Too little time at these internet cafes

This is going to be a short little update, simply because I have like ten minutes left on this emaciated time limit at the London Drugs internet cafe.

To sum up in a brief burst of blog:

- helicopter ride to work = AWESOME. Seriously, I love this job.
- $200+ days = yummy
- replanting for 2 hours = retchid. Utterly terrible.
- Random humongous clouds and bursts of rain = interesting... and frustrating.

I will compensate for this measly diet of a blog with a hefty load next week.. with PICTURES!

So stay tuned!

peace and love,
J-plantologist

$800 week and I feel fine

Well another shift has gone by - this one a little better than the last. I've busted my ass all week, trying to earn back the lost wages from my little sick leave, and I think I pretty much covered the costs. I've learned that the more you think while planting, the slower you go. So, these past five days I've transformed into a robotic planting machine, completely devoid of distractive thinking abilities. It really helps. You just go go go, all day long - and then before you know it, the day is over - and your in the cook tent having a feast of fried chicken.

I've been pretty lucky piece wise for the past few days - all of it has been only moderately slashy with some nice creamy land. In fact, this one piece was all just mud - with absolutely no slash like fallen trees to get in my way - boy o boy it was some sexy land. Busted out 1760 that day. In the morning I was planting 240 trees an hour, which was ridiculously fast - but then Dustin later informed me that about all of my trees were shitty. Luckily enough, I didn't have to fix them - however I did have to go back to a previous piece, were I apparently left a hole worth 60 trees... that would be due to my rigorous new mantra of not thinking. Yeha, I've reworked that.

Weather wise it has been off and on. We had about a good 5 hours of sweet sunny goodness, and then out of nowhere, like an ant flailing in the wind of a giant fart, we recieved tonnes of wind and frigid rain-like missiles. Not fun when your in a t-shirt, and your coat is back in the truck - about 2 km away. But the real kicker of hindering forces brought upon us to test our sanity has been the bugs. Swarms upon viscous swarms of tiny mosquitos. They're not like your typical easy to swat big juicy suckers, but tiny little fly up your nose blackflysquitoes. Oh the sweet joys of inhaling a handful whence I open my mouth to breathe, due to nasal congestion. This is where the not thinking attitude helps - just gotta ignore the little buggers.

I gotta say, as hard as the work is - I'm starting to love this job. It's awesome making over $200 a day, and coming back to a humongous warm meal, then play a little cards, listen to a little tuneage, and hit the tent. I'm already starting to change as a person. For instance, I now shower between intervals of 3-4 days, I feel attractive with patches of dirt on my face, and I take pleasure in eating an entire apple whole. I also consider sitting a leisure activity.

Last night we had a huge party in the cook tent - played some improvised drinking games, like the intoxicating 80's trivial pursuit drink off - it was some fun times. Not this morning though.. guh, headache city. But anyway, it's the day off - and I'm going to go hit up the pool, maybe a little hottub and sauna action in there as well. I'm also gonna try and see the Da Vinci Code today - although the theatre seems to be mysteriously closed... Ah well, that's all I have to say for now. I need to figure out my uni stuff now, so I shall blog back later with new tales of tumultuous torture in the near future.

I bid you adieu,
Jamesotronik

The Definition Of Treacherous

What.. a.. week..

So it starts off like this: we get to our camp, a little clearing amidst 20 something year old pine trees on an old logging road. We all start scouting spots for our tents - I managed to find a nice flat spot with lots of shade - and then we all set everything up. After a good two hours of tinkering, I finally manage to erect the perfect tent. The sleeping bag then seduces me to its cozy chamber, and I drift off to sleep - ready for another fun-filled morning of planting.

I get up at the crack of dawn - 5:30 am to be precise - and I lug myself into the cook tent to make lunch. There's an entire table set up full of goodies: fresh sliced meat, tons of different types of bread, fresh fruit, cookies, rice crispie squares, trail mix, snack mix, pickles, and whole lotta other tasty treats. Once we've finished constructing our satisfying lunches to be, we grab our plates and head to the far tables for a hugenormous breakfast. I believe on the first day I had two waffles, both lathered in whipped cream and strawberry sauce, as well as two freshly baked chocolate chip muffins, some bacon and scrambled eggs, as well as some piping hot oatmeal and a slice of orange. Not too shabby at all!

Anyhoo, onto the less saliva inducing stuff - I had a horrible first day planting from camp. We were on another hilly piece, and it was quite warm outside. At this time I had a decent cold, but I thought I'd tough it out. Bad bad idea. I started getting that tingly feeling midway through the day, and my head and nose were throbbing with discomfort. Finally, having only planted a meager 400 trees, I told Dustin: "I... I'm gonna have to stop.. I feel really.. shitty". I just amble down the side of the hill towards my water jug, and collapse right next to it. I had the worst fever ever, and I couldn't handle it any longer. So I hauled myself over to the truck with all my stuff, all the while uncomfortably numb, and then I just fell right asleep. My fellow planters ended up getting stuck in the ditch on the ride home, and revved the truck out of there, all the while while I was asleep.

I decided to take the next day off, which was a quite a good idea we all thought. Luckily I had the company of Dan, who also took the day off because of a sore wrist. I spent the majority of it asleep, and then the rest of the day I read the Da Vinci Code - an awesome book for sure. The next morning I was still feeling a tad bit too crummy to work, so I took another day off - just lounged in the tent, played some crazy eights and 80's trivial pursuit with Dan, and had a bunch of freshly baked peanut butter cookie's that Katie the cook awesomely delivered to us. It was a nice break. For supper that night we had these humongous burritos, which satisfied my tex mex cravings right on the dime. Mmm mm mm.

Ok, now onto the crazier stuff. Yesterday I thought I'd do my best to work another day before our shift ended, so I got up early, had breakfast and then got into the truck. Graham, Levi, Kirsten, Cody, Kristina and I all squeezed into the ford, and I dj'ed up some classic rock with the pod along the way. Dustin gave me this giant piece, and I felt a little bit overwhelmed by it all. Anyway, the day was sweltering hot - and I'm not talking about like regular May hot, but 35 degree celsius hot, on a huge open block, with absolutley no shade. It was bloody torture. I ended up planting only 670, having to cough with a dry sore throat every second, slurping back warm chlorinated camp water in painful gulps. It was one of the toughest days in my life. Then out of nowwhere, these huge thunder clouds roll in, and we get a little bit of heavenly rain... and THUNDER! DUN DUN DUN! What happens, you ask, when it's 35 degrees, and lightning strikes a forest far away? Insta-FIRE! I didn't even realize it, until I looked up at the horizon to see a huge plume of smoke billowing into the sky really far away. It was huge - it looked like the mushroom clouds from an atom bomb. Anyway, Dustin honks the horn signalling us to come to the truck and pack our stuff up, and he reports to us that there's actually three other huge fires - one of which is about four kilometres from our camp - our camp being downwind from it. So I'm freakishly tired and exhausted, and we all just want to get a motel room and sleep for our day off, and then Dustin tells us we have to evacuate our stuff from camp. This proved to be incredibly inconvenient and agitating - especially because I had zero energy, was still very sick, and I had to clean up and dismantle my perfect tent. I also had to do all of this within half an hour, because we all had to leave for town at seven. Finally when we're all done lugging our hefty loads into the back of the truck, one of the Foreman tells us- oh they actually had the fire under control, you guys didn't have to pack up your stuff - WHAT THE F**&!!! - ahem, excuse my french.

Anyway, we all split the bill on a sleazy motel room, and I just got back from the hospital - after I got them to check out that wound on the back of my knee that I got when I wore shorts. It's infected, but I got some antibiotics so it should clear up they say. Anyway, my time is almost up here at the London Drugs internet cafe - I'm gonna go grab a bite to eat and pick up some supplies. I hope this week will be better than the last!

Peace and God Bless,
El Jameso

The Good, The Bad, and the Muddy.

Just when you think you've had it tough, everything gets a whole lot tougher.

This has been interesting week to say the least. To begin this little update, I will tell you about our little snowstorm. Yes, that's right - snowstorm. So I'm out there working my tail to the bone in thick mud, my gloves soaking wet and covered in a thick icing of chunky dirt, and my hips and knees aching with each stride, when all of sudden - to top off a peachy day, we begin to get hailed on. Luckily I had my fleece jacket on which sheltered me somewhat. We went from a bright, sunny, and sweaty morning to a dreary, cold, and hellish afternoon. After the hail subsided, mother nature decided to unleash her treacherous dandruff upon our freezing and tired souls. It was the first time I've experienced snow in May, and I did not like it one bit. After cursing at the top of my lungs in frustration each time my numb hands had to pry a tree in a hole, finally my foreman came up to me and said - "how's it going?". I replied in a bitter tone, "SUPER!". I spent the rest of the afternoon in the truck with three other guys from my crew, using the dogs as hand warmers. I still planted 750 that day.

Then there was the day where I decided to plant a thousand trees. I thought I'd put myself to the test, both physically and mentally - and so I planned it out that I would plant at least a hundred trees per hour. I had a nice and flat grassy piece, so it was pretty sweet. I planted over 120 trees every hour, ran back - bagged up, had a quick snack, then booked it back onto my piece. My body was put in overdrive. Finally, after a long, hard, and somewhat restless day, I planted 1180 trees - approximately $150. It felt great.. except not the next day. I literally had zero energy left, I just stumbled about in slothlike style, just barely using enough force to get that shovel in the ground. This has taught me a valuable lesson: there will always be good days and bad days.

So we go to set up camp today, which should prove to be fun and exciting. Our crew doesn't even have to help out, because we decided to plant the rest of the private woodlot contract yesterday. Instead of the usual ontario-esque flat and slashy planting, we ended up working near the mountains on this huge hilly piece. You have no idea how tiring it is lugging 250 trees up a 70 degree hill. It was awesome though. We planted in groups, and Dan and I kept singing our own made up songs to keep ourselves amused and sane. For instance, here's a little diddy that I came up with:

Hey hey we're the planters,
and people say we're planting around,
but we're to busy screefin',
to put any trees in the ground!

Sung in the style of the popular Monkees tune. Hehehe ahhh good times. Speaking of good times, I got my groove on at a club last night. Busted many a move, drank many a beer, and laughed many.. uhh.. lot? Before that escapade, Dustin, Graham, Levi, Katie and I chilled at the Prince George aquatic centre in the hot tub. You have no idea how extremely good that felt. I was utterly and completely relaxed. Ahhh 'twas nice. I then blew twenty bucks at a bar and grill entitiled "Earl's" with the crew, which was also very nice.

Anyhoo, I have to check out of this motel like.. now, so I will blog some more later on when I have the chance.

Keep it real,
J-Planter

Put that tree in the ground

My feet are sore, my knuckles tenderized by repetitive glove abrasion, my hips bruised from the weight of hundreds of harmless trees, and my mind a smidgeon to the right on the sanity metre. Treeplanting is hard, rough, and unforgivingly grueling work. We get up at 5:30, down a bowlful of fibrous muesli serial in a pool of lukewarm milk, grab all our gear and water and hop in a decrepit truck with a couple of dirty dogs - all the while half asleep. Then, after a long and bumpy drive up some dirt which barely passes as a "road", we arrive at the block - a wide open stretch of slashed up dirt, trees, stumps, and swamp. Our foreman directs us each to our piece and unloads a few boxes of pine, spruce, and fir from the quad, then gives us the directions for our insane section of land. I pull on my spiked logger boots, unwrap six or seven bundles of trees and throw them in my planting bags - immediately smooshing my already bruised hips. I grab my shovel, and start pounding the ground with trees - all in a meticulous fashion which meets contract standards. Initially I thought that planting a tree would be, well, as easy as digging a hole and shoving a tree in it - but no... you have to insert the tree at a certain depth, make sure the roots are straight, make sure you the soil is saturated with minerals, and then cover up the plug with the dirt. This can take a long time and can be quite frustrating. But after four days of planting, you begin to clue on the little details and plant properly. Well, some of them at least.

I currently reside in a quaint hotel known as the "Bon Voyage Hotel" with five other dudes from my crew. There's Graham, Cody, Dan, Levi, Kirsten and... hehe I forget the other girl's name. A very cool bunch of people. We've all swapped tips and stories of pain already, and we share common interests - like music... and idignancy towards planting. Today is our day off and I am just smitten. Sitting is a wonderful thing, especially on a chair that isn't covered in dirt and little swarms of mosquitoes. We still have four or five days in the hotel, and then we will set up camp somewhere in the woods. As much as I enjoy the cozy hospitality of the Bon Voyage hotel, I am eager to truly immerse myself into the wilderness of Prince George. I'm sure I'll be begging for the hotel later on in a few blog updates or so, but.. I digress.

I'm happy to announce that I passed the minimum wage barrier yesterday, earning $96.50 after planting 740 little sons of b.. ahem, trees. Tommorow I'm going to try for 800, then the next day 900, and then a thousand by the end of the week if I'm lucky. Soon we'll be planting for the big guns like Canfor logging industries, where we will be required to wear hardhats and vests, which will prove to be quite irritating methinks. I mean, we are nowhere close to any immediate danger from things such as trees falling down or heavy machinery, and just because we're part of the "forestry" industry, we have to wear these stupid things. Ah well, I'm sure we'll get used to them. Another dohicky I'll have to watch out for is the company checkers. These guys will be popping by our planting land every so often and checking to see if our trees were planted right (ie perfectly straight, not too deep, not too shallow, straight roots, etc). If they don't meet their standards, then we'll have to spend hours replanting for zero cash. That will suck, surely.

In other news, or information which just merely qualifies as news, I saw a moose and a black bear on the drive up yesterday, which was quite spectacular. Moose really are big suckers! Annnnnd what else.. did I mention I was sore? A couple days ago I made the horrible decision of wearing shorts to work - and it just so happened that I was planting in metre thick slash (junk above the dirt like trees, red rot, stumps, sharp branches, thorns etc.), which had a field day on my legs. I was so scraped up literally everywhere that all the pain blended together uniformly that I could no longer even notice it - it just felt really hot. Yes, it is a rough job.. but we still haven't gotten into blackflies or rain yet, so this is just the beginning! Nevertheless, I think that I'll be happy with the large daily earnings - it should numb the soreness a bit.

Anyway, rather than whining more and more about planting on my day off, I think it's about time for me to sk'daddle from this here internet cafe, and maybe come back to the hotel for a nap and some tv. I got myself a temporary debit card, so I am safe in the water - so no need to worry too much. I hope all of you have a great and productive summer like I'm having so far (just with a side of pain and muesli), and keep in touch if you can. Katie, if you're reading this - keep it real in China, and best of luck on those tough hills!

Best regards,
James "Slasher" Harris

Into The Great Wide Open

Alas, after being squeezed into the cushy confines of countless greyhound buses, passing myriads of small towns, some where the local Walmart has enough spots to employ the entire population, I have made it to my destination: Prince George, British Columbia. I have witnissed rocky outcrops splayed betwixt miniature ponds, islands with run down shacks hanging on the edge, a postcard perfect prarie sunrise which seemed to illuminate the entire universe around me, and last but not certainly least - leviathan mountains with snowy coats, on lieu to B.C. from Jasper, Alberta. Yes, I have seen it all.. well almost. In fact, I even witnessed, for the first time in my life (and hopefully the only time), a man die. I was just coming out of this greasy cafeteria after stuffing my belly full of bacon and eggs, and I just stop in my midst as I bare witness to an extremely obese man recieving CPR.. I immediately felt pretty queasy, and sorry for the guy. So that was different. I did see, however, some elk in and around Jasper frolicking in their endless grazing spots, as well as a black bear booking it across the road. One such sight which particularily surprised me, was seeing SNOW! Everywhere! I kid you not - in between Prince George and Jasper - it was like winter all over again. It felt pretty weird I tell you h'what.

The journey was on a boisteringly good start, until I discovered in Saskatoon that my wallet was no where to be found. I asked the bus driver, the lady at the station, the Manitoba station (where I used it last), and none have found it. As always, whenever something seems to be going too well for me, god has to even it out by absconding with one of my most precious possessions. But I digress, I shant let this ruin my trip or deteriorate my semi-excited mindset. I've met a ton of really cool peeps already, a few of which were kind enough to split a motel room with me. This town is just infested with treeplanters. Every five metres you'll see some dude with a backpack, or some dread-sporting hippy playing hacky sack.. it's pretty surreal. So far I've been living off my emergency dough that dad thankfully provided me with. I just bought a pair of space age hardcore plantin' boots for $200, and I'm happy to be done with shopping around for equipment. I have to go call my foreman still, and get a debit card - so I suppose I should exeunt from this internet cafe pretty soon - seeing as it's 10:00am and we need to checkout at 11.

Either today or tommorow I should be moving out into the bush, and then my adventure will truly start. My muscles shall ache, my feet will blister, my hands will blister, my mind will blister! It's gonna be cruel and unforgiving, but lots of fun on the side. So pray that I do well, and I will uh.. do the same for you.. whoever you are...

"Young James" signin' out.