S1E22: Season Finale! Ironwoods: the Sonoran Desert's Tree of Life. Plus thank you

UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT:

Alicia:
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Bouse Parker:
The sun is a giant blowtorch aimed at your face. There ain't no shade nowhere. Let's hope you brought enough water. It's time for 90 Miles From Needles, the Desert Protection Podcast, with your hosts, Chris Clark and Alicia Pike.

Chris:
Hey, welcome to 90 miles from Needles. This is Chris Clark.

Alicia:
And I'm Alicia Pike.

Chris:
And we are coming to you once again from beautiful sand Draw in Riverside in San Bernardino counties in California, home to a thriving population of desert drywash woodland trees and shrubs, we are sitting in the shade of a beautiful ironwood tree. Olenea to soda. Ironwoods are evergreen deciduous trees. The leaves fall off once a year, but new ones grow just before the old ones fall off. The seeds are edible and it puts off a lot of seeds. They're really easy to sprout. I have two ironwood trees growing in my yard that are a foot and a half tall that I sprouted from seed I collected in 2020.

Alicia:
Now I'm going to start looking at.

Chris:
The seed pods here, and what most people know about it is the wood, the heartwood of an iron wood. It's almost more geology rather than because it's so hard. Yeah.

Alicia:
It's more like a rock. I'm going to try and find a couple of viable seeds to take home. It's okay to gather seeds here. Yeah. Not sure I'm going to find any.

Chris:
Yeah. The wood is what a lot of people know ironwood from, even if they've never seen the tree, because the heartwood is just really hard and dense. And I've tried to saw through pieces of it. The ironwood driftwood that you find in the desert, and even if you have power tools, it'll dull your saw blade.

Alicia:
Wow.

Chris:
Trying to saw through it.

Alicia:
You say people would know of it because of how hard the wood is. What applications would you see?

Chris:
Iron wood used in souvenir stores mostly.

Alicia:
What do you mean?

Chris:
Little carvings of desert critters or similar things, sometimes sea life. It was the Sari Indians in Sonora who developed this home art industry back in the 50s. There was this one guy who'd find dead ironwood and carve it and started selling the carvings. And so other people in his family and his community started doing the same thing with individual styles. And then local nonserry people realized there was money to be made. So they started going around and cutting, cutting the trees and sometimes the live trees. The Syria had only used deadwood and using machine tools to carve things. And so if you find an iron wood sculpture, you can tell whether it's a seri carving or a non siri carving, because the nonserry carvings tend to have, like, more angular lines and hatching put in by the tools. And the ceri carvings tend to be more fluid, smoother lines anyway. Most people would know the iron wood from wood carvings generally in souvenir stores in the southwestern part of the US. And, Northern Mexico. But there's just there's a whole lot more to the iron wood than it would do. Tell puts out this abundant crop of seeds, like pounds and pounds of seed in a good year from a medium sized tree. They have these little pods in the bean family, so they look like bean pods. We're sitting out here and there is just a rain. And if you dig down just not even one finger knuckle seed, that's enough water to probably soak into a seed through a seed coat.

Alicia:
Yeah, but then when's the next rain going to come while it's this tiny, precious little seedling that this is what I deal with when I'm at home trying to propagate native trees and shrubs. I try not to give them too much because I feel like that would kill them because they're used to not having deluge of resources. But it's amazing how out here, just the right combination of circumstances perpetually creates oasis like this. I don't know. This isn't a proper oasis, but desert.

Chris:
Drywash woodland, so it's a linear oasis.

Alicia:
But that's what I was thinking.

Chris:
I was out in a place pretty much like this, though. It's about 30 miles south of here in the Chokwala Valley in the north end of a new national monument we're hoping to get established. And it was here we have a bunch of palo verde and a bunch of crease out methedra and some acacia, and ironwood is like a minor constituent of this wash there. The wash is probably 50% or more ironwood. So it was really interesting. But I was there. It's been a couple of dry years, and then this year is wetter than the last couple of owners. I saw a bunch of baby ironwoods coming up day before yesterday, and it's clear that they have just come up in the last couple of weeks because you have the seed leaves still on them. Sometimes the seed coats are still on the seed leaves, and then you have the first true leaves coming out, and there's sort of that compound pinnate being family leaves. And it's just they're in the middle of a sandy expanse in the middle of the Colorado desert in California.

Alicia:
Most of them will die.

Chris:
Most of them will die.

Alicia:
I watched something similar happen at a residential property where we had a really good wet year. I think it was year before last. It feels like it was at least two years ago. And out in the backyard, they have a bunch of different palo verde trees on the side, and I see those seeds on the ground all year round, all year long. But that year combination was right and just what you described, the two first seed leaves and then four of the first growth leaves, and these suckers were everywhere. There was, like a hundred of them, and I brought home half a dozen. Probably killed the ball trying to transplant, and absolutely none of them survived. Not a single one.

Chris:
Yup.

Alicia:
Continued to grow after that. And hundreds of these little seedling babies, it's really magical to see them, and then they died. That wasn't so magical. No, it was reality.

Chris:
I have two seedlings in my yard, but I think that's out of about 30 that I got to germinate and germinating in the little nursery pots, the, like, six pack flats that are a little bit deeper than the ones you buy begonias in because cap roots, and they germinate readily. I put them in five gallon containers for a bit, except for two that I planted in the ground directly, and the ones I put in five gallon containers died. The containers are black. They absorb heat, and it's just too much. But the ones that were in the ground with almost no supplemental water, really, I watered them a few times here and there, but I didn't water them that much. And those seedlings are 2ft tall at this point. Big arching sprays of beautiful, very thorny stems with little foliage on them. The juvenile foliage of the iron wood is considerably smaller than the mature foliage. The leaves are just probably an 8th the size, but they're making me very happy, and I feel an immediate kinship for the seedlings that I see out in the wild now, because I know that they're tiny, they're days old, and they're coming out, and they're just, like, full of hope.

Alicia:
I think we all find babies cute, even if they're plant babies.

Chris:
I don't know. It's like an unsung tree in a lot of ways. We have a gorgeous forest of ironwood trees along interstate tent in Southern California, east of the Coachella Valley. And I don't think anybody but botanist knows that it's there. It's a tree that is so revered in some places that there is a national monument that's devoted to protecting the ironwood Forest. And it's called, oddly enough, ironwood Forest National Monument. And that's a lovely ironwood forest in that monument. Right now, Alicia is in the middle of a tree.

Alicia:
Watch out for the Pinacate right there. If you're coming behind me. Little butt up in the air.

Chris:
Yeah, he's in attack mode for sure. You're going to get stunk at.

Alicia:
I can't smell it. One of my neighbors who grew up out here, she finds it so offensive and pungent. She's got to move, and I'm sitting right next to her. Like, I cannot even smell that. I find that fascinating.

Chris:
Yeah. Heart sticks her nose right up on them. Oh, there's another one.

Alicia:
She goes, oh, you can't smell that?

Chris:
So this is an awfully nice shade tree for the desert. Yeah, it's got actual broad leaves on it, even though they're small and absorbs a lot of light.

Alicia:
Yeah, it creates good shade. Very sharp thorns, though. Holy moly.

Chris:
Yes.

Alicia:
And they're rather disguised in the green zones. You can barely see them, but that'll go right through your skin. Oh, hi.

Chris:
Who You got

Alicia: grasshopper. Wildlife in the wild.

Chris:
Where we are now is in the middle of a wash. Sandra. That was actually where we recorded our first ever episode. And we're back. The wash is about half a mile wide at this point. It gets wider upstream, so to speak, and there's just an abundance of all different kinds of plants. Have you ever seen a creosote this tall?

Alicia:
Yes, but that's because I pay attention to creosote an awful lot. They're supposed max height is around 12ft. This is there, but I've seen them taller than 12ft. Nothing like 20ft or anything. But this looks like a nice clonal grouping, so this has got some age to it. What I find most interesting about this creosote is that it looks like it's been denoted at the base by critters. Not anytime recently. And instead of growing as more of a bush, it looks like a group of sticks, ducks, like, straight into the soil. There's a couple of classic wonky creosote branches here, but it's interesting how this one's growing. Pack rat midden.

Chris:
Yeah.

Alicia:
I love how industrious they are with bringing building materials like those sticks and flat pieces of bark are so organized to me. And then over here, it's like they've fortified the entrance with small pebbles. Can you see that over there? They do that in my neighborhood, too. They'll block entry points with a bunch of little stones. And it's so funny because it looks so intentional and architectural, but it's a rat house. They're really good at what they do, working with what they got.

Chris:
The Arica Mountains. A-R-I-C-A. Over there. It's very cute. Little mountain range. Baby mountains.

Alicia:
Looks like a stone. That's got a really thick trunk there.

Chris:
Yes. We're appreciating Palo Verdes in the middle of the ironwood episode, but that's okay. And look at this ephedra grown right next to it. That's like a Japanese garden pruning job.

Alicia:
It really does look like it has specific eruptions at the end of each branch. Now, is that an ironwood that has the base? The central trunk over there?

Chris:
That is an ironwood.

Alicia:
Okay. We're going to go that far.

Chris:
It's a classic glamour one here. Okay.

Alicia:
That was a cool breeze. It was warm there.

Chris:
It was lovely.

Alicia:
I walked right into a cool breeze.

Chris:
A classic, beautiful tree shaped tree. Ironwood tree. Yeah.

Alicia:
The canopy is not touching the ground on this one like a lot of the others.

Chris:
Rabbits do like to eat the leaves and the twigs, so not too surprising. And lots of little seed pods.

Alicia:
Now, these thorns are a little more obvious than the other tree. These thorns have all turned black, which is very helpful.

Chris:
Yes. If you are introduced to an ironwood at a social gathering of some sort. Do not assume that it's a good idea to shake hands with the ironwood, because we have thorns that are on this tree. They look to be about 5 mm long, maybe a fifth of an inch or so. And they are very thorny.

Alicia:
Yeah, very sharp. Like that one just punctured my skin, and I barely touched it. Didn't really need that example set for myself, but okay.

Chris:
But there's obviously a point at which they fall off, because I'm looking at this branch, this older branch still has some thorns on it.

Alicia:
And then, yeah, the older branches, they start to wear off and split, although.

Chris:
It seems like maybe the really old ones grow new thorns because yeah, look at the holes.

Alicia:
Those are huge back there. But anyway, not a tree to climb.

Chris:
Not a tree to climb unless you have leather skin. You got to do what you got to do to keep your moisture and your nitrogen in a place like this. This is a good tortoise habitat here.

Alicia:
This looks like it might have been a more significant opening, burrow shaped, but it taped in.

Chris:
So I guess it makes sense that we came out here to talk about ironwoods, and there's just so much other stuff going on here in the ironwood forest other than things being ironwoods. It's like a whole ecosystem out here. Depending on these liguminous trees, odds are, in a vegetative community like this, a lot of the plants are connected by underground networks of roots and fungal threads. Something like 80% of known plant species have a vast mycorrhizal partner, if not more than one. And that's certainly true in the desert. And so even with all the cool stuff that we have seen walking around up on this side of the Earth's surface, there's probably a whole lot going on that we're just missing underneath.

Alicia:
I always wonder what the pattern looks like underneath as compared to the pattern that I can see above. I thought about that with this tree.

Chris:
Earlier, because we know for certain that a lot of these trees at least have the root partners that allow them to take atmospheric nitrogen and turn it into plant food, including the ironwoods and the palo verdes and the acacias mesquites and smoke trees. The iron mountains look so nice from here. Love the light this time of day. It just draws out the topography of the mountains.

Alicia:
Yeah. I like to say when you can see all the wrinkles yep. You want to go find another ironwood tree. I say we go that way. There's a nicelooking tallern over there. Oh, there's a real tall one over there.

Chris:
Yeah. Somewhere about a mile up is the tallest one I have seen anywhere ever.

Alicia:
Oh. Last time we were out here, the palavertes were all leafed out.

Chris:
Yeah.

Alicia:
Quite a startling contrast. This looks like a hangout spot for somebody.

Chris:
This is a glorious tree.

Alicia:
Yeah. You can walk right into the middle of it. Oh, there's another stink bug. Looks like this might also be, like a bed down hangout spot for I haven't seen any identifiable tracks, but I would say either deer, coyote, or bobcat.

Chris:
I have seen coyote here. I have seen a lot of quail.

Alicia:
Do you see how worn down that base of the tree is and how the leaf litter is more decomposed in this area than it is right here? Something clearly walks in and out of here all the time.

Chris:
Yes, there are jack, rabbits and cotton tails out here. I do not know about cats, so I would not be surprised if there were lions on occasion. Certainly deer. Definitely meal deer.

Alicia:
This isn't big enough for deer.

Chris:
I retract that, but coyotes and rabbits for sure.

Alicia:
And it's linking up with this other one where out like this.

Chris:
Oh, it's some Coyote Scout right here. Look at that.

Alicia:
Yeah, I'm going to guess a pack of coyotes. This is like a stopping spot for them. And I know they like to break up their packs and hang out sometimes very close, but in two different locations. And underneath this tree, this looks like where maybe the Scout hangs out. Maybe we make our way to that other big ironwoods. There's lots of scat now that I'm outside of that tree. I wonder how regularly they visit this spot. It's really tough to read data since it rained yesterday. There's so many pack rap middens nearby that all they got to do is hang out under that tree and be quiet. I'm sure somebody's going to run by. Wow, that looks like it's almost three stories.

Chris:
Yep. That is fantastic. It's like a whole hidden private world in there that's inaccessible to large mammals.

Alicia:
Do you see the size of that house that's in there? Yes, that very well could be a pack rat midden, but I'm curious if that might be something else entirely. That is insane. Sounds like we got a little bird. Man, I wonder who lives in there. That's huge.

Chris:
Definitely smells like it keeps going. Definitely smells like rat pee to me.

Alicia:
Okay. Yeah, look at how they've there's an entry hole right there with the rat poops. Look at how they've taken advantage of the mud caking. And this is a huge nest. Wow, look at that space in the middle. The coyotes hang out in there. Yep, for sure. There's really something so, like, gross, grossly beauty. It looks halfdead and gnarly and scary, like it should be in a forest where bad things happen. But that's only half the tree. The other half the tree looks like heaven. Respite. Food, shelter. And then this bottom bit is just am I in a Disney forest right now? So animated in here. Music video. Video.

Chris:
Talking about ironwoods. Olmea Tesota, one of the most beautiful.

Chris:
Trees in the Southwest deserts. We thought, who better to talk to than Petey Mesquitey. Who has been extolling the virtues of desert native trees, shrubs, forbes, wildflowers plants, animals for decades on his show Growing Native in KxeI in Tucson. And Petey, thank you for going through.

Chris:
All the technical hassles that we both.

Chris:
Endured just now to join us here at 90 miles from Needles.

Petey:
Yeah, thanks for having me. How sweet. When you shot me and said, let's talk about iron woods, I thought, oh, man, that tree just brings up a lot of memories. And when I lived outside Tucson in the desert for many years and in ironwood and saguaro blue Petey Mesquitey forest. Yeah, let's talk about ironwoods. I love the tree. It's unique to the Sanan Desert. How lucky is that? It's just an amazing tree.

Chris:
Absolutely wonderful.

Petey:
I'm not from Southern Arizona. I came out to Arizona to go to college way back when. But when I first discovered ironwood trees and there was a funny area northwest of Tucson out in the desert where it was developing slow, but where they grew a lot of citrus, ironwoods were an indication where you could grow citrus because of their cold tolerance or lack thereof of cold tolerance. So if there was an Ireland forest, this is going to be this great spot to grow citrus. It's over by you, right? It goes into Southern California. But it's just in the Sonoran Desert. This magnificent tree. And I don't know when I discovered them, I moved out to the desert and here I am in an ironwood forest and here's a giant, very spiny tree that flowers it's in the pea family fabase and it flowers, these glorious lavender flowers. And you go you're just an awe it's magical. It's just this great magical tree.

Alicia:
I saw some amazing photos online about how the ironwoods can go through extreme environmental stress where the stumps are burned or dried, cracked and split and then 20 years later a new sprout will come out. And while that stump looked completely dead, it's like a phoenix. It can just rise again and again. It's really quite fascinating.

Petey:
Yeah, a resilient tree. Chris and I were talking earlier how magical it is underneath these trees. The canopy is amazing. It's very disk. If it's got some extra rain, you're talking about a lot of shade. And when they're old and you can prune them up, say it's in your yard, in your habitat, your own habitat. It's just an amazing shade tree. And I bet a lot of people sat underneath over the hundreds of years, sat underneath ironwood trees. I bet as children we had no problem. An ironman tree has that magic that draws you. So you're looking your period into this little you just want to get under there and see what's going on and you'd be hanging out. Sounds good to me.

Alicia:
That's a great example of youth is not wasted on the young. To have the youthfulness, to just be.

With the tree, those are precious priceless.

Alicia:
Moments that I wish more adults would partake in.

Petey:
You need a child sometime to remind you of what life's about, right?

Chris:
Alicia and I were out in one.

Chris:
Of the washes in Southern California where.

Chris:
The iron woods grow a couple of weeks ago, and it was a relatively cool day after a long, very hot summer. We didn't get any hiking done together for the podcast or recreationally at all for months. But in this ironwood forest, I mean, it was a mixed forest.

Chris:
They had the Senegalia and Palo Verde.

Chris:
And some mosquitoes and things like that.

Chris:
But underneath the ironwood trees, these islands.

Chris:
Of habitability are just absolutely wonderful. They're just obvious coyote bedding places and places where jack rabbits and possibly badgers and desert kit foxes had dug holes beneath the trees. And it was like an archipelago on a relatively unfriendly sea of these friendly little shady spots.

Petey:
Yeah, it totally nailed. It it's to peer under an ironwood, you talk about the magic, and they're nurse trees. So a lot of times if you're in a forest, if you're in the land of sauaros, and you should be if you're in the land of Irnwoods, you'll find baby sauaros, you'll find all sorts of hedgehogs or little fish hooks, but yeah, you just want to crawl in there. And, you know, if we were kids, we'd be under that tree and hanging out, and that's where we lose that magic of our childhood. Yeah, you peer into it. It's almost like looking at those Easter eggs, those bizarre Easter eggs where you can pick them up and peer into them and see all these things happening and where I lived. I just love getting under them. And you see the pinocerrus. I don't even know if it's Greg eye anymore. There are two night blooming cirrus out in between Pima County and Coaches County where I live. But you find a night blooming cirrus and then you find baby sauaros. And this was magical. Sometimes you'd find a dead ironwood. So here's this. And the dead iron woods can last years and years, but here comes this sauorrow, three, four foot sauaro next to a dead ironwood. So it had nurse that baby suarez. The iron was dead, and here comes that Sugaro. It's amazing that happens out at the.

Chris:
Western end of the range, too. And I have to say, one of.

Chris:
The reasons that we very much wanted.

Chris:
To talk to you is because of the sense of joy that you bring to these things. And here we're facing a lot of westernmost iron woods having their habitat converted for renewable energy production. Climate change is real.

Chris:
Yeah.

Chris:
But our response to it is up for grabs. But it's sometimes difficult to see these really wonderful, thriving ironwood forests that may not survive our response to climate change. Although of the trees that I can think of in the desert, ironwoods, at least in the northwestern range, are probably more likely to survive climate change itself than a lot of things.

Petey:
I think you're right. And you know that we're talking about getting under an ironwood tree. And when you talk about things like that, we want to crawl up under an ironwood tree in a fetal position in a weep. Because how much growth is about I had to drive to Tucson, early morning meeting. And so I go through this beautiful biotic communities all the way to Tucson, but that town is coming east toward me. And they go, how much further can you keep going? I don't know. There are lots of people. People want houses. It's a hard call and I agree. And to me the ironwood tree is the tree of the Sonoran Desert. They live hundreds of years and we take them out so casually. I don't know. I don't know what to tell you about that. It upsets me. How do you put it in the back of your mind and get on with your life? Sometimes, yeah, but iron woods, they lived. I think they can't really count rings in them. There's this magnificent wood, hard wood. They know they're 300 years at least. I once was on a search. There was a fellow doing the champion trees of Arizona a rumor of an ironwood tree out of south of Hila Bend on an air force base on the way out toward Yuma. And they let us onto the base and we found this tree that three of us could not get our arms around. Everyone. How old is this ironwood tree and what has it seen in this arroyo in this Sonoran Desert west of Hilo Bend, Arizona? Amazing. I'll tell you what other thing when I lived in the desert, you could pick up the dead iron wood branches with your dead mesquite branches and then you could burn them in your fire, your wood stove. I had a house where the wind seemed to blow right through it. So we had a wood stove, but burning ironwood. The smoke smells like the earth itself to me, it just is like, oh my gosh, this smells like soil burning. I don't know if I smelled ironwood right now I could start telling you a dozen stories of campfires where you camp out in an ironwood and break up branches and put them on the fire. Great plan. Ironically, at one point when charcoal was so popular, mesquite and ironwood were harvested in Mexico in southern Arizona and maybe a rear way for charcoal. He just burned these images, this magical tree here's, the tree with the history obviously it's older than you and me and beyond and so indigenous people used it for everything. That hard wood in the somewhere there Siri Indians where the indigenous folks were making beautiful carvings from the hardwood. The wood is amazing. My background is horticulture. And so in 1980 I got a gig at a wholesale nursery outside Tucson and we grew baby ironwoods and people, oh, yeah, they are going to be growing that forever. People forget what horticulture is about and that's pushing a little crop. And iron woods are very easy to grow from seed. I mean, the seed falls and if monsoon hits, all of a sudden you got a bunch of little germinating seeds on the ground beneath an ironwood tree. They're not slow in cultivation, but what I loved about them, if you try to prune them, people, we want this tree, single trunk, blah, blah, blah. Wherever you need to cut, wherever you need to cut. Five branches, spiny branches, I might add. Five spiny branches and pop out. This tree is not taking any gulf at all. Hello. Imagine a jack rabbit or someone nibbling on that tree and boom, five branches branch out. It's just it is just a spiny rascal. So you had to grow up multi trunk, and you just did you best you could to work it up into some form into a five gallon bucket that you could sell. And you told people, you're just going to have to wait it'll decide what it was to do. This is not a tree you lollipop. Okay? We lived northwest of Tucson, and what sin is running with our tail between our legs was development came and surrounded our little paradise. Literally surrounded us on the day we left. We'd purchase some land in Coaches County a couple hours to the east. On the day we left, they were pushing over trees with bulldozer. Mary and my wife was weeping as we drove the, uhaul, out of our driveway. But there was an ironwood tree right by our front door. And sometimes I'd let those suckers off the basic going and people would always come in with wounds on their wrists. Yeah, you came through the ironwood. And what about when they bloom? April May. April usually. And it's a lavender flower. You get up just a hair above the desert floor on a little hill and you're looking out across an ironwood forest in bloom, and all of a sudden you notice, oh, wait, that one's a darker purple. It makes you wish you were a painter who did watercolors. But here's a sea of lavender, but then dark purple. These splotches, it's just amazing. Yeah, it brings back so many fun memories. And I think a lot of it is just the campfires and the smoke. I think it's illegal now to harvest in this firewood. It's one thing to pick up dead branches off the desert floor, but it's another thing to go out and chop them down. And I don't think that's legal anymore. Hallelujah to that. That's what it feels like sometimes. But ironwood tree only a DeSota. I'm pretty sure the genus honors a botanist.

Chris:
Chris here poked in my head in post interview. Genus Olneya was named for the American businessman and botanist Stephen Thaler Omi, who was from Rhode Island and was a wool merchant. For his day job, became an expert in TerraX, which is a mama cot a lot of people mistake for grasses. He was honored with that name by Issa Gray, author of the formerly canonical Grey's Manual of Botany. Back to the interview.

Petey:
The species is a specific epithet. I think it's an aberration of a Spanish word for hard or stiff. So it just shows you how the wood was used for innumerable things, tools. Gosh, it's amazing to be a part of it, to luck out in the Sunara Desert, to be a part of an ironwood. We're just lucky.

Alicia:
Peteyy, if you could share with people what you think we could learn from the ironwood tree with all of its attributes.

Petey:
I think the funny thing you learn when you study native plants is that they all had their uses that they were part of at some point in history, humans and the plants were together in the deal. You go, they're medicinal uses. Holy cow. You say this guy was a physician and a botanist? Of course he was a botanist because physicians didn't order something from the pharmacy. But no, I think that's it. They're a good example of a plant that we can share something with. To me, if you have Sonoran Desert, you need to be by an ironwood tree. You need to peer under it and see sauros popping up nurse little nursery of a sorrow. So I think that plants teach us all. The plant teaches that we're part of it. We're so superior sometimes. I'm so disgusted with the human race is a good example.

Alicia
Yes.

Alicia:
They really remind us that we are part of the cycle. Being part of the cycle, it seems to we've completely forgotten.

Petey:
When Chris said, do you want to talk about iron? Was, I said, man, it's a tree of a personal history for me. So now I live 2 hours 100 miles to the east, and I live in oak woodland. I wanted to live near an oak woodland, but ironwood trees bring up a bunch of memories. A bunch of memories and nothing but good. Nothing but good.

Chris:
A long time ago, I was in the ironwood country in eastern California, southeastern California, with a woman that would later.

Chris:
Become my wife and then even later.

Chris:
Than that become my ex wife. And we were just camping and had.

Chris:
The ironwood forest to ourselves miles from the nearest person.

Chris:
A tiny little grove of ironwood that we were camping in and some driftwood ironwood that had fallen into the wash maybe 600 or 700 years ago and just stayed there and had a very small campfire, maybe the size of a soccer ball.

Petey:
Yeah.

Chris:
And I had to sit seven, 8ft.

Chris:
Away from it just because it burns so hot.

Petey:
Yeah, ironwood coals. Unbelievable. And they bring back memories like that what you just gave us. I'm going to start to cry. That's good stuff.

Alicia:
With all the change that you've seen happen in the world in your life. What keeps you going on a day to day basis?

Petey:
When the pandemic started, my wife and I said to each other, it's not hard to isolate where we live because we moved out there to be isolated. Nice about what we said every week, one day a week, we'll take a trip out into the hills. Near us is the Chiracowa Mountains, the Pelan Seal Mountains, the Dosca Basis Mountains. But once a week, and we picked Monday because it was a work day for a lot of people. And that's what renewed us. And it was being out in habitat, out in a biotic community, out in the evergreen woodland, the madra and woodland. Some of the communities, these biotic communities are almost like poetry when you read, oh, the evergreen madre and woodland, good Lord, write me a poem. But that renewed us to get out in habitat. You just have to get out there. And it sounds corny, but look at the plants. Listen to the birds chase the insects. And I get excited chasing a beetle across the desert floor. So that's what renews me and keeps me going. I lose faith in the human race. Make no mistake. I recently was down east of Douglas, Arizona, on the border, and I have photographs of that wall that will make you weep. At least the three of us would weep. But yeah, here's the answer to your question. Get out. Getting excited about an old plant. Oh, my God. I didn't know it set fruit this time of year. Oh, my God, it's growing with that plant. Oh, my God. Almost a childhood. I laughed one time. Mary and I, mary and my wife. Mary and I, we're looking at Blooming. We timed it to this one canyon we call Rainbow Canyon, Rainbow Land because of the economy. There the Arizona rainbows. We probably said, look, we're making love. We're walking up the slope and looking at Blooming plants. Oh, my God. Oh, I love this. Oh, my gosh. That's what it's about. That's what it's about. Get out. Get out. Embrace plants. Embrace habitat. Embrace your biotic community.

Alicia:
Yeah, I'm really glad to hear you say that because that's a big message that I want to share with the listeners to our podcast, is that nature is the medicine. And I think you're a great example because your enthusiasm comes through in your voice. Your genuine excitement at a beetle scuttling across the road is something that we should take pause and enjoy those moments. And I really appreciate you encouraging us to do so, not only here on our podcast, but on yours as well.

Petey:
Yeah, thank you so much. Yeah, great. It's true. Get out. Enthusiastic. Great chase Needles, thanks for having me.

Chris:
Very appreciative of your joining us and of you. Anyone that can spread joy about the natural world right now is someone to be thanked and cherished, and we do.

Petey:
Thank you so much I'm lucky to be on. Thanks a lot.

Alicia:
Music these look like baby willows.

Chris:
They do. We're not pretty sure that's what that is.

Alicia:
In fact, there's another one over there that I'm enjoying working at. I was reading that ironwoods, the numbers are astounding how many different aspects of the environment rely on ironwood to protect it, to shelter it. It attracts more birds to the area. And even though rodents and herbivores take refuge under this tree, the way that its thorny branches create these little cages of protection for baby mesquites or willows or there was some metal over there or something. No, it's not metal.

Chris:
That looks like a current or gooseberry of some kind. We are underneath an ironwood tree. I took our friend Peteyy Mesquitey's comment about if we were children, we would climb under the tree as a personal challenge. I'm certain he did not mean it that way, but I'm also certain that if he was here, he would be under this tree with us right now, for sure. We are not far from Corn Springs, which is an oasis in the middle of the Chuck Walla Mountains in the northern edge of the Sonoran Desert in Southern California. And this wash, it looks like it's about quarter mile wide, 20 foot cliffs on either side. And we have in addition to ironwood, we have smoke trees and palo verdes and a couple of mesquites and some desert willows. And it's just a really beautiful day in midnovember in the California desert.

Alicia:
Bright and sunny, but brisk and cool.

Chris:
And I think it is pretty fitting that we started out our first season of this podcast sitting in an ironwood forest. We weren't underneath the tree, but we were next to it. And it took us an entire year and 22 episodes to actually work our way underneath the tree. It's a good place to contemplate and look at these pretty blue gray leaves and think about the riches that the tree provides and sort of pat ourselves on the back for the learning curve that we've tackled in the good episodes of the podcasts that we've put out.

Alicia:
Do you see that gall, though?

Chris:
That is very cool. There is a branch above our heads that is probably an average of about three and a half inches thick. But there's a gall that is about the size of, I'd say a volleyball. Yeah, somewhere in between volleyball and county fair. Prize winning grapefruit.

Alicia:
These branches over here are really tripping me out because it looks like they started to swell, like they were going to have a gall, but then they died. Do you see what's going on over here? They look like little Popeye biceps.

Chris:
I have that song going through my head now.

Alicia:
Don't sing it out loud, whatever you do.

Chris:
There probably is wild spinach in this wash, or at least Amirate.

Alicia:
Plenty of edibles, if you know what you're looking for. The flowers for the native bees, the dense canopy for nesting of white, wingedove and other birds. The tree trunks act as trellis for vines, which we're seeing that there's little viny guys growing around us that are starting to make their way up into the tree. The shade that it gives underneath is protection against sunburn for the night blooming. Serious leaf litter provides nitrogen and organic matter for soil enrichment. Deep roots hold the soil banks in place. There's the pumping of nitrogen and minerals from the lower soil strata through the root structure. Symbiotic, bacteria and fungi create islands of fertility. There's seeds for dove, quail, and rodents at the base, burrows for tortoises in and around the roots. A wildflower nursery foraged by rabbits and bighorn protection against freezes for the suarez and sanita leaves for forage for bighorn sheep, pronghorn and mule deer. And the upper branches are roosting sites for hawks and owls. It's amazing how it is such a positive force for the environment around it. It's giving all these nutrients to the soil. It's providing protection for certain species. It's providing advantageous positioning for predators, food, shade. You know, this is like the Giving Tree.

Chris:
Oh, you know what happened to the Giving Tree?

Alicia:
No, I good. Done and forgot it's.

Chris:
Not a happy ending.

Alicia:
Okay, let's find another word. Let's go to Middle Eastern.

Chris:
This is the tree of Life.

Alicia:
The Tree of life, baby. Yeah. Here's a bit on the native uses. High protein nourishment comes from their shiny brown seeds. Many Indian tribes toast and grind the seeds to make a protein rich flour or gruel. That tastes suspicious to me, like peanut butter. Other parts of the plant have been used through the centuries for various things. Native Americans ground the roots into a paste to cure gum infections. They made tea from the crushed leaves to help relieve asthma. And the inner bark was used as an emetic or agent to induce vomiting. The wood was used for fence posts, charcoal, and firewood. And they also made tool handles, trinkets and arrowheads out of the hardwood.

Chris:
I just heard of phenopla.

Alicia:
Is that what you heard? Oh, there it is.

Chris:
Oh, there it is.

Alicia:
Did you talk it to them?

Chris:
There's a ton of mistletoe in this hardenwood. Sainto pepla is I'd like to call it an inside out cardinal because instead of being a red bird with a crest and black eyes, it's a black bird with a crest and red eyes. But the phenope is one of those birds that has very particular ideas about what is proper food.

Alicia:
It's the only critter out here that eats the mistletoe berries because of their toxicity, from what I understand.

Chris:
Yep. So it eats the mistletoberries, and it sits on a branch and poops out the previous lunch of mistletoberries. And those seeds germinate and they send roots into the stem of whatever tree that they are pasted to by the bird. Poop.

Alicia:
Perfect little poop packets of fertilizer and.

Chris:
Seeds and instead of roots, actually what they send out are housedoria. That is the technical term for the thing they have instead of roots because.

Alicia:
They kind of hair like extensions that embed into the branch, right.

Chris:
And they get into the vascular tissue of the plant and that's where that mistletoe is going to live. And there are a couple of different species of it here. And this one is I will splice in an incongruous sounding cut of me saying the actual species of this mistletoe.

Chris:
Which is for a dunderin californicum, but.

Chris:
It'S the one that does not have leaves on it. It's just sort of scaly former leaves on long stems and it turns red, bright red berries.

Alicia:
It's pretty clear that that part of this tree is dying or is dead and that mistletoe is going downhill with it because that does not look like very healthy mistletoe to me.

Chris:
No. Kind of a good metaphor. We live by claiming the productivity of other species for ourselves and nothing wrong with that. That's what we were evolved to do. We were evolved to eat other organisms and we learned how to use pieces of other organisms for tools and things like that. But if the stuff that we live off of starts to decline, then we are in trouble.

Alicia:
As feverishly as we've been trying, this is all we've got and why we're rushing to destroy it. That sandstone bank on the other side is we're going to have to walk over there before we leave because I bet there's a lot of good stuff to look at on that wall. I think of Earth history books. Those are her pages. I'm wondering if these are ant lion holes over here or if these are just dribble marks from the tree branches. I'm thinking it's the ladder.

Chris:
Kind of looks that way.

Alicia:
That just goes to show you how much moisture is coming from these areas that you'd get there's. 123-4567, 8910, eleven just right here within 312. Just water just literally pouring off this tree. I was reading that there's a four degree difference temperature difference inside the protective nest of the canopy. So when it's freezing, plants that would usually freeze and cacti that four degrees is all the difference in the world. And the same with sunburn. When an iron one gets cut down and there's a young baby suare under there, it'll get sunburned and just die really quickly without the protection that early life protected. Mother tree of life.

Chris:
So we've kind of come full circle with this season of the podcast and seems like it might be a good idea to talk a little bit about not only what we've accomplished with this part of the podcast and maybe what we like about that, but also think a little bit about what we'd like to do. Coming up. I would say that I am personally very grateful to all of the people that have done shout outs to us and certainly for everybody that has supported us materially. And we'll talk about that some more. But word of mouth thing has been really wonderful. It's been very gratifying that people have seen some value in what we're doing and decided to share it around.

Alicia:
You know what I say about word of mouth, right? It's free and priceless. So you all use your little talk boxes because that's the most valuable a way to spread the love for nature.

Chris:
And our podcast and especially in that regard, other Desert Radio, which is Other Desertradio.com, that's wonderful. Just so delighted that they have chosen to re air some of our episodes on their online radio station. And the more people we get doing stuff like that, I think the better job we're going to be doing of just getting out to people. But even people that have just been sharing our episodes and our listenership just keeps getting larger and larger and slow. We're not breaking the thousands per episode yet of listeners, at least not in the first month that they're up. But I think we have a highly targeted and specialized group of listeners who are devoted and not only could we not do this without those of you who are listening, but there would be no point.

Alicia:
Yeah, I don't know. For me, I feel like the body of work that we're putting together episode by episode that we add is building the case. And when you look at it as a data set, it gives people a really good chunk of information about the desert that as a newer part, we haven't even completed our first year. We're very close. But there wasn't a body of work for people to I mean, with you, people had a body of work to identify, but you brought a cohost into the mix and you know, people are getting to know me and getting to know these issues that we want to focus on. And now that we have a body of work behind us, I feel like from here on out, it's going to be easier to grow our audience. It's going to be easier because when people are communicating with each other about issues that are important to them, there's a body of work for them to reference to. For us, there's not just two or three episodes or six, there's going to be more than 20. And every months that we go through, we're adding more and more data for people to reference. That's just one of the foundations of our friendship was your body of work I would reference to educate my friends and family on. And that's just the word of mouth growing. For something that we're all passionate about as human beings, it's hard to deny our own environment. So even though it's specialized to the desert, I feel like as we continue to produce, we're going to continue to grow. We may not have numbers that are intergalactic and shocking and exciting but I don't really know what we would do with that in the first few months anyway. I feel like we're getting our sea legs about us in this first year.

Chris:
Getting the best listeners first.

Alicia:
Yeah, it's a really exciting process, getting our flow and getting it all together and seeing that there is interest and.

Chris:
That'S just going to keep getting bigger. Well, I have to say that this podcast, in this season of this podcast would have been very different and I think not nearly as good if it wasn't for my absolute favorite cohost being part of it, whom I loved dearly.

Alicia:
Thank you, Chris.

Chris:
So you just bring this point of view to it where you don't claim to be an expert in things, even though I think of you as an expert in quite a few areas of desert studies. But you ask questions that are really important to ask that I forget to even address because I've been doing this for so long that I assume everybody knows what an influence is. I've been doing the activism thing for so long and I just take for granted that it's always about people making money and lying and I skip over that part and you bring it around when appropriate to saying, yeah, this is just about some asshole getting rich at the expense of the planet. And I forget to say that.

Alicia:
You'Ve been mired in the politics of the inner workings of it and I have no exposure to that. So, yeah, these are all raw outside observations, whereas you're so deeply entrenched in that world.

Chris:
Yeah, I was flying over the Grand Canyon and of course, I got the window seat because I was flying over the fucking Grand Canyon and going from Las Vegas to Denver for work meetings and just over the canyon country at sunset and looking down and seeing the mouth of the Grand Canyon where it flows out into the Mojave at the Grand Wash cliffs and just absolutely beautiful. And I was looking down at one section of this plane where there were streams that had been flowing across the surface of the Earth and then the ground started to rise and these streams had just been meandering. You know, these big Ushaped swoops back and forth and it was just to wherever the path of least resistance was across the plane, maybe.

Alicia:
But that's also a WaterForce pattern. I forget what it's called. That pattern is what will create oxbow lakes because the water has to push and then change course and it just has to switch back for some reason. I forget the term for that.

Chris:
But it's the kind of thing that when it's happening on the surface, a small change can make a big change in the flow. Yeah, you could throw a basketball sized rock into a stream that's 10ft across and that can change the flow patterns to the point where a quarter mile downstream, it is 100ft off of its previous course and then it will eventually loop back around and rejoin. It's a lovely aspect of how physics just shapes the planet. But in this particular spot, these meanders happened thousands of years ago and the earth beneath them started rising and so the streams were higher than they had been and they just started cutting down into the soil and then into the rock. And now they're slot canyons that follow the path of these old meanders. And the geologists call them entrenched Meanders. And it's just a fossilization of a pattern that existed because of fluid dynamics, just because of the way water flows across a surface that is almost level. But then something changed and just literally set these patterns in stone. They carved themselves into the rock and now you look down and it's just a series of really familiar looking goosenecks. But they have canyons that are 50 or 100 or 250ft deep. And I was thinking about that. It's such a useful metaphor for a lot of things we do in life because we start doing something for a particular reason. The cafe we wanted to go to is closed and there is another one that's half a block away that we haven't tried before. So we tried that and then eight years later, we go to that second cafe as a habit and we don't even think about it. You want to get a cup of coffee? So we go there and we pass the one that we had been going to previously and it's just I don't think that there's anything particularly bad about that. It is human nature for some humans, but just thinking about it with fresh eyes, looking at, are we really in a trench here or is this just the way that we happen to be flowing at the moment? And we can change that up if we want.

Alicia:
I was going to say it's. Entrenched Meander sounds like a philosophical discussion from a point of view. It also sounds like a really good band name, philosophical instrumental music that makes you question your very existence. Being alive feels like an entrenched meander.

Chris:
So if we lift ourselves outside of the Entrenched Meander that we may or may not have set with this season of the podcast, what would you like to see us do next year, in the next season or seasons to come?

Alicia:
The same thing we do every season, Pike, continue to ignite passion in our listeners for conservation of the desert.

Chris:
A cultural reference.

Alicia:
Yeah. For me, that's my goal is to just show up with my honest, bare self and talk about how important nature is to me and how important nature is to you and everybody. Everything that is alive on this planet, how we are all connected, that is the banner I'll carry till the day I die is we need to pay attention, be vigilant and steward our world. And I will just continue to find new and creative ways to do that.

Chris:
And I like the idea of elevating the voices of people that are also doing that. Yes, we've talked to a lot of really wonderful people for this season. They're doing great work. We've just scratched the surface of people that are doing amazing work in the desert.

Alicia:
It just blew by. We have such a long running list of people that we keep adding that we want to talk to and we want to do it now. But it's just a never ending exciting list of other advocates that we honor and cherish and want to put on the stage to talk about their perspective. We've got a lifetime of work ahead of us, really.

Chris:
And the work of a lifetime.

Alicia:
Yep. Bet you didn't know that. She goes both ways. What goals do you have for next season?

Chris:
I want to get more voices involved. I want us to have some teammates, maybe people that are in the business of writing commentaries for newspapers on their own campaigns. I'd love to get them to think about recording versions of that and sending them to us. I'd like to see if we can harness some of the talent that's around in the desert. The desert has more than its share of musicians and visual artists and poets. And I just feel like we could be amplifying their work and they could be amplifying us sometimes with literal amplifiers. I would really like to see a couple of live events.

Alicia:
I was just thinking of the live event aspect that you brought up. It would be so fun to have the sort of desert showcase where we had all sorts of different characters come up to share their part of the desert, like a variety show, but for nature instead of glamorous.

Chris:
So if you're listening to this and you have an idea of a place in the desert that would be suitable for hosting 90 miles from Needles live show, an event, let us know and we could actually set up a tour if it came to that. It's not that hard to get from here to Tucson or to Moab. Just was in Moab. It was easy. Big Ben's now. Big Ben. We probably need to find a financial sponsor just because that's a distance and that would be some gasoline and some.

Alicia:
Time off work, but in some pet sitters.

Chris:
I can totally see us doing a couple of live shows. I think that if we just spent a day beforehand planning something out on the theme of, for instance, the desert is not empty space, that we could fill 90 minutes of a live show and have people laughing and have people offering ideas from the audience or asking questions that other audience members might answer. Have a line of people at the microphone saying, this is more of a comment than a question, bring it.

Chris:
So we really like to thank everyone who has contributed in a substantial or tangible way to the success of this podcast.

Alicia
Yes. Time to give credit where credit is due.

Chris:
So here's a bit of a list, but we'll try to make it, we'll.

Chris:
Try to make it lively.

Chris:
Adan Lopez, Adrian Slade and Alan Mason.

Alicia
Anne Graham and Kelly.

Chris:
Arch McCullough, and I owe Arch some jokes about backpacking stoves, which they do exist.

Alicia
Coming at you, Arch.

Chris:
Yep. Bonnie Brady homegirl in Joshua Tree. Brandon Bronn and Brent.

Alicia
That's my homeboy.

Alicia:
Brandon Bronn. Yeah.

Chris:
Alright. And Brendan Cummings, a big friend of the podcast who's been on a couple of times.

Alicia
Hometown homeboy. Brett Berry. Brian five.

Alicia:
Cameron.

Alicia
Mayor cara.

Chris:
Barbara. Good old friend from the Earth's. First days in Berkeley. Carol Corbett and Carolyn Conway.

Alicia
Kat Lazaro.

Chris:
Kat is one of those old friends I've never actually met in person, but she does great work. She's great journalist.

Alicia
Pen pals do exist, yes.

Alicia:
Kathy Davies.

Alicia
Charles Peteyrson.

Chris:
And Chris keeps us honest. Chris is like our second patrion supporter and I think he's giving more money to us than anybody. And he routinely emails me to let me know when we need to do a little bit of a fact check and that is such an important thing. And we also need to have a beer with him or something similar.

Alicia
Sounds good.

Chris:
Christiana Saldana and Chuck George and the amazing Cody Hanford, another great friend.

Alicia
Here's a familiar name, coral Clarke.

Chris:
Love you, sir.

Chris:
Love you.

Alicia
Darryl Evans.

Chris:
Deborah Ballinger Deirdre, Circanowitz from Desert Survivors. Derek Laurenger and Eric Hamburg. Wonder Valley neighbor and good friend.

Alicia
Wonder Valley Heights in the house. Eve Brown, florian Boyd and Fred Bell.

Chris:
Florian is an old hiking buddy local in Palm Springs. Palm Springs. Born and bred. Gary Spers, my colleague on the board of the Mojave National Preserve Conservancy, and Gloria Putnam, who has the best goat related airbnb in the entire desert. And Heather Hurley. Chris jumping in later with a quick note here. After we recorded this, I learned that my longtime online friend, Heather Hurley, resident of India, native of Boron, California, who I've been talking to online for 20 years or so, passed away in October after a long, long illness and we are going to miss her. Thanks for everything. Heather.

Alicia
Heather Summerfields jazz, meet Singh and Jeff Hunter.

Chris:
Jeff is a colleague of mine from NPCA and Jazz Meet has been corresponding with us, giving us great feedback and advice.

Alicia:
Excellent.

Alicia
Thank you.

Chris:
Jim Stanger, who I got to see this week over at the Aviqua may national monument hearing the BLM held in Loughlin John Greasesmer and John Patzold, john.

Alicia
And Darlene Lundstrom, john Norris, judith Lynn.

Chris:
Lafun and I got to meet John and Darlene in Moab this year. Great folks. Judy Fennery, another wonderful local and Juniper heroer. Joshua Tree, expert and artist, and Justin Tappin. Hope you're doing well.

Alicia
Justin venue Garrett, karen Tracey and Carl Young. Thank you, thank you. Thank you all.

Chris:
Great friends. Kathleen Case, kathy Holmes of. The shields and Holmes household.

Chris:
Wonderful person.

Chris:
And Kang Gonku, Cleveland. Ericsson long time pen pal.

Alicia
Chris Zarnock, lorraine Turk and Laura Cunningham.

Chris:
Thanks, Chris, for the wonderful editing advice and consulting early on in the podcast. Leland and Kim Garrison means Linda Gibson and Lisa Morgan of Joshua Tree voice.

Alicia
Hey, Kim and Leyland. And hey, Joshua Tree Voice. Let's see. We've got Lori Whitzel, Lorraine Suzuki and Louise Matthias.

Chris:
We need to get Louise reading some of her poetry on the podcast. Luana lynch, our old neighbor in the old neighborhood. Lynette millette and Lynn Sweet, another Joshua tree expert. Okay, Maru.

Chris:
Sudan. Kati.

Chris:
Man I miss you, Maru. We need to hang out. Marisa Monroe and Marianne Ruiz, who is a dynamite desert activist. I take my clues from her about how to do things.

Alicia
Mary Buxton mason Vale matthew Woodman merlissathy.

Chris:
Mike Kaufman and Michael Gordon. God, got a lot of friends on here.

Alicia
Michael Mack, michael Stillman and Michelle Simmons.

Chris:
Michelle is the northernmost desert rat that I know of up above the Canadian border in the Great Plains. Moises cisneros ola companero. We should hang out. Monica Gorman. Likewise. And Monica mahoney. We still owe each other a hike.

Alicia
I think we've got a Miss Natalie Pearl patch on the list. That would be my mother. My most beautiful mother. Thank you so much for your support. No surprise there. Always supporting. Her daughter, Pam McCann Parker.

Chris:
James Lloyd and Pam McCann would be my mother if she was several decades older. But we did actually meet at a demonstration in San Francisco against the very first Gulf War, so we have a long activist friendship here's. A familiar name. The patch spine center.

Alicia:
Hey, Warren.

Alicia
Thank you for your support.

Chris:
Patrick Odriskol and RYA Buchanan.

Alicia
Robert Bagel ryan Barrett essender score.

Chris:
P ryan Barrett Incidentally, I heard playing bass in a string quintet a few days ago, and he is part of a fantastic group of people playing really wonderful music. Sam easily. Sarah cardin. Sarah is our very first Patreon supporter still with us. Thank you, Sarah.

Alicia
Thank you.

Chris:
And Sarah Jane Kennington, another wonderful local dynamite activist, former president of the board of the Moronggo Basin Conservation Association. Wonderful person.

Alicia
Scott Fajack, Sean Sharp and Sergey Konazenko.

Chris:
Croix Arden ten kai Karia and Terry McGlin. Thank you. Thank you, Todd.

Alicia
With Add. Thank you, Todd. Travis Puglissi. Thank you, Travis. We love you. And Yannie McIver.

Chris:
And Yaney is another wonderful activist from up in the Owens Valley, mono county in Yo County area. And then a shout out to Atlasphere and Yosaku, I'm willing to bet.

Alicia
Atlasphere's. Tad.

Chris:
Thank you, Mr. Atlasphere. That's wonderful. And honestly, folks, we couldn't have done this season without you. You bought some gas, you bought some equipment. You kept us going. Most importantly, perhaps, you made us realize that there were people out in the world that thought this was worth doing and were willing to back it up with some cash. And so just thank you, thank you. Thanking the people who have joined us for interviews. Patrick Donnelly, as always, my brother from another mother, just really inspired by your work. Kyle roaringk. The Great Basin Water Network. Doing some amazing work there. Brendan, probably brendan is I think Brendan is the person we've had on most often with two interviews. Susan Sorrells, the inimitable Susan Sorrells, savior of the shoshoni pup fish, and Mason Vale, who stepped in to provide some much needed context for Amorgosa Basin and shoshoni pupfish conservation.

Alicia
Let's not forget our first road trip interview, jan Eming at the Desert Sense.

Chris:
Nursery out there in Yucca, Arizona. And we had Zach Frankel from the Utah Rivers Council talking about the great Salt Lake drying up and a little bit about overdrafting of the Colorado River. We wish him well.

Alicia
Drew Kaiser dropping some knowledge on us about how to steward the Joshua trees out at sea.

Chris:
Madone taking good care of all of the plants at Mojave National Preserve and being an awesome guy. We had Louis sahgean the la. Times environmental journalist of many decades, telling us about threats to the wonderful Bristol Cone pines in the California desert.

Alicia
Christian Daniels with the Desert Balloon Project.

Chris:
Did an amazing interview and he's doing some amazing work keeping those mylar balloons from lingering in the desert in southern Nevada. David Smith. David Smith, the Indefatigable superintendent of Joshua Tree National Park who has an endless.

Alicia
Supply of enthusiasm that we should all.

Chris:
Tap into when there's not a pandemic. I run into him sometimes late at night in the gym in 29 Palms, and he's just beating the hell out of the treadmill. He has this incredible stressful work day, and then he goes out and he runs a marathon on the treadmill at night. Life goals that I will never make special.

Chris:
Really.

Chris:
Heartfelt thank you to Matt Lavis of the Chemovie, who met us out at Ward Valley to talk about our lamentably lost friend Phil Klasky, desert activists. A highlight of this season, I think, was having Matt on for that episode. Shannon Salter, thanks for letting us come to your event and record what was going on there. And I was just in a meeting early this morning, which you're talking about solar development all around yellow pine solar. There's 20,000 acres of proposed solar in that valley and it's going to be intense. Definitely need to have Shannon on answering some questions in season two. Early on the penultimate episode of this season, we were joined by Tim Shields and Luke Basulto, who told us a lot of interesting depressing and hope raising stuff about desert tortoises.

Alicia
I think there was a lot of positivity in that episode. And petty Mesquitey from the growing native podcast neighboring us over there in Arizona, spreading the Desert Love.

Chris:
Thank you all so much for joining us this year.

Alicia
Hi, I'm Heather Hurley.

Alicia:
I grew up in Boron, California, and.

Alicia
I currently live in Indio, I think the desert is beautiful because there's a stark and subtle sort of atmosphere that's different from any place on Earth.

Alicia:
Every time you step out your door.

Alicia
Into the desert, you see something else that's just amazing.

Alicia:
Thank you.

Chris:
We'll see you in January, folks. Thanks for listening.

Alicia:
Thanks, y'all. See you next year.

Bouse Parker:
This episode of 90 Miles from Needles was produced by Alicia Pike and Chris Clark, editing by Chris podcast artwork by the remarkable Martin Mancha theme music is by Brightside Studio, other music by Slipscreen. Find our social media accounts at nine Zeromileesfromnetals.com social. Subscribe to our email newsletter at Nine Zeromilesfohnneadles.com newsletter. Listen to us at 90 Miles from Needles.com or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also hear us at other desertradio.com. Help us by leaving a review on your favorite podcast app. Thank you to our newest Patreon supporters. Garland Kirkpatrick, lisa Lynn Morgan, carol Corbett Atlasphere, john and Darlene Lunstrom, Ryan Beard and Adrian Support this podcast by visiting us at Nine 0 Mile from Needles.com Patreon and making a monthly pledge of as little as $5. Or visit nine zeromiles from Needles.com Kofi to make a onetime contribution. Our supporters enjoy privileges, including early access to this episode. Crucial support for this podcast came from Tad Kauffin and Laura Rosell. All characters on this podcast are all characters on this podcast. This is Bowse Parker reminding you the best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a progressive army veteran and a drag queen in heels. See you next time.

Chris:
Sit Heart. Sit.
Good dog.