Yesterday, approximately 55 of Soka Gakkai International (SGI) youth members volunteered their Saturday in planting trees around the conservation area of Caledon. Driving to Caledon was much like driving around country-side Victoria – lots of open space and mountains in the background, except it was much more lush due to the privilege of having so much more rain in any given season than Victoria would receive in an entire year.

We had to walk about 25 minutes to the actual site, but on the way we saw the trees that SGI had previously planted (SGI has been assisting CVC (Credit Valley Conservation) with an annual tree planting event for ten years now!) and we could see that they’ve made a great contribution already to the conservation and preservation of the environment. Tree planting is a great cause for sustainable development. Tree planting reverses the pollution we have put in our environment which has become a huge issue and it is important for us to save the environment.

Unsure as to how many trees we actually planted, given that Eva & I planted around eight (and I sorta gave up to start taking photos, and then consequently talking to a lot of people), I’m guessing we could’ve planted around 20 between the two of us and times that by (55 people divide by pairs of 2) would equal around 550. That’s a hell of a lot of new trees! Yay!

There were so many bugs! I got quite a big mozzie bite on my arm. (Thanks Judi for your after-bite spray). I saw so many worms, snails, some sort of black jumping insects.. But at one point, we all heard Casey screaming from afar, “frog! frog! frog!” Eva scrambled to catch it while it was jumping away and I managed to get quite a good a good shot of it (see below).

While the forecast for the day was thunderstorms, we were lucky as it only drizzled for a couple of minutes. Some sheltered, while some kept on going. As the rain subsided, I ran to grab my camera and then the sun came out! It was lovely.

I got some great shots of everyone. Paula was right when she saw my photos and commented that everyone looks so happy. It was a rather good day! It was good to see everybody!

Oh, and thanks to Tsuneko for driving me to the site! I’ve posted some photos below, but there are a tonne more at my Flickr SGI Tree Planting 2009 Set.

P.S. I don’t know why I have such a manly pose in the group photo. Haha!

My Flickr SGI Tree Planting 2009 Set