Tucked into the forests of Mendocino County, accessible by a two-lane road that winds through hills of golden grass abundant with rattlesnakes is the small town of Covelo, where hundreds of seasonal workers converge every year, eager to help harvest the region’s most lucrative cash crop — marijuana.

These workers, known as “trimmigrants,” patiently cut off the shaggy leaves and brittle stems of marijuana buds, trimming each one into a compact green nugget primed for bongs and brownies.

“Some people don’t even know that a bud has to get trimmed up,” said Allen Kuehl, 27, as he sat snipping away at a pile of marijuana buds one recent morning. “Maybe they think there’s some perfect bush out there, but you’ve got to work at it. Buyers want single gram nugs that look like they could be poured out of a cereal box.”

Trimming weed is a tedious daily grind, requiring hours of manual labor. Once beautified, the buds are bound for California’s legal dispensaries, or smuggled to illicit markets as far away as the East Coast. [Read more at The New York Times]