Today I'm talking with Robin Easton, author of Naked In Eden. You can follow on Facebook as well. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Robin Easton, author of Naked in Eden. How are you, Robin? I'm great and excited to be here with you, Mary. I'm excited to have you. You are such an interesting person to me. 00:30 So tell me about yourself. What do you do? Oh, wow. That I've been listening to your podcasts and how you ask people that. And just, I was asking, they're great podcasts. I'm loving them. But anyway, I asked myself, well, what do I do? And I kept coming back to this line in my first book when I'm 25 in the jungle. And I'm, what do I do? And then the answer came, I feel. 00:59 You know, what do you do for a living, Robin? I feel. And it sounds an odd answer, but from that is born my music, my writing, my communication with other species, you know, my love of the earth, you know, everything that I am and do. And right now I'm writing, I'm kind of finishing up two books. 01:29 that I hope to get out this year. One is about all the incredible interactions I've had with other species and how it's changed my life, what I've learned, and how my own intelligence and awareness has just expanded more than I ever could have imagined through experiencing the intelligence of other species. 01:57 and their emotions, their ability for compassion and love and tenderness and just so much. And then the other book is kind of a look, I suppose, looking at the world, a woman who lives so much of her life, wild in the wild and places when I went in decades ago were very wild, were virgin forests and remote. You had to winch and could take, I mean, it was an ordeal sometimes just to get in there. 02:27 And then coming back out into my culture again and seeing the world again through wild eyes, because I very much went wild. And then another project I wanted to just touch on, but is I'm buying a piece of land. I've owned land before, but they were always bigger pieces, probably nothing 02:56 a small like six acres anywhere up to like in Australia, almost up to 200 acres. And they were wild and I didn't really have to do anything. I could just kind of move in and enjoy being there. But the place I'm buying now is one acre. It's in a rural area like they're small acreages with the people are all kind of 03:23 micro homesteaders. They have gardens and chickens and some nice docks and whatever. And it's a wonderful community. Like kind of back in the pioneer times where even though we're all on the grid, you know, it still has that feel where your neighbors say if you need anything, let us know. We'll come help. And I decided to do this, you know, this project. And so I'm 03:52 buying this acre, my partner and I, and we're going to turn it into a pollinator conservancy. And someone might say, one acre? Yes. You know, and so it's the first time where I bought a piece of land where one half is lawn and the other half is kind of was made into this extended kind of drive that's gravel and hard and it has a couple fruit trees, a little mini 04:21 great vineyard and a couple of trees. And it's like, what can I give back here? What life was driven from this acre? And that just touches me to tears, Mary. You know, what birds, what butterflies, what bees, what bats, what insects that are starved for homes and don't have them? What families? 04:51 were driven from this property. And how can I give back? And someone could think, one acre, what are you giving? Oh, we all need to give back. Even if we just have a balcony that has plants on it, flowers, you know, in a city. Even if we just have a quarter acre and we decide to plant organic. 05:19 lavender, organic things so the bees don't get harmed. Every little bit helps. And so right now, I mean, I'm coming from someone who used a hand crank washing machine, logged water from creeks and went without electricity, computers, phones, TV, radios for several, like decades. So now I have power. 05:49 It's an interesting, I mean, it's like it's making me grow in a different way. In terms of thinking, what can I give back now? You know, I'm, I'll be 71 in December and it could seem a huge project, but I want to do it, you know, I think it's great that you're going to do it. I think it's fantastic. And I get your, I get your, um, I don't know, bafflement at. 06:18 at really going from no technology to using technology because we here have obviously the internet at my house and we have TV and we have our computers and we have all the things but my favorite thing is just being outside and...
