Drea leads the ladies through a discuss of wildfires, coal seams, coal seam mythology, plants that love fire and the reintroduction of bison somewhere in the Alps.
Drea leads the ladies through a discuss of wildfires, coal seams, coal seam mythology, plants that love fire and the reintroduction of bison somewhere in the Alps.
Talk about that.
drea:Well, that's why I waited.
lisa:Yeah.
meags:Good
drea:we don't have to talk about what you don't wanna talk about while we're recording.
lisa:Thank you.
drea:but you do wanna talk about it, but not while it's being recorded.
lisa:Right. Correct. So let's leave our five listeners in the dark about what we're talking about before we start recording.
drea:Well, you know, It's all right. We're, as Carrie, I was talking to Carrie about this yesterday. She's like, this is fun. It can be therapeutic to see your friends every week. So
lisa:it's, but I have, I recently went on our statistics page to see what people are listening to. And it's interesting, the granny. the Gray Go Goo Go Granny, or something like that, I believe is the title. I forget what episode that was, but that seems to be your most popular episode.
meags:That's an excellent headline. Good headline,
lisa:it does, it does. and I'm trying to think the other one. The Murd dog one was pretty popular.
meags:And, and what does pretty popular mean? Exactly.
lisa:that means, well, okay, the, the granny one is 20 listeners 20,
meags:Okay.
lisa:so.
meags:I just needed some kind of, you know,
lisa:20. But we've
meags:quantitative information. Thank you.
lisa:if you can believe it. We've done 25 episodes.
meags:Holy cow.
drea:we have,
lisa:It's pretty amazing. I'm, I'm impressed that we,
carey:the granny one? Remind me what the granny one was.
drea:That was the
meags:talking about, we were talking about going gray,
kathy:Gray hair.
carey:Oh, that one.
lisa:why Doye?
drea:Yeah. Yeah. So well go granny. Go. Great Granny. I don't remember what it was called. It is a pretty catchy, it's a pretty catchy heading, so,
lisa:listening hit like leave.
drea:oh my God. Okay. so, I get to go today. I have, what do I have? Okay. I asked you guys. I don't know, several months ago for different topics that you might be interested in. And I finally got around to using one of them and Carrie had said she'd like to know more about wildfires. And so I started to like, I started to think about it at first and was like, oh my God, what am I gonna learn? I mean, it's just like the forest catches fire and everything burns so crisp. So I was like, this is gonna be super boring.
kathy:Carrie, do you remember wanting to know about wildfires?
carey:Yeah, I do. And I think it was like, I wanted to know, like I, I think I was at the time, if I remember correctly, I was interested kind of in like what they do to prevent them, you know, like
kathy:Ah,
carey:deforestation. you know, there's some controversial, decisions that people make to get rid of, to prevent forest fires. And one of them is well cut down the trees. So I was kind of interested in that. And then probably how, like how they put them out? Or do they, do they just let it, like when did they decide, okay, we'll just let it burn.
kathy:Gotcha.
drea:Well, I didn't answer both of those questions.
kathy:Well, crap.
drea:Fuck that. I've done a lot of research. We're gonna learn what we're gonna learn about wildfires. And then if we need, if I need to go back and do like a little, a little, you know, a little bit more research or we can go Google those questions as we go along, you know, more power to us. But please don't Google while I'm busy talking. so anyway, we're gonna talk about wildfires. and I know I said this like last time when I was hosting, but just to clarify, for anybody that is listening, I am not a wild. Fire ecologist. So I was a communications major and I steal science magazines from my dad. So like I did all of my homework on Google and my dad's scientific Americans. So like, don't, you know, I might make mistakes. so you better, you know, go check things out yourself to make sure you got stuff right. But I did put all of my sources into the, into the show notes, so if anybody does desire. To dig in deeper, more power to you. So, okay. Are you guys ready? You ready? So when do you think the first wildfire was? Oh, and I'll give you a hint.
lisa:of time,
drea:Well, I was gonna give you a hint. Like, within the last, you know, it was like a hundred millions of years ago.
carey:Oh,
meags:that narrows it down.
lisa:beginning of.
carey:only a hundred million years. Oh, okay. I have no idea.
drea:Well, I mean, oh, you probably don't remember the numbers from plant when we talked about plants and stuff. So, okay. Well, it was 430 million years ago, give or take,
lisa:Okay.
drea:but the way, but then what happened is the oxy, okay, so apparently the oxygen level has to be at 16%. For a fire to catch, like, so, it got up to 16% and that was after the plants took over the land. So, you know, they were releasing their oxygen, cooled things down, and then caught things on fire. So that was the first wildfire. and they know it because they actually have fossilized charcoal and it's called fusion or something like that. Ian, I don't know. It's really not even that hard of a word. I'm looking at it right now. so anyway, but like I did wanna go into this, this, this links back to one of the, the fungus when we were, do you remember the, the force to penis, fungus that I had talked about that, those are the, those are what they found as charcoal, like burned down. So I thought that was pretty interesting. It all comes back together.
kathy:Full circle. Full circle.
drea:It's a
meags:The circle of life.
drea:It is a circle of life. So now we're gonna do the circle of wildfires. gonna go ahead and come we're we we're out of the millions of years ago. so they happen. Guess which continent? That doesn't have wildfires.
lisa:It does not.
drea:It does not.
kathy:Antarctica.
drea:Yes, yes. That was a gimme. You gotta like, it's got definitely a gimme. So, there's nothing there to burn. Right. So, but in the United States there are typically between, 60,000 and 80,000 wildfires a year, and every year we burn between three and 10 million acres. And so I calculated, well, what, what is that? So 5 million acres would be equivalent to about 8,000 square miles. So that's a lot of, a lot, a lot of burnt, burnt
meags:Yeah.
drea:So, okay. And then there are four, there are four natural causes of, of wildfire. There is lightning. There is a volcanic eruption. this is so weird. Sparks from water, from, from rock falls. So you know, who knew? Yeah. And spontaneous combustion.
kathy:Well,
drea:Right? So then, then we've got all kinds of unnatural causes, but we are the cause of the unnatural causes. We are 100% natural cause of the unnatural. Causes. Right. Okay. Yeah. So, okay. So like, I don't even, I'm not gonna have to go into a whole lot of it. Like, of course we stick, we flick, well we don't, but people do, cigarette butts out of their cars and then, you know, like, They commit arson and then there are sparks from equipment that A could go out and then their power line arcs. Those are, that's actually what hap happens a lot in California is the power lines will spark and set shit on fire. But the one of these things that
lisa:Can I, can I raise my hand?
drea:yeah,
lisa:Know you could get a ticket for throwing a cigarette out a car window in California?
drea:that's
lisa:Cause I got one, one of my rare nights of smoking in law school. I was in a friend's car and he didn't want me putting his cigarette out in his car. So I threw it out the window and then I got pulled over.
drea:Well.
lisa:and then to top that off, then you know when you apply for the bar you have to explain your like last 10 years of like traffic violations. So I had to explain to the Bar Missouri why I got a ticket.
drea:Mm.
kathy:Lisa. Lisa. Lisa, only you. Only you can prevent forest fires. Lisa
lisa:Yes, I know. But in middle of San Diego I wasn't really thinking about forest fires.
drea:Well, and you were
meags:Safety first.
drea:Yeah. Yeah.
lisa:So the more you know people.
drea:Now I know. So no flicking cigarette buts out of the car in California. really? Or anywhere. Oh, but this is the other thing they had in this list of things that I thought it was so funny. It was like, like cuz I found an article that I was talking about all these different, causes. And one is you could drop. Glass, let's say like a glass bottle, I don't know, like on the trail, and it gets into the sun, and then the sun will, you know, it'll magnify the heat and it'll heat the needle, like the pine needles over underneath and then it explode and then you have a fire. I was like, I dunno if that's true. I dunno if that's possible. Do you guys think, do you think so?
meags:Yeah. Fi pine needles are super duper combustible and you don't have to like, especially with any kind of curved, curved glass, I mean, that's how optics work.
drea:Oh,
meags:yeah.
drea:Okay.
meags:So like, you know, And what, what are almost all the glass bottles that we drink out of, they, they've all got some aspect of curl curved glass to them at some point. So it would, it's obviously not something that happens all the time, but I think it's definitely in the realm of possibility.
drea:It is realm of possibility.
lisa:something that survivors, like take with them out into the wilderness is like a piece of glass to start fires or is it a man never.
meags:Usually. Usually people bring Flint, cuz that's a little more,
lisa:it's true.
meags:Sure. Fire. But you're the one with Boy Scouts, so you tell me.
lisa:They do. They do carry flint. That that's what they,
meags:Okay.
lisa:they like to buy. Yes. Flint.
drea:Yeah. That's like that TV show. What Alive? Is that what it's called?
meags:Yeah, I think so.
drea:they always bring that, that's one of their 10 things.
carey:This meeting is being recorded.
drea:all right, Carrie, I, Carrie switched and now we know this meeting is being recorded.
meags:Carrie. Carrie has duplicated herself. I love it.
drea:I know. I love it.
carey:It's pretty
meags:the world needs is. Two carries. It's fantastic.
drea:Oh, wait, now there's only one.
meags:Aw,
drea:Oh, oh, Carrie, and she's connecting to the audio. I wonder if it's gonna tell us again. Oh, there, she's
meags:And a smiling face.
drea:sweet. You guys might get to see sunshine's butt.
meags:Oh.
drea:What are you exciting? okay. Sorry, I got off track Here. We have different types of fires. there are ground fires and these are actually, they are fires that they burn. Underground and they will, they will burn through like dried roots and dried out organic ma matter that's under the dirt, which I think is kind of cool. And they will smolder and burn slowly for like a few days or a few months. I was like, oh my God. And so, and of course we we're usually responsible for it because we drained the land and left something to catch on fire. You know, cuz that's the way we are. there's a ladder fire. And that is really like, these are kind of like levels I think, cuz like at the ground level fire and then the ladder fire is kind of the middle section. So it would be like small trees, and logs and like vines and stuff like that that are just underneath the canopy of the trees. And then, You have a canop beach fire. So that is the top of the tree is catching on fire. And usually you'll have like, I mean, you you, but a lot of it is you have to have dry stuff. Like you can't just, they can't do wet leaves. They have to be dry and stuff. And so those are the different kinds of fires. and except while I was doing my research, I found far more interesting kind of fire Y'all ever hear of a, a coal scene?
lisa:Cold
kathy:Oh.
drea:No. Cole? Nope. C o a l.
meags:Yeah.
lisa:Yeah.
drea:And then, and then S? No. S e A m.
carey:I used, yeah, it used to happen in Pennsylvania and Arkansas.
drea:Yeah, we're gonna talk a little bit about Pennsylvania. So, so coal steam, it is an underground deposit of coal that's like, has vis, it's like visible coal, like in layers like you would feel you have for coal winding. and it's just underneath the rock and their, you know, their mind. So they're like, Either deep mining or strip mining or just whatever kind of mining you can do. and so when the coal is near the surface, it gets exposed, by erosion, and then it'll combine with oxygen and then like the chemical reaction produces heat. And this process, like it can actually go on for years and years. It's just like happening, happening, happening. And then, It'll spontaneously combust, underneath your fucking house and everybody else's house in the neighborhood. And,
lisa:Crazy.
drea:and, and the thing is, is like the temperature only has to be 104 degrees Fahrenheit, which doesn't seem that high. I don't know
carey:I think
lisa:That's true.
carey:yeah, they're really, those coal fires and sometimes if they, the, the seam ones can cause. methane in the mines that are, that collects in the mines when they're mining it out to explode. And that's sometimes how you get coal mine explosions that start out as fires.
drea:oh
kathy:It was like a fire near the surface, and then it. It goes down, Ooh.
drea:yeah. Yeah.
carey:very combustible. So
drea:Yes. So, so basically the, yes, the fire burns downward and like the air actually gets in through fissures in, in the rocks. And so it's very hard to put these, these, these, in fact, it's almost impossible to put these fires out. and so. So it goes down and it goes down, down, down. And the, it can smolder for years, like I said, just like a ground fire. but this will smolder for years. It'll smolder for decades and, and then like all of a sudden it'll turn to ash and then shit will start caving in cities. You know what I mean? Like, streets, houses, people, dogs, everybody, everything just caving in. Yeah. It's pretty crazy. so,
carey:in Pennsylvania was all on top of an old abandoned coal mine. And so you might, I don't know, did you have to buy mine subsidence insurance in in Penn or in Buffalo? Cuz Buffalo is on top of a bunch of coal mines too, isn't it?
drea:I don't know. I, I didn't have to buy that kind of insurance.
carey:Oh, okay. Yeah, cuz they, I mean, it was possible that like, The abandoned coal mine opens up and boom, there goes your house.
drea:Mm-hmm. Yeah, that would totally suck. So, I did find out that these cool steam fires do occur naturally and, and sometimes, and the oldest one is that we know about is called Burning Mountain, and it's about 6,000 years old and it is located in New South Wales, Australia. And I was so excited about it that I found an Australian one, a Rahoo native myth about it. So I'm gonna read you a little bit of a myth. It's just a little one. So, and I'm gonna try really hard to pronounce everything right. One day the Roy people north of the Liverpool range sent a raid party south to steal Guana, rahoo women. And then we were Ja people on the west warned the Guana Rahoo, to not send their best and greatest warriors to the battle. But they didn't care. And so then one of the one rahoo wives, she decided to wait for her husband that was dumb and went to the war. And she waited for him forever and ever. And then he didn't come back and she was just devastated and she was crying and she cried to the God beyond me and the sky, God and Sky said she asked for the sky God to take her life. And he was like, mm, I'm just gonna turn you. I'm gonna turn you into stone and your tears are gonna become fire and you're gonna set them out in the light for all eternity.
meags:Whoa.
kathy:Wow.
carey:Well, that's more creative than killing. I mean, yeah.
drea:What
carey:I mean that God has, you know, some creativity,
drea:I know that's.
carey:Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna turn you into stone and make you cry. Five.
drea:such a loving God.
carey:Yeah.
drea:Yeah. So, all right. Okay. We've got Burning Mountain under our belts. We know all about that. But the next thing I'm getting to is, oh, and there are a shit ton of these in China and India. I'm obviously not gonna talk about them, but they've set, they're like, they have the same problems we do, but they're more vast because, you know, they've got a lot of third world shit going on. So, we though also, like we were talking about, have thousands of coal mines in Pennsylvania, and the one that I wanted to talk about that one of the, the city that caught fire, it. And Carrie, do you know about central
carey:No, I Is that where the, the, it's still burning. It's been burning for like a gazillion years
drea:Yes. Yes. Yeah, so I have a description of it.
carey:It's wild to me that it's still going.
drea:Oh yeah. Yeah, they did try to put it out. so let's see. so this, okay, so this, it is 65 years old. This fire is 65 years old, and so I found an article that was written. closer to this time, but it says 43, so whatever, 65 minus 43, years ago. so a hellish landscape is about all that remains is the one thriving town of Centralia, Pennsylvania. 43 years ago, a vast honeycomb of coal mines at the edge of the town caught fire. An underground inferno has been spreading ever since, burning it. Depths up to 300 feet, baking surface layers, venting poisonous gases, and opening holes large enough to swallow people in cars. The conflagration, what a great word, may burn for another 200 and. 50 years, a long, an eight mile stretch encompassing 3,700 acres before it can run out of coal that fuels it. It was accidentally started in 1962 by the sanitation workers who were burning shit next to the opening
carey:No kidding.
drea:the.
meags:Yikes.
carey:You be like, yeah, I started the longest
kathy:The never ending fire.
drea:I started the never ending fire. You'd never lived that down.
meags:It's the kinda shit that goes on your greenstone right there.
drea:I know that guy Jerry. You remember him? That absolutely started that fire. Okay. So anyway, so they did try to put it out for 20 years. They made eight attempts at trying to put it out and they dug trenches to, had like to stop the fire from getting any farther along from where it was. But that shit just kept going. They couldn't put the trench in the right place cuz nobody knows where it is cuz there's a honey comb of. Of tunnels underneath, so they don't know where it is, so they can't stop it is really the problem. so they tried to do the that and then they did this weird thing called flushing. It's not a very good idea, guys. You, what they did is like, they bur burled holes, like, I guess big holes wherever they thought that the fire was going, and then they shoved like cement and wet sand and stuff into it. And thought maybe that would help. And I was like,
lisa:Kinda like. It out like
drea:yeah. Yeah. It had to have been a man's idea,
lisa:Well, yeah.
drea:right? Like, like, oh, we'll just throw it and we'll just throw, drill a hole and then we'll just some shit down there and you know,
kathy:It'll stop it. Fire can't burn concrete.
drea:exactly.
lisa:All you think of trying to cut off like oxygen to the fire and they
drea:But they're, I know, but they were adding oxygen to it, right? Like you, you, when you
lisa:Doug? The whole Well, yes.
drea:the hole, you add the oxygen. And that's the, that's the struggle, right?
lisa:not saying they were correct in their theory. Why else would you do that?
drea:I know, I know. Well, finally, the, they, I don't know. They let the geologists and the geologists came in and they were like, well, we're gonna take care of it. We're gonna figure out where this shit is. And so like they did all their geology stuff and figured out where like the edges of this firework and then, Dug trenches and it didn't work. And at that point, I'm guessing they were like a little embarrassed by themselves. And so they're like, oh, fuck it. Just fuck it. And they just let that shit burn. So they, they bought, like, I guess the government bought all the houses of the people that lived there. and they, well, except for the, the, you know, like the five people that really wanted to stay. and then they, they all moved away. Yeah. I mean, one thing, one,
carey:gonna be ash. You know?
drea:I know,
carey:like a good selling point.
drea:I know. Well, I mean, you don't have to worry about getting your, getting it plowed like with the snow. Cause
carey:true.
drea:you know
carey:you do have the heated driveways.
drea:Yeah. You have heated driveways, so that's all good.
carey:that's an expensive way to go about it.
drea:Exactly. I dunno if this is the best way to do it, but it's way anyway.
carey:Your house, and you want, Pete, if you have coal under your house. Please be sure to drop a match down there and you too can have seated driveways.
lisa:That doesn't sound very
kathy:Radiant.
meags:Yeah.
carey:Call me, I'll figure it out.
drea:I know. I'm sorry. I'm like, where is that, where is that coal Mine. So, alright, so, okay. I just, I was really interested in those. I thought that that was like really cool. So thanks for humoring me. Had nothing to do with wildfires at all. but I am gonna get back to wildfires just a little bit. And of course I'm not talking about the fires just right now, I'm talking about. Plants cuz you've got plants that live on these, you know, live in these fire, prone areas. And so they've adapted, you know, so I found some cool shit, some cool plant shit that I wanna tell you guys about. and the plants, that, there are plants that actually need, they actually need to live near wildfires and, they're called pyro fights. I don't know. It's almost like pyro files, you know, it's like pyros. I think it's kind of cool. so the first one is a fire activated seed. So some plants they need. Fire for their seeds to sprout. So like the, I think the eucalyptus, the eucalyptus tree comes up a lot in these, so it must be like the master of wildfire because they, they can do all kinds of shit. So what they do with their seeds is they, have'em stuck in a cone and then when the, the wildfire comes through, There's a resin that keeps it tight, like keeps the cone tightly together, and then when the fire comes through, it melts the resin and then it opens and then the seeds fall out. And so then you have like, that's how they can start being planted, right? That's how the seeds get out. So, oh, that was kind of cool. and then there are some shrubs in annual plants that are they, this is cool. They actually are able to, I used the word sniff. I don't think they sniff, but they can. And it sounded right to me at the time. they can sniff out chemicals that are released during a fire and and then during, you know, like. So they, they can, I don't know. I was like, that's cool. They can like sniff out fire chemical smells. And then afterwards they, that tells them that they need to break their dormant seeds open. Or maybe the chemical opens the seeds. I don't know. I, I don't know exactly how it works, but, oh, that was cool.
meags:Yeah.
drea:No,
carey:So, so they only drop their seeds when there's a wildfire coming. Oh,
drea:Yeah. There are a few, oh, there are a few different like.
carey:Like what? What? A And the fire doesn't burn the seeds.
drea:Mm-hmm.
carey:That's
drea:I dropped to the ground. Right. So I know.
meags:Three seeds are crazy. I mean, some of those things can go through a whole bird that's bird's, digestive tract. There's all kinds of crazy coatings on those seeds.
drea:Yeah.
meags:So like fireproof and Sure.
drea:Why not? Why not? okay. So the next kind is they have thermal installation, so trees like, okay, so like a tree, like the great Sequoia. It's, it's has super thick bark and, and that is actually fire retardant. And so the fire, you know, unless the fire is, unless the fire is too hot, but usually it's not this hot, it'll just burn around it and then it'll insulate itself like the bark insulates the tree so it doesn't, burn up. So, it, I guess it doesn't get damaged during the, during the fire. So, Does somebody wanna say something?
meags:No, I just said, wow, cuz like that explains why they last so long. That's impressive. The,
drea:smart.
lisa:I'm just giggling cuz your cat is trying to
kathy:Yeah, I was gonna say, I think Sunshine has something to say about it.
meags:Yeah.
drea:always got something to say about it. so let's, there are these South African Allos. that protect themselves the same way, but it's actually they keep a thick layer of dead leaves around themselves. So they keep their dead leaves around themselves to insulate their stem, their stems, and so they survive their wildfires. let's see. There's resprouting. So this is the eucalyptus again. I mean, the eucalyptus is like, It's like fireproof. I mean, I don't like this plant just loves fires cuz it can, it'll it just, if it does, I guess burn down, it just burns to ash and then it'll just like pop back up like Phoenix from the ashes. I mean, it's just crazy. Yeah, it's really cool. they, they have these. I guess they have these like special buds that are in like little hide holes in its trunk. And then, when, you know, and it's like tucked into the bark and so after the bark burns away, the buds will pop out and they grow new leaves and branches and, and so. I don't, I have a little note in here, like science would be so much more interesting in school if they would start with shit like this, right? Like this is really fucking cool. You get this tree, it's like burn proof tree. And if it does get burned and all that stuff falls off and then little, you know, bud sprout out and it's like, oh my God, it's crazy. This is how I feel about it. alright, the last thing is the prolific flowering. and so Australian grass trees and I think they actually look pretty cool. That's one of the trees that I think would be worth looking at if you wanted to Google something. Australian grass, trees, they are prolific flowers, so I think of'em kind of like 14 year old boys. Right. having fun themselves. and I guess flowering is a word cuz that wasn't auto corrected. and so plants like this, they actually, they bloom right after the fire. Right? So like, they have to actually catch on fire in order to blend. So, and they'll do it really quickly afterwards. So let's, What I have there. And then I did have one of the questions you said, Carrie, at the beginning, I kind of have answers to.
carey:Awesome
drea:what you can do to prevent
carey:forest
drea:Yeah. What, what can be done? well, you should not throw cigarette busts out of, out of windows, particularly in California. That'd be like one, number one. So don't do that. but the, there are prescribed burns, which are just like, like the government usually does them, or actually the Native Americans, they do a bunch of cool shit with pres prescribed fires, but I didn't have time to look into all of that, so we're not gonna learn about that today. I think, but yeah, so they'll go in and they'll burn off kind of a layer of, of, Organic material. That's cuz they've grown up too high. And like when they do that, what it does is it helps the, plants that are not able to grow, like, cuz the prescribed fires are done because they should, there should have been a fire that didn't happen And so there's too much material now. And so we'll go in and we'll, you know, burn that area out and it clears area for. the smaller plants to grow and actually for small animals to get in and, and like burrow and stuff like that, which is beneficial to them because apparently that's how small animals survive. fire forest fires is they will burrow into the ground and just hang out there. It's
carey:Yeah.
drea:that's smart.
meags:Very smart.
drea:Go be a bunny. all right, so. And then another thing you can do is you can rent a ruminant. Everybody know what a ruminant is?
lisa:No.
meags:It's somebody who chews grass.
drea:It is an animal with a four chambered stomach that allows them to digest roughage like cattle. So
carey:What do they look like?
kathy:Cow.
carey:it's
drea:it's any car, it's any, any animal that's got the. So like goats? Cows.
carey:Oh,
drea:Yeah. Yeah.
carey:was picturing like, I don't know, like an ARD bark for. Yeah, I don't know. That's what that's.
lisa:Are you saying that like California
meags:a grass vacuum cleaner. I'm down with it. I think it could work.
drea:I love it. I love it. I know it is, this is like, but what this is, is actually goats and it's actually a company called Renter Ruminants. And you can,
kathy:they're goats, right?
lisa:And this is California.
drea:no, no.
kathy:do it all kinds of places. Yeah. You just rent a bunch of goats and they come and like basically clear, clear your land. Like, oh, you've have this many acres, and okay, it was 75 goats and it's three days.
drea:Yeah. Yeah. And you know what? It's cheaper than hiring a landscaper. It's like half the price.
kathy:Yeah.
drea:Yeah.
lisa:Yeah, I guess if you mow the lawn, you just still have all that dry stuff. That stuff that can burn is still sitting there
drea:Yeah, well, like what's nice about the goats is, that, you know, they also will eat their kind of like, Bark or in like lower branches and stuff like that. Like which obviously a lawnmower's not, you do not want your lawnmower eating the bark at the bottom of your tree.
lisa:it doesn't work.
drea:No, but you do want your goat to, so Oh, you hire your goat to do that. And they will apparently anything, and this is something interesting, they will also, they will eat, poison ivy and Poison Oak and, like in ragweed.
lisa:Nice.
drea:Who knew?
lisa:I'm, I'm allergic to all those things. That's great.
drea:Yes. Yes. I
meags:then when they have babies, you can do yoga with them.
carey:yeah, you can do yoga.
lisa:seen pictures of that.
drea:Oh my God.
carey:It's wild. It's really, it's, I I've done it. It's really
lisa:really.
carey:I mean, yeah.
drea:really?
carey:Yeah. They, they'll like,
lisa:on You.
carey:yeah, they'll like wa they'll like walk up on your back and you like, just like do different poses and they'll, you know, they'll, yeah, they'll just cuddle with you and, but they jump around and, and, and then sometimes if they get scared, they pass out. So, I mean, they're hilarious to, it's, it's hilarious. You don't really do yoga, you know, you're just
drea:Oh my God. Okay guys, when we all get together and we're near goats, we're gonna do goat yoga.
carey:yoga.
drea:Goat yoga. let's see. So anyway, yeah, so that is a way to just clear out the, you know, clear out the underbrush other than doing a prescribed burn, which I could see it being, you know, like I, I think if I would have, if I had to have a choice, I'd go with a goat. I mean, goats will not accidentally burn shit down. So the last thing I wanted to
meags:The, the goats are a lot easier on air quality too.
drea:yeah.
meags:A controlled burn cuz when they do, even when they do a controlled burn, there's still a lot of smoke, which can be difficult for a lot of people.
drea:Yes. Yeah.
carey:Hey, I, can I ask Megan a question real quick? Did you get Canadian smoke from in, in Maine?
meags:We did not because the Canadian smoke was primarily further west, like in Ontario. So it went straight down and over New York City.
carey:Okay. Yeah. I might, you
meags:you got it right, you got it while you were visiting your, your niece. Were you in the city then? Yeah.
carey:No, we, we were at, we were in the city earlier, but my boss, like all my work is in New York City, so yeah, he said they, they made everybody work from home for the district for a couple of days cuz he said like, you couldn't walk outside. I mean, it, it, it really hurt your lungs.
meags:Yeah, it's like, it's pretty crazy. I have a lot of, I have some friends in California who, who bolt every time that there's like a serious, Wildfire out there because the air quality is so bad and it's like, you know, you can't, you can't do anything. You can't leave the house.
carey:Yeah. And if you have asthma or any kind of breathing problem, it's, it's, it's way worse. So, yeah, it sounded like it was really miserable.
meags:Yeah, no, thankfully we did not get any of that up this way. We've gotten some from other Canadian wildfires, but we didn't get as much of that one.
drea:Always sitting their shit on fire.
meags:In the most polite way possible.
drea:in the most polite way possible.
meags:So sorry, I boot the fire.
drea:The fire. So, one, okay, so then I had like one last thing to talk about. Cause this is something that I'll get into in a different episode. And one thing that people are actually doing, is reintroducing her herbivores into, different. Environments and it's actually helping with wildfires. And so, they're really, they're like a bunch of the, a bunch of examples of it, but I'm, I'm not gonna talk about all of them. I was gonna talk about like they, in Europe, they're reintroducing European bison, I guess by 1924. They had 54 bison left and they were all in zoos and so, yeah, and, and so, and like they were, they, this is so crazy cuz they didn't have them, they were like extinct. The vast majority of Europe from hundreds of years. And so these are the last ones left. And then for some reason, Somebody got, you know, like got in the head like, oh, maybe we should do something about this. So in, I think like 1954, they, they released, some bison into, into the wild kind of in Bulgaria and Romania and all that kind of random shit. And they're doing it all across the, the, I'll call it the Alps. I know it's like, Other mountains, but that's like the range. it's part of that range. And right now they have about 7,000 out there in the wild. And, what they do is they eat again, kind of like the goats, right? Like bison eat all of the, all of the, undergrowth of plants and trs, but they're, you know, they could, they eat hell of a lot more because they're a lot bigger. And they, let's see, I'm trying to think of, I have it here. so they, they. They do that, and then they eat the bark. They also eat bark on the trees, which breaks down the undergrowth. Again, kind of like the, like the goats. They're just like very big goats. They're huge goats. they're massive. They're not goats, but they're bison. But they're goats, but they're ares and they, and, and they help but it anyway, so, so they're like lawn mowers, right. So anyway. Those are,
meags:but like what? Do they have any predators? Do they have natural predators? I feel like bison are very big.
drea:They have, wolves are are, but the wolves been so long since they've been in the wild that the wolves don't know that they can kill bison and they're.
carey:Yeah, I, I get theves are like, yeah, I'm not going over there. I heard that we could do this, but I'm not gonna check out.
drea:I know it looks really big.
kathy:Okay.
meags:read, I read an old book where it said they were tasty, but eh, I don't know.
carey:Dunno,
kathy:like the one, the one stupid wolf, and everyone's like, Hey, you, you, you go over
carey:try it.
meags:Just see if you can bite its ankle.
drea:Well, what I, I was watching, I watched half of a Nature episode, where they were, I didn't get to watch all of it, but I saw this on there and I thought that was pretty cool. But they had, they showed some wools eating the carcass of a, you know, like of a baby bison and the. Big bison came over and started staring at them, staring at the wolves and like intimidating the wolves until the wolves were finally like, oh, I guess go. And I was like, why, why are you guys doing that? I mean, it's dead. I mean, it was a carcass. Like it wasn't like, they didn't even take this thing down, but apparently the, the, you know, adult bison did not want that, did not want their, little one to be eaten. So,
carey:Fair.
meags:They didn't want anybody to get a taste for bison. They wanted to be like, you don't really like this. This is not as good as you think it is.
kathy:Yeah, we gotta.
meags:Go back to your graph and.
drea:They were gaslighting him
carey:Yeah,
meags:is, yeah, this is, this is not tasty. You do not like this.
carey:right. Go the
drea:and that's wildfires.
carey:Excellent.
lisa:All over the place.
drea:I know
meags:good. Covered a lot of
lisa:over.
drea:we did, we covered a lot of ground, so, all right. interesting. Okay, all thank you guys. I'll see you next week.
meags:Love you. Bye.
carey:wait, wait, wait. Everybody. Hang on.