Cutting Tobacco

This morning after Linda left, Stacey and I took a ride in the Mule. We headed across the road planning on going back in the 'holler', but I noticed that they were cutting tobacco up the road at Phil Garmon's patch. We turned around and drove up there and pulled to the side of the road and watched a little while talking to a few of the guys.
 
It was a little after 8 AM, but they already had two rows cut and stuck on the sticks. Two guys were cutting and two guys were sticking the tobacco. After chatting for a few minutes, Stacey and I continued on our trip back in the 'holler', I noticed a dead tree that had fallen across the trail and told Stacey that we needed to get that out of the way. We came back to the house and Stacey did a few of her chores inside. A little after 11 AM, I went back to the patch and the guys were still cutting, but had made quite a bit of progress since earlier in the morning.
 
Here's where I made a mistake. Phil was working by himself this time, so I decided to help out. I picked up the tobacco knife and asked if it was OK if I chopped and he could stick it. He said, "OK, just don't cut your leg!" I agreed to those terms and started chopping the tobacco and handing it to Phil. He would stick it over the metal cone while I cut another stalk. After about 20 minutes I looked up and said, "These rows are longer than they look!" I worked with Phil almost an hour, till I couldn't take it any longer, and said I'd had enough. I made an excuse that I needed to check on Stacey and walked out of the patch, got on the 4-wheeler and went to the house. They were over half way done with the part they were planning on cutting when I left. I went back and I did check on Stacey, then cooled off with a glass of water. We ate lunch and about 2:30 PM I rode back down to the tobacco patch. The guys were done and gone. They had finished half of the patch, as Phil had planned.
 
Phil pays the guys $8 an hour to work hard from just a little after sunrise to the middle of the afternoon when it's over 90 degrees. This kind of work is NOT for me.