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Rudy tells us about a butterfly that he has only recently seen in South Carolina.

In his book, The Grim Years: Settling South Carolina, 1670-1720 (2020, University of SC Press), Dr. John Navin explains how eight English aristocrats, the Lords Proprietors, came to possess the vast Carolina land grant and then enacted elaborate plans to recruit and control colonists as part of a grand moneymaking scheme. In his conversation with Walter Edgar, Navin tells of a cadre of men who rose to political and economic prominence, while ordinary colonists, enslaved Africans, and indigenous groups became trapped in a web of violence and oppression.Threatened by the Native Americans they exploited, by the Africans they enslaved, and by their French and Spanish rivals, white South Carolinians lived in continual fear. For some it was the price they paid for financial success. But for most there were no riches, and the possibility of a sudden, violent death was overshadowed by the misery of their day-to-day existence.

The first time I interviewed our next guest, several years ago, the entire market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies was around $40 billion. Recently, the market value of Bitcoin alone crossed $1 trillion. What is going on? Are we really on the verge of a sea change in payment systems?Mike Switzer interviews Allen Gillespie, a chartered financial analyst with Fintrust Capital Advisors in Greenville, SC.

Our crew spent a glorious day filming at the Beidler Forest Audubon Center recently, the original portion of which was purchased from the Beidler family in the 1960’s. Francis Beidler was a Chicago businessman who with partner Benjamin Ferguson established the Santee Cypress Lumber Company in eighteen eighty one, purchasing one hundred sixty five thousand acres in central South Carolina. This company was extremely profitable as old growth cypress lumber was highly desirable for building. The timber operations and mills were usually near large “blackwater” creeks to facilitate moving the enormous., ancient cut logs. Sadly, for the country’s economy but ultimately fortunate for the ecosystem, a slump in business in 1915 prompted Mr. Beidler to shut down all his timbering for a time. Eventually, portions of his properties became the Congaree National Park and the Francis Beidler Audubon Center.

Beidler Forest Audubon Center’s manager Matt Johnson said this is red-letter year for the larvae of the Eastern Tent Caterpillar. They were everywhere, the boardwalk was covered in frass, the polite word for insect poop, they were even falling on us from the trees! Although they covered with seta, hair-like bristles that sometimes cause serious skin irritation, these caterpillars are harmless to touch. Among the one hundred forty birds that spend all of part of their life at Beidler, are the yellow cuckoos. They sit by the nests of these caterpillars and gleefully strip the bristles off, devouring up to one hundred at a time. When startled by loud noises, such as thunder, they make a croaking sound, giving rise to the nickname rain crows. They lay eggs over a relatively long period of time; often depositing them in the nests of other birds.

The original purchase of eighteen hundred acres of virgin cypress and tupelo gum swampland is the heart of Beidler Forest. Imagine a place where several cypress trees are documented as being over one thousand years old. Cypress trees are well adapted to withstanding hurricanes; they are, compared to pines, flexible, and their extensive knees that develop when growing in wetlands probably provides extra stability. But this virgin forest does not look all that old – there are mostly large but not huge trees and many small ones, as well. Hurricanes and other natural forces change even woodlands not disturbed by man. At Beidler, they leave trees as they age and as they fall (unless they are a danger to visitors on the boardwalk). We saw standing dead trees full of holes from pileated woodpeckers – they’re fond of carpenter ants that eat rotten wood.

A listener finds a huge... tadpole? On the shore?

When filming at Audubon’s Beidler Forest the Making It Grow team used binoculars to spy on a female Prothonotary warbler sitting on her eggs in a small hole in a cypress knee. Only the female incubates the eggs, which hatch after fourteen days. Then both parents are involved in feeding them, flying back and forth all day long bringing them insects.

After my previous interview with our next guest in 2019, two of our listeners joined his agriculture program and according to him, they brought unique perspectives to that inaugural class with one working in international animal science consulting and the other working in environmental stewardship with the Sea Island Trust. And now, he’s recruiting for his second class.Mike Switzer interviews Kirby Player, coordinator for the Palmetto Leadership for the Environment, Agriculture and Forestry program at Clemson University.

“O” is for O’Neall, John Belton (1793-1863). Jurist, author, social reformer, entrepreneur.