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| A bloody muddy crummie |
Our first shift from the Line Creek camp is a difficult one. Day 1 – we run out of land. Day 2 – we run out of trees. Day 3 – we are sent to a fill plant.
On Day 1, the day starts with freezing lane for a large chunk of the morning and my fingers and toes go completely numb. Out of slight boredom, I begin cheering them on one-by-one as they come back, until I start to feel the searing pain of blood returning to the last two fingers.
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| While the environment is generally lovely, let's not forget that planting days regularly look like this, completely surrounded by freezing cold mist, rain, snow, or all three. |
I love this job. Both related and unrelated to the last paragraph. You basically get paid to spend every day hiking around the mountains, staying fit, and testing your body against the elements. And you’re never stuck somewhere clueless because there’s always the bottom line of “just keep planting”. Whatever happens, things will turn out fine if you just keep planting. In fact, this is so bottom-line that I’m pretty sure it’s a repeating line in the Treeplanting Song: “So shut your mouth and put a tree in the ground.”
That being said, we run out of land on Day 1 and have to return to camp early.
That night, I think I hear something moving or scampering against my tent, but I convince myself it’s just spruce needles sliding down and off my tarp.
While we run out of land on Day 1, we run out of trees on Day 2. However, it is still a relatively splendid day. It’s overcast – the perfect planting weather. At some point, Damian, the greener on our crew, comes proudly sauntering out of the block with one massive antler in either hand.
“Noooo!” Sophia exclaims, “How come I never find cool shit on the block?!”
This is the day we discover Cloe’s astonishingly accurate portrayal of bird calls. She can open her mouth in just the right way as to sound like a crow, or narrow her mouth slightly and it becomes a turtledove. It is so perfect that it even rivals Uncle Jim’s impersonation of Donald Duck. She just opens her mouth and the bird sounds that come out sound arguably more natural than her actual voice.
While switching blocks, we reach another mud pit. While we may have seen our fair share of jolting up and down in our seats, bouncing and sliding our way through several mud pits already, this one is far deeper and muddier than any of the others. Molly fiddles with the four-wheel-drive before revving up and bolting headlong into the mud pit.
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| A typical logging road (although an incredibly flat block). When there's an exceptional amount of rain, these guys get muddy uber fast. |
Some say that Molly’s truck is exceptionally difficult to get stuck because it’s a dually – it has a double set of wheels in the rear. Nevertheless, this particular mud pit proves otherwise. Mud flying everywhere, Molly madly fiddling with the controls, and the rest of us grinning and hollering in amusement, we are thoroughly stuck. While most planting trucks get coated with mud on the outside, we also manage to spray a fair amount of mud on the inside as well. It is a truly impressive feat. While Molly is visibly disgruntled by the debacle, the rest of us are in high spirits. We all climb out on the driver’s side because the wheels of the passenger side are about three quarters under the mud.
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| It certainly didn't help that the truck was loaded with around 2500 lbs of trees in the back. |
While the rest of us bag up and walk the rest of the way to the block, Molly stays with the truck waiting for Rainer to drive over and tow us out. When Molly joins us, she informs us that Rainer looked annoyed at having to tow out the truck and, when Molly asked about going to get more trees, he’d said that we didn’t need anymore. Since we’d already pissed him of about the truck, Molly had decided it wouldn’t be a good idea to question him about the trees. We run out of trees at around 4:15 and head back to camp early again.
That night, I definitely hear something brushing against my tent, but it almost sounds like it’s coming from underneath my tent?
On Day 3, we get sent to a fill plant. All fill plants are shitty, since you have to space around all the naturals and the trees are generally twice the size = twice the weight. However, as far as fill plants go, it really wasn’t too bad. And for 23 cents, it definitely wasn’t too bad.
After planting on Day 3, I go right into my tent and read, waiting for whatever critter is making the noise. Suddenly, my tent just slightly rises up in one corner as something small makes its way underneath. I slap the ground beside it and watch as the tiny, mysterious figure under the tent squeaks and scurries away in the other direction. Probably a field mouse. And that is why I have some lovely field mice as bedfellows.
On the day off, Sam is leading a session of yoga. Sam is a smiling, joy-giving, hugging, yoga instructor who also comes tree planting on the off-season. It’s pretty difficult not to love Sam. While heading out to town with Uncle Jim, we pass Sam’s group in the middle of their yoga session. They are all sitting in a near-squat position with their hands out in front of them.
“I don’t need to do that,” Uncle Jim mutters under his breath, “I do that every morning when I take a shit.”
When we finish all we need to do in town and are driving back into camp, we pass the now-empty area where Sam had been leading the yoga class. “I wonder how many of those yoga people are covered in tics now,” Uncle Jim scowls good-naturedly. I smile, silently adoring Uncle Jim for his old man-ish grumpiness.
One of my favourite stories about Uncle Jim was told to me by Molly. In the shower tent, the younger generation of planters tends to be slightly more modest, wrapping a towel around them before walking in, out, and around the shower tent. The older generation, such as Uncle Jim, bears all for all to see. Now, my uncle's sense of humour tends to be fairly clean and innocent, indicative of his sweet and innocent nature. One day, he comes out of the showers and stands next to the wood stove to warm up, red and steaming from the shower. Buck naked, he smiles and toots, "Hmm, I'm clean as a whistle - somebody should blow me!" When the remark was followed by a few moments of silence followed by everyone bursting out laughing, my uncle turned beet red, grabbed his clothes, and scuttled quickly out of the tent.
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| Inside of the shower tent, aka the scene of my favourite Uncle Jim story. |
--> Quote of the shift: “I think everyone fantasizes about injuring themselves during their first, second, and third years of planting. Just to make it stop.” - Molly
PS - don't forget about the Palestine delegation in which I am participating this August! Around $200 has been raised so far - lots more to go! To donate, go to http://cpt.org/donate and follow the steps to donate. Toward the end of the process, there will be a box that says "donation inspired by". Be sure to enter my name in this section to ensure that the donation goes to this delegation.
Peace and love, friends!
