milkcrate_house

this didn't happen because of craigslist... the same thing could have happened hooking up with someone you met at a bar, at work or at the chess club.

the method is actually incorporated into your walking -- you won't walk and then stop and then plant, it's all one rhythmic thing.

this was 15 years ago so my memory is fuzzy, but: in my first year i planted for this last-resort company with contracts in northern ontario -- our day-off towns were places like new liskeard, timmins, kirkland lake, etc. it was the company's first year and we ended up with contracts other companies would not take, which included super-overgrown plots some of the time, but mostly lots and lots of rocks. northern ontario is mostly big rocks with some dirt seams here and there. on one contract there was very little dirt to work with and most of it was also filled with rocks. as you and the other planters moved along it sounded like "ting!... fuck!" "ting!" "ting ... fuck!" "ting... tabarnac!" etc. the foremen were all like "don't plant in the rocks!" but there was no not-rocks. a bunch of us got tendonitis. my hand stopped working. it was fucking scary. the others who got it all quit and went home. i went to a doctor on some day off and he was like "yup, tendonitis". but i didn't want to go home because this was my plan for the summer, plus even though i was not a great planter to begin with i did like the off-work culture a lot. so i told my foreman i was going to plant with my left hand till my right one got better. he said i was nuts but kept me on -- maybe worried about WSIB stuff or he just felt sorry for me. i made camp costs for ten days or something and then they moved us out of the rocks contract to somewhere else and i was able to go back to my right hand eventually. i didn't make good money on that job -- not like the rocket hippies, who had the rhythm down and never seemed to get tired. but i paid for university and learned some skills, like how to get dreads and how to open an orange with your teeth.

there's also the pesticides you're exposed to. they're pretty concentrated when you deal with packs of baby trees all day. when i was planting we were given a contract that included advice not to conceive within a year because of the risk the pesticides might have to a fetus.

depends on the laws in your state/province. a lot of changes taking place with these laws and prosecutions now.