Tree Planting

At work, we are entitled to two days of paid volunteer work each year. While I have always been interested in volunteer work, especially coming from a family that has always been actively involved with many charities in Malaysia, I realise I have not really done anything here to give back to society. So when some of the guys at work suggested that we organise a team volunteer day, I told them I'm in. This was back in summer, and when the weather was nice. They selected tree planting out in Kinglake, a town which was tragically burnt from the 2009 bush fires. Tree planting, especially in a group, sounded quite fun.

When the time finally arrived, most of us were having second thoughts. Primarily because of the weather. It has been raining, we had a storm two days ago, and it has been absolutely freezing. It is afterall, winter!

We had a few people in the team pull out at the last minute due to work commitments, but the remaining eleven of us were still committed to planting trees about 2 hours drive away from Melbourne.

Our company worked closely with Landcare, a non-profit company, and they organised for us to plant trees at a husband and wife farm located in Flowerdale. It was cold, as expected, but at least it was not pouring. We had some slight drizzle, but I was fine, dressed in my waterproof jacket. We were told to wear gumboots, something I do not own (I was tempted to buy a pair of Wellies in London ages ago), and instead I wore my snow boots. The land was muddy and wet, and the snow boots worked perfect, keeping my feet dry as it was completely waterproof too.

We had to put on a work safe vest, we were given gloves and some tools, and we then watched a quick demo by a Landcare member, teaching us how to plant trees the proper way. We went "Ooohhh ahhhh" haha

See, I am a natural.

I was covered in mud everywhere, on my face, my hands, my jeans, my shoes, my jacket...

I would never do any gardening in such weather at my own home, so it was pretty good effort that I was out in the country planting trees at someone else's farm.

My workmates in action. We had to put up three sticks, and a plastic around the baby plant to protect it from rabbits and other things.

Finally when it was lunch time, our team got together with the owners of the farm, and other volunteers from Landcare for a barbecue. We had a pretty good budget from work, so we brought plenty of food which we bought earlier from the city. The owners of the farm also contributed more food, and they cooked us venison meat on the barbie, from deers of their farm.

Woodfire.. it was great!

The owners had two dogs. The blue heeler, Murphy, is my favourite. He would tag along with the team, getting us to play fetch with him, while at work.

Murphy

Apart from the dogs, and the deer farm, the owners had other farm animals too. It was fun for me, personally, getting so close to these animals.

I patted horses..

Adorable, just adorable. Nearly took the lamb home as my second pet.

Deers

Was not planning on taking this one home though. Snoopy the croc.

We worked so hard. In total, we planted 900 trees among 15 people, which was absolutely fantastic. The planted trees have an 80% survival rate, so lets hope all the trees that I planted will grow and stay alive for the future. It takes an average of twenty years to get the trees fully grown. Sydney Boy insists that the trees I plant will all die (how rude!) but I disagree. It was an awesome day and apart from helping out the community affected by the bush fires, it was nice to be out in the country, so peaceful and relaxing.