blood, sweat, and trees

It's always hard to describe, to the un-initiated, the agony and ecstasy of industrial re-forestation. There is an elemental beauty to it, wedded inexorably to the horrors of pushing your body to the limits and sometimes beyond, in conditions that'd make any sane person shudder and head back inside for some hot cocoa (or an ice-cold lemonade, depending on the day).

Now that film recording and editing equipment has gotten cheaper and easier to use, more people are taking a stab at visually recording that dichotomy. I'm pasting in this one because I think it does a decent job of hinting at whatever madness it was that kept me going back, summer after summer, for ten long years. It's coastal planting - an animal all its own - but you'll get the picture.