I stood motionless in stagnant summer sweat, one arm supporting part of my weight while holding on to the trunk of a crying Bradford pear tree, my feet aching in dusty boots on the cracked dirt doing the rest of the work to keep me standing. Every 90 seconds I would drag the hundred or so feet of garden hose in small increments, from one withering dusty burlap sack to the next in the attempt to keep cultivated specimens of decorative trees from dispensing their last leaf onto the parched ground, sealing their fate in becoming another addition the mass grave of organic material steaming at the end of the lot. It was the summer of 2000 and earlier that spring I had taken a job at a local greenhouse and nursery. Continue reading “The Big Picture: KMC Cross Fest”