Pine Trees, Fences and Puff Adders

One of my favourite days was when we go out for some pine cutting. Pines are an invasive species and we must cut them down to balance the ecosystem. What I love about it is that we do it the old hard way, with a machete! That’s right, we cut pines with machetes!

When it comes to pine cutting, there are 5 types of volunteers:

The Small Tree Volunteer: They go for the smallest tree possible, normally a little branch, and cut it with only one swing! they even race for the trees;
The I’m too Lazy to Cut It Volunteer: They are the ones that won’t do anything! They will stand around and walk around with the machete and won’t cut one! Very lazy;
The Competitive Volunteer: They are working hard to get the biggest number of trees cut down possible! They will run and rush to cut as many trees as possible in the 3 hours space;
The Coach: The one doing nothing but telling everyone how to do everything! Also, the coach always has the best material on their hands, and won’t give it to anyone;
The João Volunteer: I find that I’m an unusual fellow. For me, it’s not about the numbers, or about cutting the smallest, or not even cutting a tree. For me, it is about the biggest one! The ones they say you won’t cut it down with only a machete and a saw! I love a good challenge, and cutting pine trees was my gym.

Almost done!

We arrive at an area full of pine trees. Big ones! I had a big smile on my face! There were so many challenges. But I wasn’t going to stay with the first tree I could find, no! I needed to find the right challenge! We had a rule that everyone would have to walk in pairs, of course, no one wanted to be my partner! “He’s crazy! He made me work so much!” Those were the common answers!

Finally, I spotted a tree worthy of my attention. It was already 15 meters tall, and wide enough to need a chainsaw!

– Perfect! – I said.

I approach the tree with determination. I know what my mission is, I know what I was meant to do! There is no “too big!”, there is no “you can’t do it”. I hit the tree with the machete. Normally when you hit a tree with a machete the sound you normally hear is like a ‘pak”. You can hear the blade cutting the tree. When I hit this tree, I heard a “ting”. Like I was hitting metal!

– That’s not a good sound – said Kon walking past me.

– Don’t worry – I said – it is coming down!

Kon laughed and walked away. Now there was no turning back. He’s seen me close to this tree, it would be dishonourable to me for this tree to stand! I continued hitting it hoping for the sound to go from “ting” to “pak”. But no luck. The “hitting metal” sound continued for 30 minutes.

I decided to rest a bit and rest my hand. A fun thing that happens to your hand when you push it too much, is you get the “claw”. The “claw” is when your hand locks itself almost making a fist. The muscles are so sore that they won’t move! It is very painful and funny at the same time.

I’m resting minding my own business when I see a strange shadow over me. I’m thinking about what could be big enough to cover me. Then something hits me! I remember being on the floor but inside a tree. I’m very confused and start to crawl my way out of the tree. When I get out I hear one of the volunteers:

– João! Thank god you are ok! I didn’t notice you were in that direction.

– What happened? – I asked.

– We were cutting this tree and it fell down on you – she said.

– Luckily it wasn’t a big one – I said while scratching my head – Also what happened to the word “timber?”.

– Sorry, we forgot – they answered.

Me cutting down the pine tree

After getting hit by a tree I decided that it was a sign that I shouldn’t do breaks close to these two volunteers. So I asked them if they wanted to continue to work but further away from me. After 2 hours I finally managed to drop this tree down. While everyone cut 5 to 10 trees, I cut down 1. But mine was like 3 times the size of the other ones. After that, we went back to the volunteer base to have lunch. Everyone was exhausted and my head was still hurting.

In the afternoon we went on a safari to relax the body.

…..

The next morning, we woke up and we were told we would be going to remove old fences inside the reserve. If we would find snares, they would have also to be removed. We drove for a long time, almost an hour driving, but finally, we arrived. This area technically had no predators. But we were told to walk around paying attention to everything.

Taking fences is very hard and time-consuming. Because you must dismantle the fence, then roll all the wire, and then bring it to the car. The car was like 300 meters up a hill. So that was not a fun walk back with wires and poles. Next to me, there was a volunteer we will call him T. So T was walking into very tall grass following a piece of fence. I’m following behind helping him with the nails and everything.

He takes a step and I hear this ‘hissssss’.

– T don’t move – I said.

– I heard it too – T answered.

– T where was the sound coming from? – I asked him?

– No idea – T replied.

– Kon! – I yelled – Kon come! We have a snake close to T.

The instructors rushed to the site keeping the rest of the volunteers away. They walked around us trying to find the snake. They were very cautious about how they would move the grass.

– What do you think? – T asked Kon.

– Adder maybe by the sound they described – Kon answered.

– That’s not good – I said.

A beautiful Puff Adder

After 5 minutes of searching, they finally found the snake. It was a Puff Adder. A big big Puff Adder! Luckily the snake was far enough for T to remove his foot away from the snake. He walked back away from the snake. The snake didn’t even move.

I believe the ‘hissss’ was just a “hey, I’m here. don’t step on me!” Which is very nice from the snake.

When we returned to the volunteer base, we discovered that in the tools shed, where we went to pick up our tools, there was a huge Cape cobra inside.