The Block

Many people don't really understand where exactly we plant trees, including a fair amount of unfortunate souls who get hired for the job and find there way on a crew.

The first misconception is that we plant on a grassy field that is flat. No. No it's not like that at all. Instead, usually, there is a fair amount of debris, logs, trees, hills (and cliffs) and multiple places where you can't plant, and a few places you can. The places where you can, once you find them, need to be spaced properly from another and you start by following the tree-line.

Which is why last Monday was just fucky; Our camp was comically planting on a grassy field. Well, everyone but my crew. We were in a mother-fucking forest. Our tree-line was where the trees ended. We had to make our way through dense foliage attempting to plant trees where there were already trees. This wouldn't be so difficult if our trees, bags, and dibbles would float their way behind us instead of getting snagged on literally everything, causing constant spectacular failure at mere walking.

And we still have to have the right tree density. Hopefully, it is not hard to understand that it is hard to find our little 6 inch tall trees among fully grown ones. And ferns. And many other plants that are the exact same color. Your flagging had to be impeccable, just so that the person trailing a few meters behind you didn't miss your line of trees.

And the worst part, is after we carried our heavy bags through the woods we would reach the end of the forest and look out to the beautiful field where dozens of our friends were planting. None of them tripping or looking out for dangerously cracking trees. And you'd have to turn around, despite the overwhelming urge to to simply plant one tree, just one tree, where it was nice. But you couldn't.