best questions from the public

[newforest]

got this one about 6 weeks back - "are you all homeless?"

[aaron]

You only get payed 12 cents a tree? even i get 10$ an hour..

[doogiski]

Person: What do you do for work?
Me: I'm a treeplanter
Person: So... you plant trees?
Me: Yes... *facepalm*

[L'Amour]

"Someone said that there was a school bus full of hippies, so I came to check it out. Who are you guys?"

[jess]

(while grocery shopping in Kelowna)

random woman: You must have a big family
me: i cook for treeplanters
r.w.: Ah yes, i understand how that is. I have three kids - - TWO are in college.
me: blank stare, mental facepalm..."uh huh, ok". Walk away. Pile 32 loaves of bread on my cart.

[Scooter]

"Someone said that there was a school bus full of hippies, so I came to check it out. Who are you guys?"

I've been thinking increasingly in the past few days that I wish this message board had a "like" button, like Facebook.

[Mike]

"Oh, you plant trees. So how many a day? Like, 50?"
(The person inevitably picturing like, 3-4 year sapplings being planted out of the backs of trucks.)

[zilla]

I like the inevitable reply of "oh wow, thats really good of you!"

Like were trying to save the planet and not make money.

[newforest]

me: i cook for treeplanters
r.w.: Ah yes, i understand how that is. I have three kids

maybe random woman knew exactly what she meant





got this standard chestnut the other day:

are you all volunteers?

(I actually somewhat compete with volunteers quite frequently).

[zaclevac]

Along the lines of the last comment "Do you get paid to do that?" has come out a lot

[r0ckMachine]

it must hurt your back!?

[mel_eff]

My personal favorite I've heard so far, when saying what I do in the spring and summer:

"That's kinda dumb, isn't it now?"

[newforest]

I like the inevitable reply of "oh wow, thats really good of you!"

Like were trying to save the planet and not make money.

I sometimes like to answer this one with "well I'd rather cut them down, that usually pays better."

[plantergirl]

"Oh, you're out in the woods all day. Where do you pee?"

I've gotten this one quite a lot. I think because I'm a girl.

[landhammerer]

"Tree planting, wow, sounds exciting, but don't they have machines these days to plant them"

[newforest]

my all-time favorite:

"How did you get a body like that?"

[newforest]

got a memorable one the other day. kind of in a milk-comes-from-the-store, right? vein, but also a bit existential:

"Why do they want you to plant trees out there if they are just going to cut them down again?"

[ohsnap]

got this one yesterday, i was speechless....

"You must love working with all those men!"

???

[newforest]

the comments from the public are always interesting, not just the questions

today I heard what could be the all-time #1 comment - "now that is some hard work" (from a Tree Improvement Forester, even)

I generally answer "Huh, I always thought it was easy."