Squirrel

"Squirrel: How a Backyard Forager Shapes Our World" highlights the fascinating history and ecological importance of squirrels, revealing how these ubiquitous creatures play a vital role in our environments, both urban and rural. As the conversation continued, Castaldo explored the complicated human-squirrel relationship. While many admire squirrels for their agility and intelligence, others find them frustrating garden and bird feeder raiders. Castaldo emphasizes that this tension stems from squirrels being one of the few wild animals regularly interacting with humans, leading to mixed emotions about these neighborhood residents. Recognizing planners' critical role in shaping wildlife-friendly cities, Castaldo advocates for creating green corridors and connected natural spaces. These efforts are essential not only for squirrels but for entire ecological communities, ensuring both urban and natural environments thrive together. 

Show Notes:

• Further Reading: 
  • Buildings that Breathe: Greening the World’s Cities by Nancy Castaldo
  • Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
  • Green Obsession: Trees Towards Cities, Humans Towards Forests by Stefano Boeri
  • Urban Ecology: Detroit and Beyond by Kyŏng Pak
  • Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of Our Planet by Ben Goldfarb
• Learn more about the Central Park Squirrel Census at https://www.thesquirrelcensus.com/ 
• To help support the show, pick up a copy of the book through our Bookshop page at https://bookshop.org/shop/bookedonplanning or get a copy through your local bookstore!
• To view the show transcripts, click on the episode at https://bookedonplanning.buzzsprout.com/

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Transcript

Squirrel

​[00:00:00] 

Stephanie Rouse: Welcome back, bookworms. I'm Stephanie Rouse. 

Jennifer Hiatt: And I'm Jennifer Hyatt 

Stephanie Rouse: And we're the hosts of the Booked On Planning podcast. In today's episode, we talk with author Nancy Castaldo on her book Squirrel: How a Backyard Forager Shapes Our World. And with it being summer, we wanted to jump into a fun little book.

We came across this. It was an Island Press book all about history of squirrels, how they entered our city, shaped our cities, what we need to be considering and it was a really great conversation. 

Jennifer Hiatt: Yeah. I really enjoyed it. I love my little squirrels in my backyard, and so when this book popped up, I thought that would be like you said, a fun little summer read.

And I think you can read through it pretty quick too. It was a pretty simple read. 

Stephanie Rouse: Yeah, I'd agree, and it shaped my perspective a little bit. There's always the love squirrels, hate squirrels, and then some that fall in between, and I've, always been an in between. I have a bit more appreciation for them.

I still despise the fact that they steal all my apples off my tree and dig in my garden and create chaos, but they are a pretty important part of our [00:02:00] ecosystems and our cities in shaping how we develop, so I'll give them a little bit of a break. 

Jennifer Hiatt: Yeah. That's fair. I will maybe not curse them as much every time I pull a little tree out of my yard either, but I equally, a- after reading this book, won't really call anybody a squirrel brain anymore.

Stephanie Rouse: True. You gotta stay till the end of the episode to figure out what that comment means. 

Jennifer Hiatt: Exactly. So let's get into that conversation with author Nancy Castaldo on her book Squirrel: How a Backyard Forager Shapes Our World. 

Stephanie Rouse: Nancy, thank you for joining us on Booked on Planning to talk about your book, Squirrel: How a Backyard Forager Shapes Our World. Among our listeners, we likely have those that love squirrels, hate them, or fall somewhere in between, like myself. To start, how did we end up with squirrels in our cities? 

Nancy Castaldo: One of the fascinating stories in the book is that squirrels didn't simply adapt to our cities on their own. Obviously, squirrels were all on the land. They were all inhabiting our forests before [00:03:00] cities were built. However, in the 19th century, individuals city planners, and park designers intentionally introduced squirrels into our urban parks.

 The introductions began in Philadelphia, and the squirrels were quite resilient when they got their little squirrel nest boxes and set up home in Franklin Park in Philadelphia in the 1800s. They were viewed as a way to bring nature into rapidly industrializing cities. They were meant to encourage people to connect with wildlife.

 Many of those folks had come from countryside homes and had moved into these industrialized and often challenging cleanliness and whatnot that they brought. So the squirrels were meant to give them a little sense of their homes that they were lacking and also bring that nature back into the cities.

Of course, they became quite established, and after Philadelphia, they were then introduced to Central [00:04:00] Park, and then Boston Common, and then Harvard. And then they just went across the country into many different parks 

Jennifer Hiatt: Unlike Stephanie, I don't fall somewhere in the middle. I adore squirrels, and I love them in my backyard.

 But the fact is that humans really do have a complicated relationship with squirrels. So what caused that situation? 

Nancy Castaldo: I think it's because squirrels are close enough for us to interact with regularly for most of us. If we live in an urban setting or a country setting squirrels really inhabit every place that there's close to 300 species.

 So there's a squirrel around every corner in many places. But although they are regularly seen, they're also wild enough to remain unpredictable. So we also admire a lot of things about them. We admire their athleticism and their intelligence and their persistence. But we can also be frustrated with them as they raid our gardens, our bird feeders, and even sometimes our [00:05:00] attics.

 They also remind us that nature doesn't always behave according to our expectations. So that tension with squirrels has created a complicated relationship with them 

Stephanie Rouse: In your book I can't remember the exact quote, but basically you say they're a wild animal that we're upset with that's acting wild which- 

Nancy Castaldo: Exactly.

 they do their thing. How can we get upset when they come to our bird feeders when we put out a buffet for them? 

Stephanie Rouse: Yeah, exactly. And, Squirrel Around Every Corner, squirrels are a species that we all see in our daily lives. I don't think I go a day without seeing a squirrel. But we don't have a lot of good data or studies on them, and as you mentioned, you can't really begin to manage a species or make decisions on how to protect them when you don't have that kind of data.

So why is it lacking? 

Nancy Castaldo: When I was doing research for Squirrel I actually decided to go down that route and talk about how mysterious they can be, even though they seem so [00:06:00] ubiquitous. So I actually have a chapter in the book titled Mammals of Mystery. And, it's hard to believe that they could be mysterious, that we could not know anything about them, but because they're so common in so many areas, we also don't study them as frequently.

 Many people assume that squirrels are doing fine because they see them so commonly in their neighborhoods and their parks. But there are close to 300 species of squirrels so the species that we see commonly aren't the only squirrels around the world. And most of them around the world are also poorly studied.

 So that has to do directly to a few things. One is research funding. Often research funding is distributed more towards species that are larger or more iconic or charismatic or endangered. Also, many species of squirrels are nocturnal, so nocturnal species are often more challenging to study.

 In addition, many of [00:07:00] them inhabit I'm talking globally now very remote locations. So those also you're talking about in some cases they are nocturnal and they're in a remote location. So there's been significant gaps in our understanding of many squirrel populations and their conservation needs.

Jennifer Hiatt: And as we've touched on, humans and squirrels have been interacting for a very long time. And also for a long time, humans actually ate squirrels. It was just a part of our normal guess maybe like frontier diet, to put it one way. Obviously we have trended away from this,

so why do you think that is when we still continue to eat plenty of other game animals? Why aren't squirrels just considered a game animal still? 

Nancy Castaldo: In many places they still are considered a game species. And historically, as you mentioned, squirrels were a very important food source. They even appeared in The White House Cookbook in 1887, and in The Joy of Cooking cookbook into the [00:08:00] '90s.

 That's pretty recent to have them out there. as societies became more urbanized and food became more readily available through commercial agriculture, many people lost that connection between hunting squirrels for food. At the same time, squirrels became increasingly part of the wildlife we watched in parks and backyards.

 Cultural perceptions shifted. For many people squirrels became removed from being a food source to familiar wildlife that we enjoyed outside. But that said there are many households many states that still eat squirrel regularly. States, southern states specifically, Arkansas for example, holds an annual statewide big squirrel contest, hunt, and it's followed by a statewide world champion cook-off.

 So they still are out there on dinner plates around. And in, in some areas, in [00:09:00] some urban areas not so much, but in other areas, yeah. Got when I was a kid growing up in the Northeast in a small town in upstate New York there were squirrels, mind you I thought it was strange, hanging from a nearby grocery store's porch 

Jennifer Hiatt: kind of calls me on my Midwestern bias- ... 'cause I had a college boyfriend who did in fact hunt squirrels, but we all thought he was a little strange for that. I should, I should- Yeah ... have rephrased that to people in Nebraska. 

Nancy Castaldo: Let's l- let's look at Jennifer Lawrence, a very well-known actress who talked about her squirrel skinning skills in an interview.

 Yeah, it's not my thing, it, it is out and about. 

Stephanie Rouse: I love, too, you point out, I think it was back in 2006, but talking about introducing new species that then overtake the species that were there before. And in London, they started putting squirrel on the menu because the gray squirrels were out-competing their native red squirrels.

And so it was interesting to read the [00:10:00] different feelings that people had about actually seeing squirrels in restaurants versus here in the US where certain regions might just culturally eat squirrels, but it's not something that you're really gonna find on a menu when you go out to eat. 

Nancy Castaldo: I found that extremely interesting.

Of course, in, Great Britain they're working very hard in, in many different ways to control our North American gray squirrel invasion. The squirrels were brought there, and they were so resilient, and they took off, and they really pushed out the native Eurasian red squirrels, the ones that we know and love from Beatrix Potter's stories, the little Squirrel Nutkin the little tufts on the top of their heads, their little ear tufts.

 So they've really been trying in every way, shape, or form. And that terminology that in... it's a difficult word to pronounce. I always get it wrong. Invasor- invasive vorism. That's basically eating these invasive species, and we're doing it in North [00:11:00] America too in many ways. The other interesting thing is that the squirrels have also become a problem in Northern Italy, and they have yet to add them on the menu there.

But it's a different, cultural view. They, at this point haven't reached that same heightened sense of having to do that. But they also really aren't, in many cases, there's folks really enjoying seeing gray squirrels because their red squirrels, which are the same little Eurasian reds, are very shy, and they're not often seen.

So seeing these friendly, big little, squirrels around are welcome for them. So when I traveled to Torino I- Italy, it didn't take me 10 minutes to have a gray squirrel come up to me. They are fed all the time. They're out there. And they have a lot of other ways they're dealing with them at this point than adding them to the menu 

Stephanie Rouse: So you brought up the term invasivorism.

 What is it, and how does it impact the way we view squirrels? [00:12:00] 

Nancy Castaldo: So basically, it's the idea of eating invasive species as one way of helping manage their populations. I included it because it raises fascinating questions about how we respond to ecological challenges. It's not a simple solution, as I mentioned, but it encourages us to think critically about the consequences of a species and about how we introduce them into an environment.

 Our role in shaping ecosystems is extremely important, and it reminds us that conservation often involves difficult and sometimes uncomfortable choices as well. We see that term being used very often in fish species, marine life species at this point in the United States, but it's for many different species.

Jennifer Hiatt: you mentioned about the gray squirrel already. I was very surprised at its kind of outsized impact on, both on other squirrels and the [00:13:00] natural environments in which they are starting to creep into. So can you talk a little bit about that? 

Nancy Castaldo: The gray squirrel, our North American gray squirrel, is a wonderful example of how context matters in ecology.

 In its North American native range which we're talking about, it plays an important role in many different settings, many different ecosystems and forests. It is a very important seed disperser and a forest gardener. The nuts it caches and doesn't eat for one reason or another and I'm not saying they're forgotten, I'm saying they're not eaten.

Sometimes those nuts are in a spot that a squirrel knows about, but perhaps that squirrel doesn't live through the winter to enjoy those nuts. Or they go bad or something. So they're not all, as we commonly tend to think, forgotten about. But those nuts that are left behind for one reason or another become the next generation of trees.

 But when gray squirrels are introduced [00:14:00] outside of that native range then they're native squirrel species, and other species become in decline. So the same animal can be both beneficial and problematic depending on where it lives

Stephanie Rouse: Yeah, I will say that nut caching behavior is what is my love-hate relationship. Finding all of their little trees growing out of my garden beds all throughout the spring and early summer and having to pull out all of their forgotten or not forgotten, but unused nuts. 

Nancy Castaldo: Yes. Unused. Yep, that, that happens.

Yep. But if we didn't have them, think about what would happen if we didn't have them. Squirrels fulfill so many roles in the environment. I always say to kids I talk about different species being a part of a house of cards. When you start pulling out cards in a house of cards, the whole thing falls down, and squirrels are that in many different ecosystems.

They are a keystone species that should not be pulled out of that. Whether they [00:15:00] are providing, being a seed disperser or a forest gardener or becoming important prey for another animal, they are so important to so many ecological food webs that we have. 

Stephanie Rouse: a big part of our audience are planners, and a lot of us are making decisions every day that are gonna impact wildlife like squirrels without probably realizing it.

What would you want them to be aware of or keep in mind as they're implementing plans or projects to help protect squirrels? 

Nancy Castaldo: I love addressing this because I think that there's so much importance on planners these days because more and more cities are growing. More and more people are going to be living in cities in the future.

 We also have to think that wildlife is important as well. Wildlife needs more than just isolated patches of habitat, which is sometimes what happens. Green corridors are so important. Street trees are important. Parks and connected natural spaces allow [00:16:00] animals squirrels and other animals to find food and maintain healthy populations.

 Those planning decisions affect not only the squirrels but the entire ecological community. When we design landscapes and cities with wildlife in mind both people and nature benefit in the long run. So connectivity is a big issue for me. What are we doing to connect?

Jennifer Hiatt: so back to those not forgotten nuts one common misconception about squirrels is that they are a little chaotic, and they seem very disorganized, and they can't make up their mind when they cross the road. But you actually make the argument in the book that this is not the case. So w- why is this misconception wrong and why do we have it?

Nancy Castaldo: like we talked about earlier, squirrels are being squirrels, right? And all of those what looks like chaos to us is actually a sophisticated survival strategy on their part. Research has shown that squirrels actually have a remarkable spatial memory and [00:17:00] employ complex food caching behaviors.

 So actually like being squirrel-brained, when you hear people talk and say, "Oh my God, you're so s- squirrel brain," it's not a bad thing, as we think it is. Squirrels are constantly making decisions about where to store food, how to avoid theft and also along with that how to retrieve those resources months later.

 So they're far more intelligent and strategic than most people realize. In the book, I in Squirrel I write a little bit about how sometimes they fend off a predator or a competitor by faking them out by thinking that they're, they look like they're digging a hole and they're gonna put a seed in it.

 And actuality, they're hiding that nut underneath their armpit, and then they go away later. And we all think, if it's us or another animal, that they've put that nut in that spot, but they're actually just faking us all out. So they, they do have a larger brain size [00:18:00] in relation to their body's size that's what we look at for intelligence in species.

And they've got a lot of stuff going on up there in their little squirrel brains. 

Jennifer Hiatt: Yeah. I have to admit after reading the book, I have paid attention to my backyard squirrels a little differently now. And we also have blue jays, which are just notoriously rotten, mean little birds. And I now realize my squirrels are faking my jays out all the time.

Like, It's so funny to watch them now. I'm like, "Oh, you're being 

Nancy Castaldo: little 

Jennifer Hiatt: sneaks." 

Nancy Castaldo: Yes. And both of those animals are extremely important to our forests. Blue jays also spread seeds. yeah, so they are competing sometimes for the same things. And yeah there's quite, again, we're talking about probably the same gray squirrels.

 there's so many different relationships in the environment To look at. 

Stephanie Rouse: And you wrap up your book with a question that I think's an important one, and after reading it, I think the answer's no, we do not have the [00:19:00] luxury of allowing the ebb and flow of attention to squirrels in this increased time of habitat fragmentation, global climate change.

What would you say to our audience about what we need to be doing or why this is important?

Nancy Castaldo: It's a really tough thing to, to consider, but I agree. And I wrote I don't think we can afford to overlook a familiar species. And often one of the quotes that I have in the book is by Rosalie Edge, we can't overlook this, the common.

We have to spend our time looking at the common while they're still common, studying them. There's already endangered species squirrel species in the United States, which is hard to believe when we see squirrels out our window every day. But we already do have threatened species and endangered species that are happening out there.

And those populations we could lose if we don't pay attention. Climate change and habitat fragmentation are affecting ecosystems at an unprecedented scale. Squirrels can help us [00:20:00] understand those changes because they're so widespread and closely tied to their environments. Paying attention to them helping to fund the research that we need for them is vital at this point.

 And also just to realize that when we're taking care of our own small environments around us, what we have control over, taking them into consideration. So in the bigger picture, planners are so important. Forest managers are important. Scientists are important. But we also can play a role in our own backyards.

Jennifer Hiatt: Yeah. One of my favorite stories that you shared, and a great way to find research and whatever, is the people who were doing data collection in New York City in their Central Parks. can you share with our audience that story, and then maybe we can inspire some people to do some of that data collection of their own?

Nancy Castaldo: years ago there was a squirrel census conducted in Central Park. Now, as we mentioned, the squirrels were [00:21:00] introduced to Central Park, and at the time that they were introduced, some of them inhabited beautiful squirrel palatial houses that people set up in the Ramble in Central Park.

 And so they've been very prolific there and really have a well-established population. But over the years, nobody studied them. They only basically were concerned if there were harsh winters and they felt they needed food, or there was other things, factors impacting the park. but there was the squirrel census that was conducted, and the results were interesting, and you could go online and look it up.

It's fascinating. And just to find out, how many are in a park, how many species are there, how many individuals are there are things we don't know. What is the state of our squirrel populations? And in some cases, obviously those are taking place in areas.

I, I also wrote about a college in New England the New England University, which has Project Squirrel, and they're [00:22:00] doing a lot of research and collecting a lot of data and they're hoping that one day that research, that data is used by scientists. At this point, it's available. It's out there.

They've generated all this data, and they're just basically doing data collection, and it's like the same thing with Central Park. It's data collection, but we have to be able to fund those scientists to be able to use that data to actually come up with planning in the future 

Jennifer Hiatt: correct me if I'm wrong, , I think I remember you mentioned you have an app or a website where people can go?

Nancy Castaldo: I don't have an app or website, but there is a squirrel tracker app that squirrel census created. And it's could be just on your phone. It's really simple to use. You basically just, tap it when you see a squirrel. And if you see a deceased squirrel on the road, squirrels are the most common animals that are a roadkill in our country all over the place.

If you see a deceased squirrel, you can just [00:23:00] scroll over and hit deceased squirrel, and a little thing comes up and says, "RIP squirrel." But the great thing about it is it does generate this big map of all these squirrel sightings, but it doesn't go further than that. It doesn't tell you what the species of the squirrel is.

 And a lot of people don't even know that some creatures are squirrel species. For example, I live on the East Coast. We have chipmunks that are common. on my property I'll see red squirrels, chipmunks gray squirrels, and woodchucks or groundhogs. so prairie dogs, groundhogs whatever you wanna call them whistle pigs whatever those, whatever you wanna call them.

marmot family are also squirrels. They're also part of the squirrel family. So the squirrel family consists of tree squirrels, flying squirrels, and ground squirrels. So sometimes folks don't even know that they have as many species of squirrels residing around them as they do. 

Jennifer Hiatt: Yeah, I certainly would not have known that my little prairie [00:24:00] dogs were a squirrel species.

Nancy Castaldo: Yes, they are. And there's a lot of conservation and going on about prairie dogs and what prairie dogs bring the benefits that they bring with their burrows by aerating the soil and providing homes for many other animals. There's so many things that they do. But they also can be problematic, so there's also a movement to relocate them sometimes into other areas where they can be really beneficial but not create the the downsides the holes or on farmland and certain things.

But they're important for our prairies and our deserts. 

Jennifer Hiatt: Yeah. Here in Nebraska, especially western Nebraska, we have two really ensconced camps, 'cause the ranchers understandably do get frustrated with prairie dogs- Yep ... 'cause their cattle will step in the holes, break their legs. Their horses will do the same.

 But I also love prairie dogs, so 

Nancy Castaldo: You know, every creature has a purpose, and it's just a matter of how we can coexist and finding those ways to coexist. And part of that can be the job of [00:25:00] planners. That's the great thing, that planners can help us along the way. 

Jennifer Hiatt: Yeah, exactly. 

Stephanie Rouse: Lubbock, Texas, they have capitalized on prairie dogs and it has made it a tourist attraction. So when I lived down there- ... there wasn't a whole lot to take people to, but I always took them to the prairie dog town. 

Nancy Castaldo: There you go. Yeah. I love that, the prairie dog town.

I love that. that's fun. 

Jennifer Hiatt: So what made you choose to focus on squirrels for this book, and where do you fall in the squirrel camp? 

Nancy Castaldo: I was drawn to squirrels first of all, this the squirrel story of them being introduced to our parks was the story that sparked my interest. And I was working on another book at that time, that, that little factoid came up and I thought, "Huh, that's weird."

 And then I happened to, of course, have squirrels around my house. I was, drawn to them like, like everyone else. They're, familiar. They are usually the first animal, the first wild mammal that we are introduced to as children. [00:26:00] So I have my little squirrel stories from, feeding the chipmunks when I was a little girl.

 And yet I, I realized over the years and after working with so many other iconic species that we were forgetting the familiar. And as I dug deeper, I found connections to history and ecology and conservation and urban planning, climate change and human culture, and it, they just deserve their own book.

 So as for the camp that I'm in I say I'm gonna be a little cagey here, a little squirrely maybe. I would say I'm firmly in the camp of curiosity and appreciation. The more I learned about squirrels, the more fascinated I became with all squirrel species. And with that, I'll tell you that every friend and writer friend and relative of mine have now given me, I have my own squirrel collection of things From tea towels to statues to Christmas ornaments and everything else.

 So while I don't need to go that [00:27:00] route I definitely look at my squirrels, and those around that I visit. I never realized how many photographs. I'm also a photographer. I never realized how many photographs of squirrels I actually have from around the world until I started working on this book.

And I thought, yeah, they are that familiar little animal that you see around that you do tend to gravitate to. 

Stephanie Rouse: What's funny about that is I was a golfer growing up all through middle school, high school, and you spend a lot of time as a parent following your kid around a golf course. My mom's the photographer for the family, and I think each season she probably ends up with a couple dozen photos of squirrels from various different golf courses to entertain herself with.

Nancy Castaldo: It's true. I'm a person who loves to be out in the woods and I love to be out in nature. There's usually a squirrel that comes, to visit. And yeah, there's been plenty,

 so. 

Stephanie Rouse: in addition to your great book, what other books would you recommend our listeners check out?

Nancy Castaldo: I do have a few here. I'm gonna start actually [00:28:00] with the one that spurred me to write this book, and gonna hold it up. It's called Buildings That Breathe, and it's a book about greening the world cities. And the beautiful tree scrapers that are on the cover here is basically what's got me really into into writing this book.

 these towers are designed by an architect in Italy, this is in Milan named Stefano to write this book, I went to the UN's forum on urban greening in Italy. and so I was really interested in Stefano's... I wrote basically how these towers came about, and then also about a lot of other greening.

So I would recommend that, but also books that inspired me when I was writing that book. One is a fiction book, and it's by Italo named Invisible Cities. Italo Calvino was an author that inspired Boeri to create those towers. Italo Calvino's a famous [00:29:00] Italian author that wrote a book called Baron in the Trees that Stefano Boeri read as a child, and it really inspired him to create these tree scrapers in Milan, He won all kinds of architectural awards. They're now all over Europe and in Asia. So reading those books from him from his recommendation inspired me to go a little deeper. He also wrote a book called Green Obsession with the subtitle Trees Towards Cities, Humans Towards Forests.

So he was very involved in greening the cities of Europe and in Asia. He also wrote a book called Urban Ecology: Detroit and Beyond. So I thought those were interesting. And then in my own world of reading outside of him, Crossings by Ben Goldfarb is a great way to talk about planning how road ecology is shaping the future of our planet.

 And and then also books by Robin [00:30:00] Wall Kimmerer, Douglas Tallamy, and Aldo Leopold are among my favorites.

Stephanie Rouse: I love it. I love all the, connections there between the book that you wrote and who inspired it, and then their inspiration tying them all together. 

Nancy Castaldo: Yeah. It's that's the one wonderful thing about research is that, one thing takes you down a rabbit hole and you go down that one and yeah.

So basically, when I was working on Buildings That Breathe, and I found out this little information about this park, I was writing about city parks at that point, and found out about squirrels being introduced to Philadelphia, it just really took me down that little strange little hole.

The squirrel hole. 

Stephanie Rouse: Nancy, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today to talk about your book, Squirrel: How a Backyard Forager Shapes Our World. 

Nancy Castaldo: Thank you so much for having me.

Jennifer Hiatt: We hope you enjoyed this conversation with author Nancy Castaldo on her book Squirrel: How a [00:31:00] Backyard Forager Shapes Our World.

 You can get your own copy through the publisher at Island Press, which is now an imprint of Princeton University Press, by supporting your local bookstore or, of course, supporting our show through our page at bookshop.org/shop/bookedonplanning. Remember to subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts, and please rate, review, and share the show.

 Thank you for listening, and we'll talk to you next time on Booked On Planning