A great way to start the season, with my truck buried in the mud again. This is going to be a very challenging season for our camp. We normally have a very high percentage of experienced planters, but due to our camp splitting into two camps this year, I have a high percentage of first-year planters to train in my new camp. Also, this year the industry is planting a very large number of trees due to the Mountain Pine Beetle epidemic in BC, so there is probably more work than the industry can currently handle. It will be interesting to see how we do by the end of the summer. Getting this truck stuck isn't a very good way to start things off!
Cody Montgomery.
Getting ready to pull the flatdeck out of another rough spot. It looks like the road isn't that bad ...
... until you see how deep the ruts really are.
A photo of one of our blocks. Of course, they weren't all that bad. This was the worst one. We called it the "gully block" for obvious reasons. The good thing about the gully block was that for the few people who were lucky enough to plant it, every other block for the rest of the summer would seem easy by comparison.
The tough thing about the gully block was not the land, but the fact that we were planting "512 size" spruce trees (which are quite large and heavy trees, for those of you who aren't tree planters), and the fact that we were aiming for 10 plots everywhere. With that much slash, getting trees in at that required density was pretty tough in spots. The planters sometimes had to worm their way on their stomachs into openings under fallen logs and slash, after first taking off their bags and then throwing a tree and their shovel into the middle of the opening.
Jason, Adam, Sean, and Ben, laughing at the latest addition to the camp ...
... the Unimog! And it was not the same one that we used last year, it was bigger and better! And red.
Some tasty oven-baked salmon for supper.
Kent Borgstrom. He only looks crazy, but he's not. Well, maybe just a little.
Inside the dry tent after a hard day of rain, one of our few rain days on the contract.
Our reservoir of shower water from the creek. Don't drink the water while you're showering!
Julie Richard.
Drew, Isabelle, and Ben, enjoying a ride in the back of the Unimog.
Sean Jackins.
A set of planting bags. If you look closely, you'll see that it's a rare four-pouch set.
A Cobra personal handheld radio. This is one of the rechargeable models, not a regular battery-eater. These radios are incredibly useful on the block to enhance communications.
Dallas, our Unimog driver and mechanic. Dallas used to be a planter himself in the 1980's. The planters loved having him on the contract for the short time that he was working with us.
Loading up into the Unimog in the morning.
Bronwyn.
My spare - a brand new mud tire (a Cooper STT). Worth every penny, and they don't come cheap.
Jim Logan, doing a site visit and checking the foreman's daily hazard assessment forms.
Ben and Dan, unloading trees.
The dashboard panel of the Unimog.
Somehow, we managed to put a bad tire (from the previous season) onto the truck. Within a few hours of installing it, everything fell to pieces.
Using an axle jack to change the tire. The problem with axle jacks is that quite often, they aren't tall enough to lift the truck. Sometimes, you can move the truck so that only the wheel is in a rut and the jack is on hard ground. Another trick is to carry around a small piece of cut log, to make things easier and faster.
What better way to end the contract than by going to a Husky truck stop restaurant for a "buzz saw burger" and a big greasy poutine?