Sacrificial Living

This year I thought I might try a small pumpkin patch.  There is an area in a back corner of our yard that looked like it might do nicely.  The only problem was that it was overgrown with poison ivy.

I thought about spraying all the new growth with Round Up (a weed killer).  But I really do hate to use that stuff if I don’t have too.   While I do not consider myself and ecological alarmist, I do find the amount of pollutants that are making it into our ground water disconcerting.

So I figured I’d just live dangerously and dig it all out.  I wore gloves, a long sleeved shirt, and long pants.  When I was done, I immediately took a very long shower in cold water where I scrubbed down three different times with three different bars of soap.  And then I waited. 

The first night my hands really itched, but there were no bumps and I thought it was all probably in my head.  It wasn’t.  Despite my precautions, my hands and wrists are now pretty much covered in a dense rash that my younger daughter says looks “really gross.”  I guess the oil from the plants just went through my gloves?   How did it get in between ALL my fingers?

Oh well.  I guess that is the price of being environmentally conscious.   Stay tuned for whether the pumpkins grow anywhere near as well as the poison ivy!

Comments

[Alex D]

You probably already have some, but we have great poison ivy cream that really will dry the rash out if you would like.

[Kris]

This calls for a picture please.

[jan]

Did you wear gloves to remove your clothes? If you touched your clothes with your bare hands, that's probably how you got it (and the water of the shower helped spread it around, you're lucky you didn't get it anywhere else, um, *sensitive*). The toxin in poison ivy, poison oak and poison sumac is an oil called urushiol. It is a little soluble in alcohol, so next time you can rinse your hands with rubbing alcohol immediately after contact to reduce symptoms (also mineral spirits/gasoline/kerosene/lighter fluid etc but not if you have really sensitive skin). Also a paste of vinegar and baking soda pulls out toxins like this (you can also try baking soda/water, or borax/water).