"Magic mastering is an extra $6/month, and it saves me hours of
sound editing," Doug say. "It makes the podcast sound professional."
Doug says that he spends approximately 40 hours on each episode,
which includes booking guests; traveling to the trees and/or his-
torical sites and interviewing the people knowledgeable about
them; writing the script; editing the recordings; and distributing
and promoting the pod. "I love the editing process," he says. "I'm
in the zone and everything else falls away. I'm not a night person,
but I find myself editing into the night." Doug says the investiga-
tive aspects of the process are reconnecting him with the thrill of
research and learning. In making the podcast, he wants listeners
to feel like they're coming along, making discoveries with him.
At the same time that Doug is building the This Old Tree podcast,
he's training to be a tree dispute mediator. He plans to specialize in
working with residential neighbors in conflict, helping them come
to their own solutions together. Doug recently completed a 30-hour
training through the Center for Mediation Rhode Island. As of this
writing, he's beginning a series of mediation observations, after which
he becomes an Associate Co-mediator, and then a Lead Mediator of
a team. It will be interesting to see if the insights Doug gains in this
work get woven—however subtly—into his This Old Tree podcast.
Doug Still and Arborist and Author Jean Zimmerman met up in Hartford, Connecticut to find out as much as possible about
the Charter Oak, a white oak (Quercus alba) tree so imbued with meaning that it is used as a symbol for place names and
businesses—and as inspiration for art and design—all over the State. Jean wrote about her and Doug's experience uncovering
"the facts, the legend, and the legacy" at In the Hidden History of Connecticut's Charter Oak on her blog (jeanzimmerman.
com). Doug's at left, Jean's at right, and in the center is Jack Hale, the chair of the Hartford Tree Advisory Commission.
Luna is a 200-foot/61-m-tall coast
redwood tree (Sequoia sempervirens) that
towers on a ridge deep within a privately
owned forest in northern California.
You may remember Julia Butterfly Hill's
remarkable two-year "tree sit" in the
1990s that helped save the tree and shed
light on the indiscriminate clearcutting of
redwood forests. But after an agreement
was reached to save the redwood and
the national news media left, another
crisis arose that threatened Luna's
existence, introduced new heroes, and
ushered in a new era of collaboration.
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