May 25th, 2009

Dear Josh,

I had originally wrote you a letter about a week ago and then ran out of time in the city to mail it. Then few days later I tried to read it and had a hard time. This is my official confession to my poor penmanship. For the sake of proper communication, I will be typing to you, rather then writing. I know that this takes away from the romantic nature of writing letters, however I'll take communication over romanticism...in this case atleast.

Also worth mentioning is why I am sending you a letter, which is a London Drugs Internet cafe print off from my online blog. Again time has been a facter here, in that I couldnt type and print off this letter on my laptop in camp and print it off. So instead I am at London Drugs, kicking off this pen pal relationship via the "Print Screen" button.

I guess I could tell you a bit about my first few weeks out here in the bush. I think that I will only breifly mention things regarding tree planting since for you much of what I could possibly say would be hard to understand or fully appriciate. That's the thing about tree planting, either I suck at communicating or tree planting is one of those experiences that is best described by participating in it.

So anyway, on May 4th after 10 hours of driving I entered Prince Georges city limits (Prince George will now one be referred to as 'The PG" or phonetically "the Peeg". Up until that point I had not had the planting mindset, but as soon as I dipped into the geographical hole the the PG sits in, and took a deep breath of the air that for the most part always smells like pulp mill, it all came back to me. A few hours later, it was like I had never left.

My season started well, but before we actually set up camp in the bush there are a few things that a foreman usually gets to worry about. One would be the possibility that some of your planters don't show up, which leaves you with a smaller crew. That fear was confirmed for me this year since two of my planters didnt show up. Those who did show up are really cool, and my crew is doing well. I hired another planter, bumping me up to 11, and soon hopefully I will have a 12 pack.

The only other notable negative to my season so far is the super sickness of doom that passed over myself and my crew this past shift. It was a lot like the mist that killed Egypts first born, except no one was killed, and I hope it wasnt a response to some sort of sin that we were committing. Most people on my crew got sick and sat out for atleast a day. As for me, I was extremely sick, but since I am a foreman, a day off is an extremely tough thing to have. I toughed it out and made it to the next day off. I think that myself and my crew will be feeling much better his next shift.

My dog Ash is loving the camp life. he is the only dog in camp, so he gets all the attention he can handle. These three months are his reward for his 9 months of basement suite living.

Anyways, my time to use this computer is almost out! I look forward to your return letter and what you have to say about you life these days!

Take care,

~jordan

PS - I think that I'm going to get a few tattoos when I get home...and I cant wait!