The author spent ten years working in the woods of the Pacific Northwest as a tree planter. The book follows this career, from the first shock of seeing a clear cut up close, to the last, deterioration into injury and disillusionment. The author worked with two different crews during this time, crews that had entirely different approaches to the work, but who shared a commitment to anarchist principles of self-organization. Confrontation between the rapacious nature of industrial forestry and the wild spirit of the workers led to a persistent atmosphere of the absurd. Sometimes hilarious, sometimes tragic, this is a hidden tale of labor in the trenches of the American economy.