Haven't we all so looked forward to Spring! A few weekends ago, I realized that the pile of old bricks and leaves in the corner of the bulkhead and back addition of the Foster house needed to be moved...or the painters wouldn't even be able to access the lower clapboards and foundation.
It was a beautiful day, warm in the sun, cool in the shade, a gentle breeze. It felt good to be performing some manual labor, moving bricks in a wheelbarrow and pulling vines and raking leaves. I worked diligently until this mindless project was done, and felt pretty good about it. That night I was a little achy, but in that good kind of way.
By noon the next day, my feeling of accomplishment became a feeling of burning and itching as angry welts covered my forearms. The vines I thought were bittersweet? Not so much. Clearly, they were poison ivy vines.....or something of that genus. No telltale leaves, the vines were sort of orange colored and weren't going to let me escape unscathed.
A week or a little better of cortisone cream and nightly Benadryl got me through it but, wow, it was miserable! I remember as a kid being exposed to poison ivy and nary a bubble. What happened?
So gardeners and weekend warriors tackling yard work, beware. A Tyvek suit might come in handy.
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