A Memorable Farewell To The Bush I Love.. Oh Get Your Brains Out Of The Gutter!

Upon the realization that my courses had been registered for university, I made the pleasant decision to stay for the last two shifts, and am I ever glad.

It seems as if the scenery has gotten better and better as my season has progressed, and our latest campsite takes the prize for the most scenically pleasing of all. My tent is right next to a pure and rushing river, under the shadow of huge mountains. It has an almost zen like vibe to it, which makes getting up in the morning much more difficult. On the topic of natural beauty, the other day I witnessed the biggest and brightest darned rainbow I've ever seen in my entire life. It was a full arc, and all the colours looked like they were drawn on with a marker - it was surreal - in fact I even almost made the hike for the pot of gold... mmm lucky charms.. huh? what? where was I? ehhh.. anyway..

Breaking news! I planted a new personal record the other day - a whopping 2220 trees! It was a very tough slog, considering it was raining and my piece was rocky - but I did it. Cody and Dan one upped me by scoring 2500, but nonetheless I was still immensely satisfied. I've finally learned how not to be lazy, and the entire mantra behind self discipline, as well as the delicate art of "givin' er". The real secret is to take little to no breaks, and set goals by the hour -and reward yourself if you meet them (say with a homemade peanut butter cookie or two). The day will fly by if you're planting non stop, and it feels really good knowing how productive you are. But enough of that banter - I AM DONE TREEPLANTING BABY!

That's right: done. My last day was quick, fun, and somewhat emotional. Everybody clustered on one piece and we all planted just one bagup. I made sure my last tree was impeccably planted, and perfectly flagged - and we blasted some 80's tune (dancer in the dark I believe) and cracked open champagne. It was great. We also gave Dustin a gatorade shower with our colemans, except we used old dirty planter water instead of sticky alligatorade. Heheh he was pretty pissed for those two good seconds there, but the moment was shouting Kodak.

So know I'm back in the Peege (Pringe George-or Prince 'Hor-hey' if pronounced Spanishly), and I've washed my clothes - finally - after three weeks of sweaty b.o. funk, annnnd in three-ish days Cody, Dan, and I take the long trip home, via the miraculous hound so grey. I can't wait to be back home with the fam and friends, and show off my freakishly long hippy hair (heheh) - yet at the same time there's a deep part of me that will miss the bush. Not to mention sleeping in the cozy confines of a tent, waking up to a deliciously healthy breakfast, and pounding them trees in the ground. I've made a lot of new (and quirky) friends, some of whom I treat as my new brothers and sisters (sorry Dave and Kate.. hahah I'm kidding you're still my sisters), and alas this gap year has finally accomplished it's inevitable purpose- to figure out who the heck I am and.. stuff. But yeah, I've definitely changed a bit as a person - I guess I've matured somewhat.. somewhat.. treeplanting will do that to you. So I highly recommend, next summer, that you should all take a chance, do something adventurous, travel, and heck come treeplanting! It's such a kickass job.. better than Dollarama.. trust me.

So this will be the last entry for this interesting blog of mine, however stay tuned for more entries in the future, when I treeplant again, as a quasi-veteran! Huzzah! In the mean time, migrate on over to hamesjarris.blogspot.com to read about my life anew at home... and at uni-freaking-versity!

It's been a great journey, and I hope to see all of you soon,

Peace and Love,
James Harris the Music Man

In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the planter plants his trees!

Aloha all. So I'm back from my glorious break in the Okanagan, and I'm pounding trees again. This time around we're situated in the beautiful and mountainous Mackenzie, and my tent is a few metres from a large lake perfect for afternoon dips. Of course, this would all be too good to be true without bugs - yet again we are buffeted on from countless microscopic bloodsucking mouths. On the plus side, my tent door won't zip shut, and as such I've attempted to create my own door by draping a seemingly bug-proof tarp over my tent. Insomnia caused by perpetual buzzing in ones ear is never fun.. I guess the duct tape should hold up for now.

Alright then, you're probably curious about my jungle reference in the post title, and I'll quench your curiosity with an elaborate explanation. So Dustin gives me this humongous piece, a hundred tree slog to the top, complete with green slash as far as the eye can see. After about half an hour I reach the top, and to my left is an entire jungle of bush. Like a monkey - scratch that - like a sloth, I ambled my way through tall fern bushes, over fallen logs, and through leafy trees with twigs attracted to curly afros. It is extremely difficult to space properly, what with the constant obstacles and the inability to see my trees in such viscous greenery. Almost six times in a row yesterday I planted a tree literally inches from another tree I planted, because they were so well camouflaged and hidden in slashed. Couple that frustration with a swarm of kamikaze blackflies and it will put you on the brink of insanity. But that's all part of the adventure.. I guess.

So this shift has been somewhat slowgoing for me - I guess I'm still getting back into the groove, and making the slow transition from vacation mode to work mode. Funny story about our vacation - we actually missed our bus back to Prince George on the fourth, and because of this we missed the four hour drive up to our campsite, meaning that our options were slim: we could've bought this french guy's van and drove it there, taken a bus the next day and hope for a ride in PG, or.. fruit pick for a week in the Okanagan! We decided to go with the fruit picking, as the van scenario was a little risky - considering we weren't insured and the lack of seats. So we walked around Penticton asking people were the best orchards was, and we happened to land ourselves a job in the similkameen valley, a half hour from our campsite. One of the trailer park guys, Clint, gave us a ride up in his huge truck blaring metal tunes, and we drove in between huge rolling hills and mountains illuminated by a full moon and a starry sky. We then threw down a tarp next to this vineyard and spent the night looking at stars, and eventually we fell asleep. In the morning we met up the boss man at 5:30, he gave us the low down on the job - turns out it wasn't fruit picking, but putting cones over trees that a machine plants for $10 an hour, for eight hours. I was gung ho to do it, but everybody else had a change of heart, and we decided to try and hitchhike our way back to penticton, and then catch a bus to P.G. At the time, it was sweltering hot, and I only had a pair of flipflops on. I walked 16 kilometres without a single lift in FLIP FLOPS! My feet hated my guts.. they were all black.. it was nasty. Hehe anyway, a dozen hours later we're in P.G.

I could write a humongous blog about all the awesome tidbits of my break, but it would turn out to be more of a novel than a blog post.. so I'll just have to recap them in person to you sometime.
Anyway, I'm a little stressed out and weary about my York registration - I can't even take all the courses I want now, and it's almost impossible for me to do an online appointment (what a stupid system that is) - so hopefully mom figures it out for me. Anyway, my time is up at the internet cafe - so I must depart.

Have a great summer,
J-rock.