You are Stronger this Rain

I remember back my first summer away from home, it was a literal drought. I prayed desperately for rain, and when it finally fell I rejoiced! Now it rains consistently every single day, and I feel depressed.

Storm in the distance

Storm clouds behind my boxes of trees

New rubber boots for all this rain

This is definitly the wettest summer of my life. Any moment I see the sun feels like a miracle! The average temperature each day is seven degrees Celsius, I can see my breath almost every morning when I emerge from my tent. Even when there is a patch of sunshine while planting, its unpredictable because a few minutes later it can suddenly start hailing, or down pouring. This is Alberta 2019; Sounds like Ontario just stole our heat.

Hail outside my tent

Rainbow over camp

Camp fire is a source of warmth

Crew chilling on one of those rare sunny moments

We are coming closer to the end of our season, and the crew has been getting smaller. I'm planning on sticking it out to the end, which will probably be sometime early August. The rain is bringing me down a little bit, but as our camp cooks like to remind us at the end of the day, with a promise of hot soup and tea....

I Look Homeless, but I'm Rich!

Our last camp was in a mud pit. Essentially, a horse paddock in the spring, minus the manure. It also rained consistently since forever, so everything anyone owns is pretty much soaked, muddy, or destroyed.

Our last days of planting were pretty chaotic! We did helicopter work, but it was foggy the first day, so we started work late. The second day tree boxes were in the wrong locations. The third day there were issues with the helicopter again and our crew bosses had to quad the trees into the block, which equaled a lot of sitting around waiting for trees.

One of our blocks before it started raining forever.

What we do when we wait for trees

On camp move day, I decided to go on planting mission to plant the remaining trees from the contract to make up the money I lost on the chaotic days. I did make up the money, but I was so covered in dirt afterwards. We didn't have enough time to drive to the new camp, so we stayed in a nearby town for the night. I had not packed clean clothes so I looked absolutely disgusting, but I was super hungry. I waltzed into subway covered in mud looking very unflattering, then bought a tonne of food! "I look homeless," I laughed with my friends, " But I'm rich!"

We are at a new camp now which is not so muddy. The new contract has harder specifications on how to plant trees, so its been a bit of a learning curve. However, I'm sure once I get these new specs down, I will be able to plant just as much, if not more then the last camp!

New tent set up with hammock