If trees could scream I'd have a very disturbing job...

So, back from the bush for the time being. Currently sitting in the Prince George London Drugs shortly awaiting a chai latte from Starbucks with my name on it.

We were put on fire hours as soon as we left to brush in the Munro/Blackwater area around Williston lake. This means, that because of fire hazard, we had to get up every morning at 3 and be in the trucks before quarter to 4, so that we could brush from sun-up till 1 pm. It sucks for a variety of reasons, one of the biggest being that we don't get paid full wages, the other involving the spiritual logistics of waking up at 3 am to work.

Nonetheless, work progress nicely on a huge and flat (about 111 hectares) block about an hour from camp. The first day, when we drove in from PG, was pretty hard. However, by the second day it was as if I never left the block last year. Technique came back very quickly and it seemed like the whole school-year had been some quick blure that had taken mere moments to pass.

It was hot though. It got up to 28 degrees one day. So needless to say, I'm generally sweating like mad out there. The bugs were awful as well. As soon as you shutdown your saw to fill up with gas (it's a manual block = no herbicide) they're all over you. My arms actually turned red from bites. It looks like a rash all over my arms but it's just from mosquitos.

I had a harder time of it last year adjusting back to brushing than I'm having this year. Quitting smoking certainly helped and the mountain hiking I was doing with the VOC helped as well. My waistline is already starting to slim up and I'm 5 or 6 days into my second month without cigarettes. They've even been offered to me several times at camp and I've managed to turn the offer down. I'm on stage three patches now and expect to be off them entirely pretty soon.

We have a much smaller crew this year. Maybe twenty guys. Already a few of them have quit. Most of that happened on the last day before we got shutdown and pulled from the area. Pretty strange. One guy got canned, a frenchy with a bad attitude, and it was hard to feel sorry for him. You have to fuck up big time to get yourself fired from Apex.

So right now some brushers have gone back home (with the next rain expected in a week or so), others are going planting, and I'm hoping that a contract at Babine (near Smithers) opens up tonight. In which case, it would be off to brusher's paradise.

I've almost completed that 1421 book which has been great and served well to point ou what a small deal Christopher Columbus's sailings were at the time. The European explorers already had maps of the new world and we well aware of it before he set sail. I can't wait to get off to a camp like Ospika and dive into the book my Dad got me for Christmas.

That's all for now I think, time to lounge about in PG, and go get that Chai latte. It's the simple things you miss when you go to the bush.

Signing off...