By noon, the sun is oppressively intense and you can’t wear much more than your underwear and boots (some go nude). This is dangerous because the blackflies and mosquitoes are so dense, they look like clouds of smoke. The amount of DDT you’d need to keep them off would give you cancer, so, after a base tan, most planters just smother themselves in vegetable oil. The bugs stick to your skin and drown in such high numbers you look like you’re wearing full-body fishnet stockings. If you take a shit, they cover your ass and scrotum and the itching from being bit in such unusual places drives you insane. When you eat a sandwich, it’s half bugs. After a while, you don’t even notice them and will casually eat blackflies off the windscreen if you’re lucky enough to ride in the foreman’s truck (one in three taste like raspberries, the others just taste like potatoes).
