-Cecily!
-Sethily!
-It is so lovely to have you back.
-Great to be back.
-You, like a lot of us, have had major changes this year.
You were -- you sort of decamped.
You moved up to Upstate New York.
-Yes, Hudson valley.
-How is rural life suiting you?
-I think I'm becoming a real mountain woman.
I'm getting there.
I did just fall and hurt myself, though.
My dog is actually more of a mountain woman than I am
and she's taken it on herself to hunt the woodchucks.
-Okay. -Yeah.
And I -- -Not a big dog, your dog.
-Not a big dog. -Okay.
-And not a big woodchuck.
-Okay, so it's fair.
-Yeah, it's a fair -- So, she just fought a woodchuck.
-And how did you get hurt?
-So, I had just gotten out of the shower.
This has nothing to do with it
except for that I threw on, like, a housedress.
I was just gonna take her out to pee quickly.
Wasn't wearing underwear.
And then I saw that Lucy --
I saw a woodchuck kind of leap,
and I knew my dog was in a fight with a woodchuck.
So I ran. I fell down the hill.
Gave them all a real view.
-Yeah. -All the woodchucks.
And then I had to...
Like, I can't see my dog kill a woodchuck,
and I can't see a woodchuck kill my dog.
And it was very dramatic.
I was like, "Lucy, no! Please! Kevin!"
And then I finally yanked her up,
and Kevin, who I live with now,
came outside and was like, "Are you okay?"
And I was holding Lucy and I truly went...
[dramatically] "No, I'm not."
[ Laughter ]
-I'm so glad you added that detail
about Kevin being someone you live with
'cause I thought you had named the woodchuck.
-Oh, no. -That, like...
-I wouldn't choose --
Well, Kevin is a good woodchuck name, actually.
-I also feel like this is...
People who live in rural areas,
when they fear people from cities moving there --
everything you did is what they fear.
-Yeah, but they're probably like,
whatever she's doing wrong is all the woodchucks are there,
and then they're not there.
And then, like, the woodchuck ran away and I truly --
then it was all like you could hear them like --
[ Chittering ]
Like, "What happened to you?! Are you okay?!"
[ Laughter ]
-That's great, that they want to, you know --
I mean, if something interesting happens to a woodchuck,
you want to tell the other woodchucks.
-Right, I'm glad they took care of their friend.
-I didn't know...
Again, I've never heard an impression of a woodchuck.
That was excellent. But I also heard --
I didn't know deers --
I've seen a lot of deers this past year --
-Is it deers?
-Deer. You're right.
-Okay. -Yeah.
[ Laughter ]
Boy.
Now it's happening in real time.
-So you're a real mountain guy, too, yeah.
-I think if you -- if they are beloved to you --
-They are your deers. -Your dears, yes.
-Yes. -Yes, it's like...
Okay, sure, they're also deer...
-Okay, yeah, yeah. -But my dears.
-Yes. Alright.
-But have you -- you've had a deer scream at you?
-Yes, last summer.
And I didn't know it was a deer.
I didn't know deer scream.
-I didn't know that either.
-And I was outside again with my dog, in a dress.
I was wearing underwear this time, and...
And I just heard this like --
"Cawww!" or something. -[ Laughing ]
-I can't -- it's such a weird sound.
I had to go try to, like, google it.
And I kept looking around like, "What is that?"
And then finally, like -- "Haaah!"
And I looked again and there was this, like, deer staring at me.
And I was, like, for the first time in my life,
afraid of a deer. -Yeah.
-Of deers. Of my dears. -[ Laughing ]
-They were not my dears in that moment.
-They were no longer your dears then, yeah.
-And we went inside.
But I feel like this has also been...
I have googled so many animal sounds
for like my last --
the last year and a half of my google searches is like,
"What sound"
or, "What animal makes a sound like a cat but angry
in the middle of the night, Hudson Valley, New York?"
[ Laughter ]
I have, like, a bird -- I have two bird sound apps.
-Really? -Yeah.
Being like, "What goes like da-da-da-da-da-da-da?"
and then trying to... but that's hard to google.
-Yeah, 'cause what do you --
Do you make it into the app or do you wait for the bird?
-I've tried to, like, phonetically try to write out
the sounds that I'm hearing.
-Okay. -But people do.
-How often have you...
Have you ever had a hit from the app
telling you what kind of bird it was?
-I've, at least, assumed that it was right,
that I was identify-- -Don't take this the wrong way.
Like, based on the noises you're making,
I feel like the best it could do was either like a binary
"Yes, that's a bird" or "No, it's not a bird."
-Well, I think I know...
It's that whatever goes like, "Da-da-da-da-da-da!"
Whatever that is, is like a starling or a robin, I think.
-Okay, that's great. -Yeah.
-We -- I did --
Well, like, we had a game that anytime a bird made a noise,
I would tell my boys that was the bird saying hello.
And so then they would yell back.
So it would be like that noise and then be like, "Hi, bird!"
And then the bird -- you know, because the bird wasn't
having a conversation -- would just say it again.
And then the kids would... So then I had to tell them,
"You have to -- you can stop saying hello to all the birds,"
'cause it backfired pretty quickly.
-Just too much?
-Yeah, my kids, they were saying hi to all the birds,
and I just -- I forgot that the birds would keep talking.
"You don't have to keep doing this."
-Yeah, they'll respond. -They will respond.
I want to talk about your wonderful book,
and we're gonna do that.
We'll be right back with more from Cecily Strong.