In mid-August, 17-year-old Lynette Alvarez and her aunt, Nellie Botello, put on matching camouflage snake guards and steel-toed boots for their work gathering prickly pear cactus fruit. Snake-season is year round in the Arizona desert, and there are baby rattlesnakes in the summer that may not make warning rattles yet. Along with a handful of pickers, they start as early as 4 a.m. to avoid the scorching afternoon heat. By 9 a.m., when they stop, the group will have collected up to two tons of produce for the Tucson-based company…
