[Artemisia] Uprising--do I need to pack the WeedWhacker?

[S CLEMENGER]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brian Johnson" <brynjolfr.ulfhedthinn at yahoo.com>
To: "Kingdom of Artemisia mailing list" <artemisia at lists.gallowglass.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 10:20 PM
Subject: Re: [Artemisia] Uprising--do I need to pack the WeedWhacker?


> Not trying to play one-up on ya but I think the WORST job I had for farm 
> work was tobacco..
> <snipped>
> For most back-breaking, though, was a toss-up between picking peppers and 
> cutting cabbage.
> Brynki

I never had to do tobacco, but growing Xmas trees is labor-intensive, too. 
You plant in March, when the ground's barely thawed.  There's never-ending 
hoeing and tractoring.  Shearing in July and August (using a machete).  And 
harvest starts in late October and continues into December.  Mud and snow 
and pine needles.  Oh my lord, the pine needles.  Dense-needled 
plantation-grown trees have to be shaken before they're baled for shipping, 
because they've been sheared tightly enough that the dead, dry needles can't 
fall naturally.  Chilblains on my hands from tying the baling string....  My 
biggest problem (besides the weather) was that I'm only 5'5", and our trees 
started at 6 ft, most of them, and went up from there, and handling 
something that much taller than you are can be a real pain.  That, and 
forever not paying attention to where my hands were when shearing....
I don't miss the hard work so much, but I do miss the satisfaction that came 
afterwards.  And the evenings, when all you could here were things like the 
neighbors cows going home for the evening, and the sound of the irrigation 
in nearby fields, and the plume of dust that hung in the air from cars going 
down the gravel road....(and I have NO doubt whatsoever, that my parents are 
nudging each other in the afterlife, and pointing at me, and laughing, 
because when I was a kid, my primary objective was to get the 
h-e-double-hockey sticks OFF that farm!)
--Maire