Try asking the lawn care crews you see around.

Contact CASA, a temp worker placement agency in MD. The office is on University Blvd near Langley Park, phone (301)421-4177. They answer the phones Mon-Fri 6 AM-noon, but you may be able to make arrangements during the week to rent a bracero through them on a weekend. Warning, they ask $12/hr for anyone who has a "skill" -- which includes speaking any English.

I ask for workers who speak either English or French and who will not object to taking orders from a woman. Over the past five years I have hired CASA yard workers, painters, and people who claimed to know how to build stone walls (they didn't to start with, though they did by day's end, and I called the agency to complain about the misrepresentation). You can negotiate whether workers get paid for transit time (you normally need to get them at the CASA site) and how lunch will be arranged. I normally provide a hot lunch & their soft-drink of choice, but don't pay them for their lunchtime or transit time -- not at those prices!

Just last summer they raised standard rates from $10/hr to the present $12 -- which I suppose is a living wage (CASA does not get a cut) and not bad for vetted workers, though it bugs me to be paying twice minimum wage. But it means I might hire two people now where I would have taken three before.

Lynn