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I used to wear a pink skirt to work. It was polyester, cost me two bucks at a thrift store, did not require regular washing, had a slit up the side and swished and swayed in the breeze.

I am not a cross-dresser, if that is what you are wondering. But I did spend seven summers planting trees in northeastern Ontario, a time in the wild that taught me many things including a lesson about polyester skirts: on baking hot days they are cooler than pants.

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Another thing I learned is that tree planting sucks. It is a backbreaking, foot aching, knee rattling, elbow-jarring hellhole of a way to spend eight weeks. Imagine being dropped in the middle of a clear cut, a blasted and, in some cases, control-burn-blackened landscape, passing your days two steps at a time.

Two steps, plant a tree. Two steps — tree. Two steps — tree — 10 hours a day, six days a week, in the rain, snow and cruel, cruel heat. Did I mention bugs? Not trifling mosquitos buzzing around the cottage, but blackflies, hungry hordes of them. Flying into your eyes. Mouth. Hair. Breaching your pant legs — if you happen to be wearing pants — and biting you, well, everywhere, even during your most private moments in a sun-up until sundown assault that you will try, fruitlessly, to fend off with bug dope. Toxic crap that could melt plastic, and that you will sweat into your eyes and curse and come to dislike almost as much as the critters it is intended to repel.