Green ‘S’ Force Planting Day—24 May 2015

Today our friends from the Green ‘S’ Welfare Force were back for another planting day.  Originally they were supposed to come on both Saturday and Sunday but we had torrential rain all day on Saturday so we cancelled the planting.  Sunday’s weather was marginally better—windy with showers.

Nevertheless a great group of 15 Green ‘S’ Force volunteers braved the weather and had a fun and productive planting day.  Joining us were Ankit, Ankush, Bharpoor, Gursewak, Krishnan, Mandeep, Ninder, Nitash, Parminder, Rajat, Randal, Rohit, Samandeep, Sukhjeet and Vinod.  Also joining us were two other very enthusiastic community volunteers, Stephanie and Zoe, who came out to help for the day.

Today’s planting had the additional challenge of being on a remote part of the property.  As a result we had to shuttle the team, plants and equipment up in small groups.  The planting site is the brown area near the top of the photo below.

At the planting site, the team had great views but were exposed to the wind and rain squalls.  At least we had plenty of advance warning as we could see the squalls coming in over the harbour.

In spite of the conditions, the team got a lot of planting done.

As always, the team took tea breaks in the field, but the unpredictable weather and howling wind today prevented them from being serenaded by Vinod who is launching a music career.

Most of the time is was sunny and windy but when a squall came the wind would pick up and the rain wouldn’t be far behind.  The team would rush to get into their rain ponchos.

And then huddle together for warmth!

Bharpoor was very creative and managed to turn his pancho into a comfortable tent 🙂

Once all the planting was done, each tree was marked with a bamboo stake so that we will be able to find the trees this summer when we do weed control.

And then we went through and picked up all the pots and trays for recycling.

It took a few trips to get everyone and everything back down and it was well after 3 pm when the team sat down to enjoy a hot lunch.

Our heartfelt thanks to Stephanie and Zoe and all of the Green S force team for giving up a Sunday and coming out to help us. You planted a huge number of trees despite the wind and rain today and we really appreciate your efforts and your very positive contribution to the project.  We very much look forward to seeing you again to assist us with our 2015 planting season.

THANK YOU! THANK YOU!