The Last Caretaker

In this episode, we chat with Jessica, the author of The Last Caretaker, about her journey from magazine editor to novelist. Jessica shares how her background in journalism and interviewing bestselling authors inspired her own writing career. We delve into her writing process, the inspiration behind her novel's nature-themed setting, and the intricate network that helps women escape abusive situations. Tune in to hear Jessica's insights on writing, nature, and the powerful themes in her book.

Jessica Strawser
Bike Trail Books

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Intro & Outro: Bernie Baggs

Transcript

My son kept saying, this doesn't even look real. 
It's like you're in nature and it's so beautiful, you can't even comprehend it. 
It was like being inside a painting or something. 
Welcome to Wild Development Studio. 
Join us as we venture into the breathtaking realm of wildlife arts and untamed adventures. 
With captivating stories from the field and ideas to dive into the visual arts, 
we'll ignite your passion for conservation. 
Conservation. Get ready to develop something wild. 
Welcome to Wild Developments, where we bridge the gap between the confines of your office to the freedom of the great outdoors. 
I am your guide, Lauren, and if you are in the Cincinnati area, 
I do a nature book club once a month at Bike Trail Books. 
The books are not all nonfiction, they're just nature themed. 
Check out wilddevelopmentstudio .com on our event page or biketrailbooks .co to find out when the next club meeting is. 
And if you're not in the Cincinnati area and you want to participate, 
go to the show notes and click on send us a text message. 
Let me know if you're interested in a virtual book club. 
Today's topic was actually the first book we ever discussed at Nature Book Club. 
The Last Caretaker. 
We had so much fun discussing the book and eating chocolates like some of the characters in the book. 
We even came up with a couple questions to ask Jessica for today's show. 
Jessica Strasser is an editor -at -large and columnist at Writer's Digest, where she has served as an editorial director for nearly a decade and became known for her in -depth cover interviews with such luminaries as David Sedaris and Alice Walker. 
She is the author of book club favorites such as Almost Missed You, 
Not That I Could Tell. 
Forget You Know Me, and A Million Reasons Why. 
In her sixth novel, The Last Caretaker, it is an Amazon editor's pick for first reads, 
an instant Kindle bestseller, and new on shelves everywhere December 2023.
Honored as the 2019Writer -in -Residence at the Public Library of Cincinnati in Hamilton County. 
Strasser has written for the New York Times Modern Love, Publishers Weekly, and other fine venues. 
She lives in Cincinnati with her husband and two children. 
She is a contributing editor for career authors and an active tall poppy writer. 
She keynotes frequently for writing conferences, book fairs and festivals, book clubs, libraries, 
and other events that are kind enough to invite her. 
Jessica, thank you so much for being here today. 
Thanks for having me. 
So can you, you're an author. 
You wrote an amazing book that I, it's one of my favorites. 
It's one of those ones that like, I don't really think about books often after I've read them, 
but this one like just stays with me, The Last Caretaker. 
So I love hearing that. 
Thank you. Before we get really into that, what was your journey like before you became an author? 
Well, I was always a writer in some capacity. 
I was a magazine editor, actually. 
So I went to OU's. 
Scripps School of Journalism, and I was a magazine major, which is not a major anymore. 
But the magazine that I ended up working for was called Writer's Digest, 
and they're based here in. 
Cincinnati. And so my job was to edit content on how to become a writer. 
And I would, whether that was if you wanted to write books for children or fiction or, 
you know, personal essays, memoir. 
And one of my favorite parts of the job was that I would interview bestselling authors for our cover stories. 
And I would often think, gosh, this is the coolest job that I get to talk to of these authors I've admired my entire life. 
And the only thing better than my job would be to have their job. 
And so I kind of started, you know, sort of writing in the closet. 
And eventually transitioned over to writing novels as well. 
Do you think that that background in interviewing all sorts of different types of authors has helped set you up for a good career? 
Definitely just all aspects of the magazine job well i think just you know you we put people on pedestal and i don't know how we imagine that books are written but i think when you get to talk to them about the process you realize they really are just people and they're sort of muddling through it just like anybody else and often are so encouraging too i mean you can talk to the most successful writer in the world. 
And they're usually more than happy to take time out of their day to turn around and offer a hand up to the person coming up behind them. 
So there's definitely a sense of community. 
And I was fortunate to be part of that as an editor first. 
And now I'm definitely fortunate to benefit from that as a writer as well. 
I also just think reading, just being a big reader, there's a huge writing lesson in that. 
And I think as someone who who was always interested in writing and journalism. 
I've always been constantly reading across many genres, which is very helpful. 
Do you have a favorite genre? 
Probably what I'm writing, just contemporary fiction, which is suspenseful. 
So what is your writing process like? 
Um so no no uh i believe in forward momentum so just kind of like training for anything else any other big undertaking so um i'm really disciplined about uh i'm not like a someone who sits around and kind of tries to wait on inspiration to strike and i will sit in my chair and try to to hit my daily word count. 
No matter how long it takes, whether it takes one hour or whether I'm still working on it, 
you know, at 11o 'clock at night when I want to go to sleep. 
Wow. Do you have a method that you use for organizing your characters and how you want their personalities and their look to be? 
Or is it just kind of in your head and you're able to keep it all straight? 
Uh i don't know if i keep it all straight at all i think you know uh i will start with a vague idea um like with the last caretaker i got the idea for the novel actually hiking on the nature reserve that i ended up fictionalizing um for the novel and so you know you start for the so everything for me usually i start with like a theme or a question and for this one the setting playing into that a lot too and then starting to kind of just imagine the characters in a way that you can visualize what drives them and what makes them tick and then thinking about them in terms of their relationship but I'm not someone who has like spreadsheets or a post you know wall of post -its or an outline or anything like that I think I'm more intuitive writer if that makes makes sense. 
It probably makes no sense. 
I don't even think it makes sense to me. 
So I mean, it kind of makes sense. 
Like, I'm a visual person. 
And people are like, well, how do you do that? 
And I'm like, I just do it. 
I don't really know. 
It just comes out. 
It's just my talent, I guess. 
And like, you're very talented in writing. 
Did you do a lot of the research on the natural elements in the book? 
Or was that just something you had as common and knowledge from being a Cincy native? 
Um, probably a little bit of both. 
Um, I mean, definitely in terms of like being out at a long branch farm, 
uh, which became. 
Grove Reserve in the book and visiting during certain months, you know, the book, 
um, starts starts in the very early spring where it's really still very barren there's even a freak snowstorm early on and then kind of progresses through the spring into the summer so research in terms of like actually being there to get like how dense of the are the woods this time of year um doing things that are not creepy at all like taking pictures of the algae in the pond trying to to decide if I could hide a body in it. 
Nobody sees me and wonders, what on earth this crazy person is doing, 
like staring into the murky water. 
So I'm already had a frame of reference. 
But then sometimes you just have to really think like what was you know, 
what is this actual moment in time? 
What is this experience feel like, and it was good to be able to go back when I was writing this, 
even though I did fictionalize it I mean a few reasons first of all there actually is a caretaker living at Long Branch. 
Farm and I didn't want anyone harassing this poor person out there um but also once I fictionalized it I could um take some creative license change the type certain things about the typography to suit the story and things like and then just kind of have some license to imagine some things that were different and imagine some people but I think if you are a member of the Cincinnati Nature Center and you've hiked at Long Branch. 
You probably very much recognize Long Branch. 
So I was there, I was very connected to the setting while I was writing the book, 
I would make a point of going out there on a very regular basis while I was writing to kind of stay tapped into what it felt like to be out there. 
Sometimes even in the middle of a writing session, if I would feel was feeling stuck, 
I would just get up and go out there in the middle of the day, 
and then come home and write more. 
And probably being outside helped with that creative process and stuff to just the benefits of being out there. 
Well, I talked about like being disciplined enough to sit here until you hit your word count. 
And sometimes I think I'm too stubborn about that. 
Sometimes the best way to hit your word count is to get out of the chair and move around. 
And there's something about that that shakes something loose in your brain. 
And you think, gosh, why didn't I do this two hours ago right yeah yeah and i thought that was beautiful symbolism too that as you're following katie's journey you know it does start in the winter time and the leaves really aren't on and stuff and you're literally watching her bloom and blossom into this new person and healed person uh throughout the story as nature around her is is developing and blooming so there is a a lot of good information about uh cincinnati's local floral and fauna do you always include elements of nature in all of your books or was that something you did just for this book because it took place at a nature center um i have i definitely have before um i think i'm someone who's grounded in nature so that often comes through in some ways in the story but it might might be more just like in a scene here and there whereas in this book it really was part of the frame for the whole story and there were a few aspects to it so i guess um for any should i say what it's about yeah sure so if you don't if you haven't already read the book it's about a woman who takes a job as resident caretaker on a nature reserve and um quickly finds out that uh caretaking involves way more than she bargained for. 
When a woman in distress shows up at her doorstep in the middle of the night and clearly expecting a safe place to hide, 
and she discovers her predecessor in this role, the last caretaker, was assisting this underground network that helps women on the run from abusive men. 
But she doesn't know if she wants to step into this role, and she doesn't know if she should feel safe or comfortable doing so because no one seems to be be able to tell her what happened to the last caretaker. 
So with that, part of the frame for the story was, I loved the idea of this woman being viewing this nature preserve as kind of being master of her own domain. 
Not so much this caretaker who really doesn't know if she wants to do this job, 
or if she's up to the task, or, you know, she didn't even know if she was really cut out to be caretaker at all she's just looking to start over after a divorce and sort of stumbles into this but definitely her predecessor had some very um intentional things in mind when she set up this role and um i like for me i you know sometimes i would hike out there and i'd see the caretaker's house through the trees and wonder what it would be like to be out there all by yourself and i think especially as a woman we think of that with some trepidation like to be in this remote area where you know like kind of all the cliches like no one would hear you scream um but I love the idea of having a character who would embrace see that in an empowering way where it wouldn't be you know she's behind this gate and nobody really knows what's going on but it would be I'm behind this gate and nobody knows what's going on and I'm going to use this to my advantage and um so I liked that aspect of it but also the idea that these women in need who are coming through and seeking shelter here that um it's kind of this resting place for them on their journey and the idea that these are women who you know deserve better than what life has handed to them and if you were to go through any kind of traditional system where you're in a women's shelter for a while um it might be cramped lots of shared space um or maybe just you know kind of bare bones just more face more focused on necessities what you need in that moment and being safe more so than being someplace that's where you want to be um and i love the idea that you know once the gates closed for the night these women are free to go sit by the water or hike and be by themselves and just the idea that they can finally have this you know these are women who have decided to leave their abusers and become somebody else and they are waiting for their new identities and they are on their way out of town and so it's a place where they can kind of grapple with these big life decisions but where they can also take a breath in fresh air literally and figuratively so there was kind of a lot um there were a lot of metaphorical for me players to the setting that I hope came through in the story as well. 
I did a book club at Bike Trail Books just last week, and your book was the first one we picked for a nature book club. 
And the women and I were talking about the book, and we were talking about what it would be like to come to the point where you give up your entire life to start a brand new identity and what that would look like and how scary that would be and we were also wondering if that like an underground thing like that actually exists did you do any research on that kind of thing or they definitely exist they would be called whisper networks often um but i think it's i think it's worth knowing that even if you if you seek help from a situation like that even even through traditional channels. 
There is some element of maybe secrecy is not the right word, but discretion, 
definitely. 
Like if you, I've done volunteer work with the YWCA. 
And if you are doing something at their women's shelter, it was a lot like what I fictionalized in the book, 
where no one's going to give you a street address. 
If you're a volunteer going to that building, it's going to be very much drive until you see this thing, 
turn left, drive until you see this thing turn right and they're really putting a lot of trust in you even through traditional channels um putting a lot of trust in you to get involved and to know where these people are and um you know they've had they have panic buttons on the property they've had employees and assaulted in the parking lot and that was an interesting feeling too to be there and think this is where people come to feel safe and i don't know that they necessarily necessarily get to feel very safe here you know so I think even through the traditional channels there's a certain amount of secrecy and then kind of an open secret that there are these like whisper networks where if you're willing to take the next step um there are other ways not through the traditional system to get that done I didn't do a lot of you know asking around making making making people uncomfortable. 
I feel like I've done enough that I could, you know, imagine who, 
you know, a cast of characters who might be involved in such a network and how they might help. 
And also imagine the people who are coming through, because like you said, 
I think you have to really, you have to really be at a breaking point to be willing to literally walk away from your whole life and not look back. 
And I think we all know, whenever I tell people that this is what the book is about, 
nobody ever says, well, why would there need to be an underground network that helps these women? 
Everyone nods, because we know that the system doesn't do the best job of protecting people. 
And we know a restraining order is really just a piece of paper. 
And we don't have very good anti -stalking laws. 
And we don't have very good gun laws that that prevent domestic abusers from getting access to firearms. 
And we all see the tragic result of those failures in the system all the time in the headlines. 
So I think people can immediately buy in as far as the logistics of how it works. 
That was something that I kind of just dreamed up. 
Well, who would they need? 
You know, they might need a doctor. 
They might need a lawyer. 
They might you know so who could be out in the middle of the night and nobody would think that that was unusual well maybe a baker you know so it was kind of fun kind of piecing together who would be in my imaginary network but yes I did not shadow I did not model it on any kind of one one existing network but more just in general you know how the system is and what I imagine what I feel like and also Katie is kind of their starting you know my main character is they're starting over in her own way she had a marriage that has just ended and she owned a business with her husband and so part of the reason she's even taking this caretaking job is because she really really wants to start over in every way. 
She's not assuming a new identity. 
It's not like she couldn't go back if she wanted to, but she's really trying to repair some relationships and move on and start fresh. 
And so I think it's interesting the parallels that she finds between her own experience and then these women who she is sheltering in her loft on the property as well. 
Another question the book club had and we're not sure in your research or your knowledge what you know of this but grace and kate's katie's part in the sequence is hosting um that victim like you said is that part illegal and we know like further down the line things get a little little bit outside the scope of you know legalities and stuff but if kate stopped asking any questions and she didn't see other things that happened like would her part technically be legal i mean they're not harboring um like a fugitive yeah i mean these are adult maybe if it was um a child or something you know these are just women who are they're adults they can they're. 
You're not breaking any laws. 
They can walk out on their lives if they want. 
You could quit your job and walk out on your husband. 
And, you know, I think the legalities can get complicated if there are kids involved and things like that. 
But as far as she knows, nobody on her property is doing anything illegal and she's just giving them a place to sleep. 
So I don't think she's doing anything illegal anymore than a hotel or, 
you know, or like if your friend came to your doorstep and said, 
you know, hide me here or whatever. 
Yeah, exactly. 
Well, and I, I think it's an interesting question raised in the book, 
like, what kind of personal risk would you assume? 
And maybe you don't even know in that moment, what kind of risk you're assuming, 
but what kind of risk would you assume to help somebody who needs help? 
Whether it's a friend or a neighbor or a stranger. 
And I had written a novel in 2018called Not That I Could Tell. 
And that novel also touched on domestic violence, but in a very, you know, 
it's actually like, it's another mystery. 
It's set in Yellow Springs. 
So nature played heavily into that book as well. 
But one of my favorite places and a woman goes missing and her neighbors were the last people to see her and her husband falls under suspicion. 
But it's kind of it's just this like you know missing person story that at the end you can maybe you realize it's given you something to think about as far as um how we all look at domestic violence um but it's definitely not like this heavy and i should say the last caretaker isn't either it's not this heavy book where you're like here read this book about domestic violence just an entertaining i hope suspenseful story that happens to also have some subject matter that might make you think and that maybe applies to real life but um after I wrote Not That I Could. 
Tell because that plot dealt with domestic violence a bit I would go to book club meetings and I would have conversations um with women about some of the themes of the book and a lot of them would share with me their own stories and I was actually meeting with a book club um in a very affluent neighborhood near my home where they told me how they had hidden one of their own members in the house that we were in from her ex -husband while she was going through her divorce so um it was actually that aspect of the story was actually inspired by some stories that some people told me in real life so I think in that moment when somebody needs help and they're on your doorstep I don't think you're doing anything illegal but I also think that's not even the question it's more something Katie grapples with more is what's the right thing to do what is the right thing to do in this situation you know regardless of whether or not on paper I should be doing it so if you were in Katie's shoes what would you do in the middle of the night and somebody came to your door uh I'm a I'm a huge chicken I don't even know if I would have opened the door the way Katie opens the door but um I guess I think everybody has to answer that question for themselves and which makes me kind of not want to answer it but i think uh i definitely shifted some somewhere along the line in writing my stories i used to write books that i think made you wonder what's this character gonna do how's this character gonna get out of this situation and i think that my last few books especially have evolved where it is a story that yes you want to know what the character is going to do but it also makes you wonder what you would would do in that situation and maybe you wouldn't know what you would do unless it you know unless it actually happened to you um but it's worth thinking about and i would hope that i would do the right thing also i won't remember that is everyone might have a different definition of which is what makes it so interesting to think about i think that's what makes it a good book club novel because um everyone might have a different answer to that question and they might all be right yeah that was some of the fun things we're talking about were some of the surprises and you're talking about how the characters would act at the end of the book i'm not going to spoil it it was very cool to see katie find her strength and that's all i'll say about that but it was just the twists and turns or it was it was a great ride and i could not put the book down now you mentioned cast of characters for your book and it's funny you said that because. 
Because that was one of the questions I asked during the book club. 
If you were to cast this as a movie, who would you have as the character? 
Because Grace, in my mind, I always pictured Dorothy from the Golden Girls. 
And I know that was not the description that was given at all. 
But that was just who kept popping in my head. 
Do you have anybody in mind if they came to you and said, 
we want to make this a movie? 
No, people always ask me that. 
And it's strange because I don't really... 
Well, first of all, I'd be delighted to have any of my books made into movies. 
But and they could cast whoever they wanted and I would be equally delighted but um I never really I don't I feel like I don't picture my characters in a very visual way um so I never really know but it's always really interesting to me to see who other people pick but usually for the for the male characters I always say Jake Gyllenhaal just joking because you want to meet them yeah and um but i can't say that for jude because it would have to be kianu yeah and that would be equally as cool too he's kind of aging out a little bit but i know he is well so dorothy also yeah yeah um no for me like as soon as you i don't know i not to sound too like um um. 
Woo woo about any of it. 
But as soon as I say a lot of times people will ask me questions like who how I pictured somebody or what I imagined happening after the last chapter of the book, 
like what I imagined happening. 
And I never want to answer those questions just because I leave those things a little bit open ended on purpose. 
Because I think part of the fun is letting other people imagine and then as soon as I say my image, 
then that's going to replace whatever you've had oh I'm glad you brought that up because book club was very curious about a dotty sequel or a baker prequel and they're like it doesn't even have to be a full book it could be a novella like they're just like wanting so much more I actually love those I actually love those ideas I don't think I'm um I'm not normally like a sequel kind of person I never think of my my novels as anything other than one standalone novel. 
But I will say this is the one thing I've ever written that felt more like it could be the basis for something because I felt like it was a whole book kind of constructing what this world looks like. 
Like this, this is the network that's in place. 
This is how they're operating. 
This is where they're operating. 
This is who's involved. 
And then it really took the whole book to kind of set that up. 
And I mean, mean I would love to see it become a tv series or something just to see because I think you could take that world and have like a different story set there every single week so um I would definitely never say that I wouldn't write something else um if it was I mean if it is successful enough to warrant that and enough people wanted it I would love to do it I think it would be great fun that would be we'll see yes i'm gonna have to follow nothing currently in the works but ah okay uh going off topic from the last caretaker a little bit what is your favorite moment outdoors that you've had oh my gosh ever ever. 
That is almost impossible to answer i actually we just took a national parks trip for spring break in march i have a fourth grader um i'm assuming you know about the fourth grade the program for fourth graders it's called called every kid outdoors i'll be a ambassador for the national park service for a second oh that's cool every kid outdoors and every single fourth grader can get a pass to get their whole family into every national park for free for the whole fourth grade year um i'm not sure why they've picked fourth grade i don't know if they determined that that's the age where most kids are old enough to appreciate it and understand it and definitely it was probably the our youngest is in fourth grade and i think that was the time where this is the first time we've seriously considered taking a trip where we felt like she could do some of the longer hikes and things like that and not have to carry her have her complaining about walking too far things like that so yeah if you have a fourth grader you can get the trip it does not just get you can get this little card and it's not just them it's um your whole family gets in for free so that was the um catalyst for us planning a trip out west for spring break this year so I just got back a little over a month ago from um Grand Canyon and Antelope Canyon and and Hoover Dam. 
And Zion, and I think my whole family would probably say that highlight of that trip was that we went horseback riding in Zion, 
and it was just something about being, I mean, it wasn't super remote, 
it was in a, like, in a part of the park that's fairly near the visitor center. 
But doesn't take much to get away, it's where you really can't see, 
you know anybody or anything else and that's a park that can be kind of crowded with the lines for the shuttle buses and things like that so to be on this horse with all the stone like around you in every area I don't know there's something very cool my son kept saying this doesn't even look real it's like you're in nature and it's so beautiful you can't even comprehend it it was like being inside a painting or something I don't know so that might be my favorite moment maybe just because it's so fresh but okay i've heard a lot of people talk about zion lately i don't know what it is about that area but they they all love it um have you been i've not it's like going out west is on our list and my husband's retired military and with uh retired military you can get a free like a lifetime pass to national parks too um so people that don't have fourth graders but you have military experience that's an option too oh see i don't know something about the horse maybe it's knowing when you're out there you see so much history about all the like the people who explored and kind of just i know they didn't really discover these areas there were people living there already you know there were native populations already living there but um maybe something maybe something about being on the horse like this is how you would have had to originally get in here and it's like i mean the mountains are all around you are so high it would take so much effort to you know kind of like discover this on your own i don't know it's very cool you should go but it is very crowded okay that's good to know um you mentioned it your son said it looks unreal which reminded me of the solar eclipse we just had in april did did you get to see it? 
Yes, we did. 
We drove up to Dayton for Totality. 
Oh, wasn't that just unreal too? 
It was like, I don't, I actually felt like, I feel, do you, 
did you, did you go? 
Yeah, I went up to Varian. 
So it was so cool. 
It was just, yeah, lots of words. 
So yeah, we saw Totality too. 
And it was just right up until that moment that it hit, I was like, 
I have seen this before. 
What is even so special and then as soon as it hit I was like this is why I went that's what I was gonna say like I get it now before I'm not really sure I understood like why people would chase it you know it's like we've all seen so many like partial eclipses and now I feel stupid that I didn't seek out totality the last time that it was so close because I think last time it would have been to drive down to Tennessee or Kentucky and I didn't do it then I mean I I watched the partial eclipse from here but I didn't do it then and now there's like not gonna happen again for a really long time and you would have to travel much farther to see it so I feel foolish that I missed out on another possible chance to see it but yes it was amazing something about it I don't know we're all deeply connected to the universe now yes hopefully hopefully it's. 
It's all positive changes from here on out. 
Yeah, exactly. 
So we are almost out of time. 
Can you let our listeners know how they can find you? 
Yes, I'm very accessible on social media. 
I'm on Facebook and Instagram at Jessica Strauss, our author. 
You can connect with me on there while I am procrastinating writing. 
I would be happy to chat with you. 
And my website is JessicaStrausser .com. 
And the last caretaker is my sixth novel and most of my novels are actually all of my novels are available wherever books are sold and in whatever format you like to consume them in so if you're an audiobook person people often ask me if they're all in audio they are and they're in every other format too are you in the works for book seven yes it's actually coming out in october it's. 
It's called Catch You Later, and it will be out October 22nd. 
And I can't think of anything else that will be on anyone's mind or on that time. 
That's right. 
If you need a distraction. 
If you need a distraction from everything else that's in your news feed on October 22nd, 
please pre -order. 
Actually, if you enjoyed The Last Caretaker or if you're interested and you pick it up after hearing this and you read it, 
it's a huge support to authors if you pre -order their books. 
Add it to your wishlist beforehand, because it signals to the publisher that there's interest in the book. 
Oh, a good thing. 
So if you know you want it anyway, pre -order now. 
I will do that as soon as we have. 
And before we go, what is one tip you have for someone that wants to connect with nature? 
Do you talk about books a lot on this program? 
Yeah, I've had a a couple authors on okay because i was gonna say maybe read a book about it that's perfect that's something no one has said and it doesn't have to be like walden pond or yeah anything like that but yeah um for me books are a great way to escape into part of the world and someone else's experience that i haven't had and i love reading stories that are set in places that are um um. 
Have a lot of natural beauty. 
So, um, so many of them are either, um, the ocean, you know, 
we like, especially with summer beach reads coming up, a lot of people read books that are set by the ocean or in the mountains, 
but consider the last caretaker. 
It's got pretty black eyed Susans on the cover. 
And, um, yes, but I would say read a book. 
Perfect. So thank you so much get out especially on a rainy day right or if it's cold yes exactly so thank you so much and until next time get outside and see what develops thanks for joining wild development studio we hope this exploration into the world of wildlife arts and adventure has sparked a desire to get outside and connect with something wild if you have an adventure that's awe -inspiring sharing. 
Don't hesitate to share. 
Click the link in the description to submit your story to have it featured on our show or be a guest. 
Until next time, keep connecting to the wild and see what develops. 
The views, opinions, and statements expressed by individuals during Wild Development Studio productions do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Wild Development Studio or its affiliates. 
Participation in any activities, expeditions, or adventures discussed or promoted during our content may involve inherent risks. 
It is strongly advised that individuals conduct thorough research, seek professional guidance, and take all necessary precautions before engaging in any such activities. 
Wild Development Studio, its representatives, or employees shall not be held responsible for any injury, 
loss, damage, accident, or unforeseen incident that may occur as a result of participating in activities inspired by or discussed in our content. 
By choosing to engage with our content or act upon any information provided, 
individuals do so at at their own risk and discretion. 
Welcome to Wild Developments, where we bridge the gap between the confines of your office to the freedom of not having your dog scratch his head while you're trying to record. 
Cool, thanks, George. 
Cutie.