Tree Planting: The beginning
My first two weeks of tree planting were complete hell. Scorching heat, migraines all day, high physical demand, and trying to focus on a new job that required a lot of thinking (only as a rookie). My first day I was actually amazed, shocked, and dumbfounded that this what what tree planting was. Literally walking in what you think may be a straight line and putting a tree in the ground every 4-5 paces. The tree plugs were the size of your palm to start off with, so they were easy to put in the ground. The craziest part was that in the first two weeks we were put in some of the easiest ground I saw all season, and it still sucked a LOT. In those first two weeks I had never struggled so much in my life. After a few days I had convinced myself that I was going to quit at the end of the day. I figured out what I would say to my foreman, what I would say to my girlfriend (now my wife) and I knew what I would tell my parents. Tree planting sucks and I don’t know how anybody is sane enough to do this for more than a week. I had it all planned out and I was ready to go home. The end of the day came and I just got in the truck and we all went back to camp. The next day came and I thought I’d just give it another try. By lunch time I was in the same mindset I was yesterday, but today I wasn’t going to back out at last second. Today I was going to quit. The end of the day came, and I just got in the truck and we all went back to camp. This mind game went on daily for at least a month. It never went away after a month, this was only when I extended the times that I thought I would quit. Instead of thinking I was going to quit at the end of the day, I would plan to quit at the end of this 4 day shift. This went on for a bit until I thought maybe I would quit at the beginning of July. After the first week of July past I thought I’d plan to leave two weeks before the season ended. After a full 3 months of the hardest job I’ve ever done, I was buying my plane ticket to go home the first week of August. I had survived my first season as a tree planter. As the weeks got closer to the end of the season I only got a little more insane. I started off okay as a typical low balling rookie, but by the end of the season there were some days I just had to sit out for a bit because I was literally going insane and making a mess of the trees I was attempting to put in the ground. There were a few days I just couldn’t take my mind off the fact that we were only 3 weeks away from the end of the season, and all I wanted was the relief of it being over. No one will ever understand the relief of a tree planter after a season is over, until they’ve experienced it for them self. Even after I was done, I couldn’t relax. I knew it was over and we were going home, but I knew my last couple shifts I had done a really bad job at putting trees in the ground. Even though I stayed consistent with my production, I didn’t feel like I got any better with my quality. It was hard knowing you had just done an incredibly hard job for 3 months and even at the very end you still sucked at it. I was still a rookie, and still a low baller, but I still did it. The mental challenge that I conquered that summer was something I never thought I would be able to get through.
This is going to be in a bunch of parts so that I don’t lose anybody with long posts. Thanks for reading, I’ll continue on eventually.