because

hello again. brandon here. time for an update, methinks.

i had a wonderful time in southern ontario with family and friends, but an odd highlight was in solitude. this past wednesday i grabbed a minimal amount of lightweight overnight hiking paraphernalia and set out to rove as far as my legs would take me in one day. why? i wouldn't consider myself a masochist, although doing things the easy way has never appealed to me either. no, it was merely because i hadn't before. the bruce trail winds through the woods at the back of our farm, and i've lived there since i was five without ever having done an overnight hike. mind you, i've spend unnmerable days mountain biking, hiking, and exploring caves and cliffs and streams; it was always my door to the beyond. to really get beyond, the margin beyond which i hadn't yet travelled, i had to traipse about two hours. shortly past the boundary i was interruped by a strange man, who, while sitting and chomping on a large english cucumber, and with the help of perplexing topographical notes, explained to me the unique geological formations discernable in the surrounding area. he stowed the cucs' wrapper in his fluorescent bicycle helmet and let me on my way. i had no other company until the sun was waning low on the horizon, when a corpulent arm belonging to a kind, though dishevelled, elderly man held out a lone sprig of pepper root for me to assay. "it's not like it used to be," he asserted, and i noted that neither was my cardiovascular fitness level. in years past he had been able to gather bags of the edible root; much hotter than horseradish, he said of the stuff. shortly after continuing on, it was my feet that limited my progress at around six 'o-clock in the evening, leaving me about an hour or so of daylight to read my borrowed copy of lewis thomas' late night thoughts on mahler's ninth symphony. delightful. not so delightful was the next day. i knew i was in for a test of endurance when lacing up my boots in the morning was an agonizingly painful ordeal. but, step after step, i finally made it back, and mom was waiting for me on the porch with a cold beverage.

now, after an extremely long drive, i'm in thunder bay. the preparations for the tree plant that i'm supervising are well on their way, and i'm thoroughly convinced that i'm in over my head. for now, anyways. in a few days, twenty-nine people are all going to be expecting me to facilitate their daily wage-earning of two to five hundred dollars. when dealing with cash like that, there isn't really room for mistakes.

camera plans have been put off until july, so in the future, i'll include any photographs i can get my hands on from other sources.