Photos
These pictures were taken in May of 2010, in our second camp of the season, near Sundre, Alberta.
Jim Logan, giving directions as we arrive at the new campsite.
Breakfast in the mess tent.
Jordan and Andrew, grabbing breakfast.
The gray water pit for run-off from the sinks in the kitchen.
Loading trees into the trucks in the morning.
This was interesting. Although we had our noisy reefer parked on an ugly, muddy landing, a group of Alberta rednecks decided to camp around our reefer. So every morning, at 7am, we'd be loading up trees while they were trying to sleep, just a few feet away. This particular morning, we were surprised to see that the fire was still going. However, we were less surprised when we looked closely and noticed someone passed out drunk beside the fire. The outside air temperature was five degrees below freezing.
John "Travolta" Gander.
Nic and the Angels, loading trees.
Shauna, trying to look mean.
Greg's crew, having a morning tailgate safety meeting.
Grabbing more trees.
Anneke.
A herd of wild (feral) horses.
Andrew.
Nate, getting ready to quad some trees out to the block.
Getting ready to load a quad at breakfast.
Here comes the rest of the crew.
I'm on a horse. Blame it on the Old Spice.
Anneke, Mathilde, and Dustin, just inside the mess tent, watching the snow fall.
Katie & Susie, getting dinner on a cold, snowy evening.
Sarah, happy about the hot soup.
Lindsay, our assistant cook.
More snow. It seemed like it would never end.
Planters trying to find some rationale for why they keep working at this job. Except for Matt, in the shorts. He's pretty hardcore, and just laughs at the snow.
Scooter.
Sarah, hiding the garbage can.
Happy Birthday, Jon-Eric! If Sarah can't pop out of a cake, then the garbage bin is the next best thing.
Jon-Eric, laughing at his birthday card.
David, helping Emma wash her dishes.
Lindsay. If there is no work due to snow, we say "let them eat cake."
Wilson, working on his crew's tallies for the day.
Here we go again. Snow day number seven?
One of our blocks. Doesn't look like we can plant today.
Heading to town.
I thought that this was an interesting photo. It's not often that you see trees coated in snow AND green grass in the same photo.
A few days later. The snow has melted, and Wilson's crew is heading back to the truck at the end of the day.
Katie & Susie, getting ready to plant another box.
A pre-work conference, as we switch contracts and get ready to start planting for Sun Pine.
Barry, talking about microsite selection requirements.
Barry, explaining rules pertaining to residuals and drip-lines.
Sarah & Sarah, making sure that the water buckets are in the truck as part of our required fire-fighting gear.
Stephane's van, at the end of the rainbow.
A pine tree planted in a fill plant. This is actually a "bad" (fault) tree. I know it looks fine, but if you look carefully at the other small pine tree just a few inches to the left of the planted tree (partly hidden under the grass), you'll see that it's a double-plant. We had to space off germinants, so the fill plants were a little tricky unless the planters kept a close eye out for naturals.
Jackie, with a few mosquitoes on her leg.
Our checkers and the Sun Pine checkings, auditing blocks together.
Kara-Lee, checking a tree.
Jade, digging up another seedling.
Another group of wild horses, very close to me on the block.
John, Andrew, and Anneke, at the end of a day.
Camp, late in the evening, long after the planters have gone to bed.
Susie and Katie.
Getting back to the truck at the end of the day.
A mama moose and a baby moose. Unfortunately, I've only got a wide-angle lens, so I couldn't get a better closeup.
Beef jerky that Jim bought me at the Bergen store. It's more like a tender steak in a bag.
Brad was forced to shotgun a pair of beer cans and then try to attack the pinata on his birthday. Watch out for the reefer, Brad!
That's a pretty muddy road.
A robin in a nest. She wasn't that worried about me getting up close.
Jim, pulling the reefer out of camp. It wasn't even that muddy - he just had bad tires.