the gun on the limb. I have a box sight. It's a 3030. It's it's like the old cowboy Western ones where you do that. And I. Slide in the round and I just sit there and I wait and I pull the trigger and the deer falls immediately and then the sound verberates because you're you're in these huge. You know, it's, it's, it's, it's 2 or 300 yards to the top of each hill, side by side by side in Southwest Virginia. It's really, really beautiful country run down there.

22:05 And I'd heard all the stories from all my buds that when you shoot a deer, if they've dropped too quick and if their tongue's not out, if they don't, if they're not, if they don't have it sticking out and their eyes aren't open, they're not dead, they're faking. And, and it, it didn't and the eyes were, the eyes were open, I think, but the tongue wasn't sticking out. I was worried and so I got close to it and I have the rifle and I'm waiting for to jump up and run away because, you know, one shot that has never happened. No one gets like that. Well, I, I go up and I kick it, it doesn't move. I kick it again, doesn't move. I grab by the leg and I because I had to set the rifle down at that point. Then I pull the deer a little bit and I realized that all the blood had pulled underneath it and I couldn't see it and it was just literally floating in its own blood. And so I run back at the uncle.

22:53 He comes, he brings his tractor there, throw it in the back of the tractor, take it back and we hang it up and do the skinning thing. And when he gets to the and he gets down because he sees the the shot, the shot, I was trying to at an angle through the neck and then through the top of the heart. I ended up hitting it just just above the front, right shoulder, left right. Yeah, right shoulder. And it went right to the top of the heart. It it literally he pulled the heart out and shows it to me. I don't have a photo of it. That'd be kind of cool. I have some photos from that time. I should probably send those for this. It'd be kind of cool. But it I he holds up the heart and goes, wow, that's a good shot. How close were you?

23:35 And I was showed him and he was like, Oh my God, that was, you know, incredible shot. Extremely lucky. I don't know, you know, whatever it was, we, we, we all get lucky in our thing. But anyway, I love that tree. I'd go back and sit in that tree again anytime. It was just sort of like this. Really rarely you sit in a tree that's that comfortable, you know, you sit back and you just go, wow, this is nice. You know, we think about the trees that have affected our life through time. Do you have any? You had a climbing tree in the backyard. I remember that. Oh yeah, we built the the tree house in the back. Built the tree house around. It's not saps. I'm trying to remember the name of. It starts with an S What? What kind of tree is that?

24:20 Did it have the spiky balls on it? No, that was the chestnut. No, I don't remember. Sycamore. It was a Sycamore tree. Giant Sycamore, maybe, maybe 4, almost 5 feet in diameter. That was a big tree house too. We build a 8 foot, first level was 8 foot, second level was 16 foot and I built railings around the top sides on it made it all that and a bag of sand. Well, it. Originally had walls, didn't it? Yeah, it had walls. And then my uncle, your, your uncle said nothing good is going to happen with walls there when you're you're getting to be at 11 or 12.

25:05 And he goes, They will just do bad stuff if they're out of sight if you take the walls down. Oh, was that really what? Yeah, yeah, he and, and, and they were always a pain in the ass and all that stuff. So I took the walls down and I. Never didn't know what instigated it. Yeah, that kind of like did it and then you we had the jumpy, upy, downy thing and that was there as well. And you guys got the bright idea that you could jump from the top level onto the jump? Yeah, you do. You were jumped from the front first level, which I worried from. No problem jumping from 8 feet onto the trampoline. But when you went to the 16 foot, there was deep concern that somebody was going to be dead.

25:48 Or nobody ever did though. Nobody ever jumped, but they all talked about it. You know you would, you guys, if you got stupid enough. I remember Wes goading you to do it when I was there. And when I heard that I was, I know you well enough that you know, oh, I'm tough for all. I'll do it because I'm stupid, you know, and, and I I would have done it. I was. Thinking that I wouldn't do that, but yeah. But it's like, well, I make up most of the stuff I talk about you. Do make up a lot of history, this is true. Yeah, yeah. I love that tree that we took that down. Yeah, that was a great tree still there. And it's still there. And I had, we moved here, there was big maples and they have since died.

26:29 You know, we had a Japanese pine tree in the back that crawled along the ground for about 40 feet and went up and it was just wild looking. But that died, you know, and, and I mean really it's you don't think about it, but a lot of trees, and I've heard this differently from arborist, they have like an average life expectancy, like dogwoods live 35 years. That's why when you look around and my old dogwoods, they're all hollow and they're filled with chipmunks. That's where they all live and they eat the berries, but they hollow out the centers and all the dogwoods are dying, you know, so I have a whole new round of them. I put in about 10 or 15 of them around the yard to, you know, next generation and to redo it to make it come back to where it was.

27:17 And I look at the trees in the back and I'm thinking about doing something in the spring with Scotch Pines. I don't know why I'm got a thing for Scotch Pines and putting four or five of them in the backyard. I like the ideas. It's a great screen. I have about. I have a few acres of land and I have a house directly behind me in the far backyard. There's give me one second here. Hold on. And I mean, the thing I like most about Scotch Pines is that they grow really fast and they're really cool looking and they got really fat. You know, they're, they're just a beautiful looking pine tree. And I used to have just the old, they called them scrub Virginia Pines that we had around here. And we used to have about 30 of them.

27:59 And their average, they live about 45 years. So they're all planted in the early 60s. So they lasted to, you know, right around 2000, 2001, 2002. It was like everywhere I looked, I was taking them down. My white Pines are at 1 white pine over 100 feet. You know just which is just a really. Tall. Now what is a white pine? A white. Pine is going to be. It's got a smoother bark, like a almost a Gray. Tinto, I know what you're talking about. Does it look kind of like an Ironwood? Yeah, it's kind of like the the, the, I would say the bark is kind of, you know, not the same, but you know, we have iron ironwoods in our backyard too, But, and that's how you know that. But there it's smoother.

28:46 Like Pines. You don't expect the trunk to be smooth, but a white pine is smooth. And then you have the real long needles and they have a, they're sort of a more whitish hue to them. They're thick. They grow really fast. They grow faster than Scotch Pines, I believe, you know, So you're talking a couple feet a year, which is pretty cool, you know, you know, but like my, my redwoods are growing 3 feet, 4 feet, 6 feet, 10 feet a year. I mean, you're like, whoa, you know, and that Redwood is like the, the tallest one I have is probably from 61 or 62 when the house was first built. So and then big old Magnolia, love Magnolia.

29:28 They have that when they blossom and you smell. You know, I heard someone tell me that I thought it was a lemon smell and she said it smells like. What? Smells like semen. I was dating somebody. We were walking along and I just thought that was very odd to have that kind of response. And I was like, man, I love the smell of Magnolia. It smells. You love that lemony smell and she goes smells like semen. And I'm like that just seemed like a very odd response. That's great that you know what that smells like. Smelled enough of it to. Well, yeah, you can draw all sorts of conclusions about that, but it was very, it was very funny, you know, and whatever is it, we have some fruit trees. Most of our fruit trees rot though. I mean, the 'cause we have so much water here that it rots out the roots and unless you have a really strong root system, they, they rot.

30:27 And and I, I don't grow fruit for me or for the wife. We have Cherry Tree that grew for a while, but maybe 12 years and then the squirrels and the birds would just the day that it got ripe, they would get it. I have a lot of Raspberry bushes, not trees. I start looking around the yard and see all the different things that are growing here and like we had the Korea sweater, which is a Dogwood from I think South Korea, something like that. We have a few of those. I mean, the, the, the number of trees and the names that have an Atlas pine. It's maybe 100 feet tall straight up. I mean just amazingly looking thing with little sparse needles on it.

31:17 About that long. Probably have The Hollies. I I just love The Hollies. At least 30 big Hollies every holly. I I mean, and the, The Hollies I'm counting or at least 15 to 30 feet. Remember the the tree that fell across the driveway? Can you remember that? Yeah, that was Swamp Maple. That was. Fell across from the front that was one the neighbors was AI think it was an Elm that fell up the top of the hill and that was another one Elm tree. Yeah, I believe it was an Elm, or it might have been an oak, but it because it was hollowed out. That thing was 1000 years. And that fell across the top of our driveway a day and a half before, the day before we were supposed to hop on a flight to go somewhere.

32:00 I forgot we were Vietnam or something like that. And I called the emergency guy and he comes over and he cuts out a pass so we can get out. Because, you know, otherwise we would have been too stupid to use a taxi. We, we need to drive a car out, you know, that kind of stuff anyway. But that was just all the different lot, a lot, a lot of trees. And I'm, I'm growing a lot more dogwoods and more varieties. I, you know, I just got into this, the peacefulness of walking around with you. You can't, I'm a mile maybe from 495 and I can't hear it because I'm down low. I'm in a swamp and it's just like I'm in the woods and yet I'm 13 miles from the White House.

32:47 So it's kind of cool that you know that. And there's so many trees just, and all around me the homes that are going up or just they're not Mcmansions. They are friggin mansions. They're giant. I mean, on the corner is a 50 some 1000 square foot house. There's 20,000 next door on one side, 15 on the other side. But they, they scrape the land clean, they put up the house and then they put in the little bushes and the trees around it afterward. Whereas, you know, and then all the birds and all the animals come to my house. And we have the, the, the plethora of raccoons and possum.

33:31 Now I've seen possum recently. We have, of course, the groundhogs, chipmunks, at least three foxes. Now the wife saw a what do you call them? Kai Wolf's, which is coyotes and wolf together. Yeah, I don't even. Know the existence so. Recently. Maybe. And now I'm, I know the Great Falls is we're, we're, we're across the street from the park, Great Falls where they have a lot of deer and they pull the herd every year. And when I first came here, I had a deer herd of 12 in my front yard and then they whacked them all.

34:14 Then I didn't have any and it slowly grew back up and then they whacked them all. And now I'm in. But the last herd I saw was six that were hanging out in the front and then the two which I've never seen this eight point bucks, big giant, giant, you know, male deer traveling together, which seems very odd. That is very, very odd. It's mating season too, so we're we're seeing a lot of weirdness go on and, and they, those horrible bastards I had put, I had a, my last year's Christmas tree was a deodor cedar and I planted out in the front and they just ate one whole side of it and stripped and broke the top off and everything.

35:00 So next time I see a deer, I'm throwing a hammer at him. I'm going to take him down. I'm taking the deer down. Old Man Brown's going to take the deer down and I'm going to make it. I'm going to make it. I'll I'll do a poem in that Send Yoshi out after him. My little 10 LB dog that that will do so much. Wow. So what kind of when you you're, you're West Coast, so you see a whole different variety of trees when I don't? Even think palm trees are native out here to be. Honest, you have a lot, you have a lot. Of they brought them out of here. But yeah, we have a. Lot of I wonder I don't. Think they're native? I think. There's all over there.

35:40 That's what I've been hearing is that they're not native to this area. But you know, what I want to see again is a monkey puzzle tree. Big big fan of Monkey Puzzle. Neighbor had one, remember. That I love monkey puzzle tree. Edwin has one grown right outside of. That's why I think that might be my favorite tree for the name, but also for the look of it. It's hurts like I want you to touch. It can't touch it. Yeah, Climate. Yeah, That's a cactus tree. Yeah. But you can't, you can't really have them in Virginia, can you? I mean. I mean, the neighbor had one and it was probably it's 40 feet tall. It was huge. The you know, before they clear cut the whole property and took it down. That was a beautiful tree.

36:22 But everything you know there is gone except for at the far back and at the very front. They left some big trees. One of them looks like it's dying. So in a square foot house. Yeah. I'm going to watch that tree fall down on that house because I can see it right now. The limbs are on the and the on the side do. They move in yet? No, no, they're still doing, they're still working. They were working there the other night. It was like Sunday night and her working up in the really why don't you work during the week? You know, and I'm thinking that he's like finished with his crew, so he's just doing the rest of it. A lot of, a lot of times the builders here will they build one house and then they, they do all the kitchen themselves or something like that.

37:05 But they have real job. So they, they, so they finish it themselves. And that's how they make a lot of money because putting in the kitchen is 50 grand or 100 grand, whatever it is. But if they order the stuff and put it in, it says in 20 or 30 grand and you know, hey, if you can do it in two weeks, it's 20 or 30 grand, you know that. Makes sense? Yeah. And then you're marked up to when you sell it, it's like, wow. So yeah, you go like, whoa. So they're they're, they're building slow and you know, they still have to put a pool in over there, which is interesting. I'll see if they get to that. That's going to. Be weird looking. Yeah, Well, I have a lot of palm trees. I picked pine trees between me and them. I have the garage, so I don't see that. But we have our driveway and the whole front area is completely blocked.

37:52 You can't. You can see the top floor of their house, but and it's tall. I mean it's three stories. So it's, it's a very tall square, you know, rectangular house, just very modern esque, I would say with glass balconies, you know, no character anymore. Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's, it's unusual, but it's, you know, made with trees. So hey, you gotta think about that. All the wood, you know, that comes and goes away. I mean, I remember when they, the, the house on the corner in the front, it was 12 acres and they, they clear cut all that big giant trees and you know, there was oaks and Pines and, you know, sycamores and there may have been, may have been Elms, I'm not sure, but all cut, all gone, you know, giant, giant trees. And it changes the, the neighborhood, you know, but our neighborhood changed when sewer came in. You know, that's changed all of the different things that have happened.

38:56 You know, and I think about all the different trees when I growing up and my mother Chard we had my mother was a she was a horticulturist. She class of 49 horticulture from Virginia Tech. You know that's. Such an interesting degree to get at that time, yeah. First, her first want to graduate with a horticulture degree, I think from Virginia Tech. And she used to tell the old stories, like how they kept trying to talk her out of it and they wouldn't let her get the classes and that the men need those classes and that she should take her back, you know? Oh, yeah. Really. We think about discrimination today. And not even in their league.

39:38 Well, I remember she was a part of the chorus or something too, because there was the whatever it was the the vinyl, the vinyl disc where she's singing in there with a group of people. Oh. Well, the thing I remember is the story that she had one, one horticulture class and she'd go in and there's maybe and it's an amphitheater. So there's like 150 students, right? And you have the guy that wrote the book on Hortic on Parkland and trees and everything, and she being the lone woman in the class. They had a signed seating for her where she had to sit, which was in the middle of a row midway up. And every morning it was 8:00 class, Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

40:32 And she said, oh, gosh, I ruined the day. I had to go there. It couldn't be late. I had to be early. I had to, you know. And as the bell rang, he would come in and he would say, Miss Brown or no, Miss Houston, I have a question for you today. And she would then stand. He would ask the question. She would then stand from the middle of the row, walk to the aisle because you can't hear a woman in the middle there. You know, for some reason, he would make her do that. She would stand and answer the question. He would immediately say, you're wrong again. She would go and sit back down. Oh. My gosh. Clat and the men, it's all there's 149 men in her. There might have been one other woman, I don't remember, but I think it was just her.

41:19 She'd sit back down and then he'd ask and another guy would lift his hand up and he'd say pretty much the same thing. Well, now you have it right. Every day, every day, the start of every class. I mean, they were very, very sexist. I mean, you think about from the 60s when they were throwing people out of the, the marathon because they're women. You know it shouldn't be in there. Oh, I forgot about that. Yeah, this is. This is this is the late 40s, you know, this is women wanting to be Park Rangers. What the Hell's wrong with them? You know, and you're thinking to yourself like, and that's kind of been my love for, for, you know, parks and trees and vegetation stuff.

42:03 And she had this amazing knack that you'd be walking in the backyard or yard. And we were 192 Randall, which later became 14 two O 8 Randall Drive. And she had Clover all over the ground. And she'd walk along and stop and go, oh, look down and pluck A4 leaf Clover. She had like a dozen of them. Everywhere she went, she'd just stop and go. Oh, and lean down and pull it out of a patch of Clover. And I'm like, my God, that's weird. I mean, I think she was a witch, but we didn't know it, you know? But just that kind of ability to see that pattern and to know and she knew all the the she's like Edwin where Edwin knows, oh, it's the Raffia's flop flop. And I'm like Edwin, it's palm tree. Shut up.

42:52 But he would know the variety and know that this variety is not and doesn't occur naturally. It was where they took a palm from Western W Indies and they crossed it with an African palm because they didn't have a lot of water. And those palms thrive more when you grow. They grow faster but with less water. And it was like that. There was always a reason as to why you would, you know, cross pollinate different plants or just to see. It's like, and he would do this with plants that grew in the north to plants in the South because he wanted to see if he could get a stronger palm that would grow in Virginia, you know, and we have them here, but they're not, you know, in hard winters they die.

43:38 You know, that's just the way. It is, yeah. Well, it gets started about what, 10��? Well, sometimes. I mean there's no way palm surviving that unless it's a hybrid. But even the hybrids are like, they're not going to be able to do that. And this, this, this episode's going to play tomorrow. Today's 20th, right? Tomorrow's 21st. I think it's the 20th. There's the 21st one or the other, I don't remember. Anyway, 22nd, I'm, I'm way out anyway, it's going to snow here on Saturday and Sunday. It's supposed to be a couple feet, you know, So that's what I'm wishing for, I think. That's the first time in a long time since like. It's 14 to 17 inches or five to 10 inches on one day, 4 inches one day, three inches or 6 the other day.

44:19 So it looks like it's going to be about 20 inches total. Maybe we'll see. I'm just hoping. I love snow. I just want to roll out and go and make angels in the snow and throw snowballs at your mother. So she pissed off at me. Take the dogs out until the Yoshi gets covered in snowballs and can't and then the trees. When you see the trees in the winter time when you're walking around, remember when we walked up to the court? Who is it? See his house? Remember when it snowed about a foot and you and I went up there and I had AI had a a glass of bourbon and went up there and we knocked on the door and said come out and play it like 11:00 at night. I don't remember that.

45:05 Yeah. Oh, my gosh, Neighbors, we're weird. Yeah. Well, you know, because it's, I mean, to me, it's like when the snow's out, it's deep and it's late at night and you can walk into a forest. It's just a there's just a certain special thing about it. And that's what I always do when I go in the backyard around the holly trees and the palm pine trees and just look up and just see, wow, beautiful place. Beautiful, beautiful. That's why I like the deeper the snow, the better. And you'll hear the animals coming or see them, and the beauty is just as long as you're not freezing to death, you got to wear a ton of clothes not to freeze to death because that's always the. And once you get wet underneath the jacket, it's just over.

45:45 Yeah, well, you got to not not piss yourself. That's always a it's. Hard to do that though. You know that and I'll be doing the snow blower all day Sunday, probably pissing off the neighbors. I'll go out there like 5:00 AM or something. I won't use it, I'll just start it up. No way. No, no, not going to do that. Not at all. No. No, no, no, can't do that. Not I'll just get up when I get up and go out and see where it's at and deal with it. It's what I do and run across and do a neighbor and then see if the neighbor of the street needs something. I, you know, they're all like. That might be the best investment you ever made, Yeah. I would I would say so in. Shoveling that driveway that was.

46:27 That sucked. I went to a show in your city, now LA, and it's snowed 2 feet here. And before we had a snow blower and your mother was here by herself and with you and she was upset say the least, because you want to go play and you can't really go play because you can't go up the driveway because it's 2 feet deep, you know. And you dug it out. She dug it all out by was that 2012? No, that was like before that. O five, O 6. 05 I'm. Sure, it was earlier, you know, 12 was when it was me and I'd later that when I came in, I bought it. I bought it right then and there. I was like OK, I'm going to go get the best one I can find. And I got 1 and and I overpaid and got ripped off. But it works perfectly.

47:17 It's worked forever and it's a giant 1. And I do neighbors stuff, and I did the neighbors for a while, 'cause, you know, they're old and now I'm old, so. Now they're dead. It's great. Yeah, now they're dead, you know, So wow, that's. That is depressing seeing that neighborhood get turned over into just these apartment style houses that are like 50 bedrooms. There's that one in the front. I swear that's 50 bedrooms. That's crazy when they put that house up, it's on the corner of Georgetown Pike and Saigon Rd. Why such a terrible? Location too. I mean people you want to. It was 12 acres open.

47:57 I thought it was a row of townhouses because it looked like a row of townhouses. They built a Chateau. And then I realized it was only one house and and I used to pour concrete. So the cool thing is, is I went over there and I looked at the walls and a typical basement is 8 feet. You have 8 feet poured walls. They took panels, they poured they and they put 8 feet and then they put 6 feet on top of that. So the basement, the basement is 14 foot walls, solid concrete. And I would tell you that it's, it's the footprint is, you know, it's the house is you think it's 100 yards long.

48:44 It's got to be, yeah. It's probably 100 yards long, so think about concrete going the outside all the way around on 100 yards long in the back and the side to side it's probably 70 yards wide. It's huge. It's just a monster house it's going to have. Seen a bigger house in my life. If you go down Old Dominion there, there are houses there that have 6 car garages, 6 Whoa, whoa, you know, Seinfeld or something. I don't know. Well, people want to live indoors and they don't want to live outdoors and stuff. And I'm more of a, you know, we're, we, we have a great place and we have a place we can run away to, which is here the studio, you know, so you, you have that I can look out the window and see trees. I'm going to plant trees out these windows so I don't have to look at the neighbors.

49:32 That's what we do, right? That's what you got to do. Do the right thing. You got to you got to, but you got to plan a big enough, because every animal around here eats everything I plant, you know, and it's like you got to let them have their their you. You got to pay the toll, so to speak. You know, I want to keep as many of these alive as I can, you know, and keep it going, you know? Keep it rocking. What's your favorite? If I if I was to think, if you were to say what's your favorite tree, I would have to say that dawn Redwood in the front. When I sit underneath it, I have a Fred Flintstone bench. It's like a big giant stone bench. Mine would be the same, Yeah. No, I completely. You sit under there in the and and just. Or the spiky ball one 'cause I would run barefoot when I was a kid and then I'd step on them I.

50:13 I I cut that down because of that. I killed it. Yeah, I did. My wife's like and, and I was out cutting trees down and I said, well, it's a chestnut and, and, and the chestnuts are full of worms anyway. And so I cut it down. I still have four of those around the property, but they're on the edges, so to where no one walks. But they would fall down and they'd fall down in the yard where the grass was like 2 1/2, three inches deep. And then you wouldn't see him. And then I'd just hear the scream when you steered on it. You. Could fall off the skate park too and fall on them. Yeah, skate park. And that's going now. So yeah, everything's. Going Things have come and gone here at the Brown House. That's what I. Would do is I'd build a glass Dome next.

50:56 Really cool glass Dome in there. Where? In the In the backyard. Oh, build a glass. I'm gonna put up my Scotch. I'm, I was thinking about making a forest where the park used to be, you know, bringing the birds back because they have a lot of birds and I want to increase the amount of birds and I got like 10 butterfly bushes now. So I have butterflies. I have probably, you know, there's multiple families of hummingbirds that fight all the time. They're the funniest little rats. There's no reason for that to be open back there either. You can do a bunch of trees. That'd be pretty. Cool. Yeah, no reason. And I was going to tell them to stop mowing that area and see what it looks like if it's a foot tall, because then all the chipmunks will come back and all the the groundhogs it'll, it'll have and they'll have a place to hide, which will then encourage the Hawks to come and hunt in my backyard, which I have seen that where you see the I go out there and I'll see a pile of blue Jay feathers or I'll see a pile of dove, just feathers around in the circle.

51:59 Nothing else just got whacked by. And I just saw a hawk earlier today when I was walking the dog. It was the biggest hawk I've seen around here and it had a gold tail, not a red tail. So I don't know what kind. I haven't looked it up yet. And it was about 30 inches. I mean, it was big. It was really big. It was big enough that I thought that it could be a danger to our dogs. That's how big. And my dogs are 10 lbs. So I'm thinking like, that's a big, you know, 8 foot wingspan, you know, wow. But we have like a little force between me and two of the neighbors on the right hand side. And I happen to own about a chunk of that land. So they can't, nobody can do anything to it. So you got to let threes just and not be messed with. And that's where my Billy Woodpeckers live. That's where all the different things are. Yeah.

52:49 Wow. Well, we've run. We've run. I've said my favorite tree. You've said yours. We we've looked at the different things and it's I love trees. Me as well me as. Well, I love burning them too. I love firewood. Oh man I remember one year we collected all the Christmas trees from around the neighbors and then we did AI think it was 13 or 14 and then we did a drunken Christmas tree burn and that might be one of the best memories. Oh my gosh of. Drunken Christmas burn. I love that. We used to do this out in what is the big springs where Seth lived. They would, he would collect for a month and he would have like 150 or 200 Christmas trees and have a burn that was 30 feet high. But it's in the middle of a big giant field, whereas mine is surrounded by trees that I remember I threw 1 Christmas tree on.

53:45 I sat it in the middle. I sat it up on the fire and it caught on fire. And there were guys working on the neighbor's house. The neighbor's house is maybe 50-60 yards away. Good, good distance, not like 6 feet away. And they were on the side and they were working on the siding or something. And when I lit that off, they, they got off their ladders and came over to see if we were OK. It's causing trouble, man, always causing. That's all we want to do, man cause trouble. Well, as. Alwaysrecordmyfather.com come check us out. Thank you for listening and we will see you next week. Already on.