No good deed ever goes unpunished!!! - Part II 😜

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Hi Friends!

Those »Ferengi Rules of Acquisitions« are so true, especially rule #285…

My last good deed was rewarded with a broken foot, since then i am a Titanium strengthened cyborg and i still have not learned the lesson‼ Two weekends ago i performed another good deed for the Duckies:
It has been hot and much too dry here in Big Chimney, West Virginia! That Sunday the mercury climbed to over 35°C (95F) without even a hint of a breeze. It felt like being in an oven outside and the Duckies were hunkering down in whatever shade they could find, panting with their tongues hanging out of the side of their bills.
The duck-pool had sprung a leak and wouldn't hold water, so i decided to install a large sun-sail between the humon-house and the duck-house so that the bowls of water i was filling up multiple times a day, would in the shade.
Three corners of the sail were easy to attach: Two went to the posts of our screened-in porch, one was attached to a post of my work-platform, yes and the last one was a more difficult:
It had to be attached to one of the pine-trees, so i grabbed the ladder, climbed up and hugged that tree at a height of ~3m (10ft) to loop the rope around it. Little did i cared about that green vine, winding up the tree on one side, i was in full hugging mode and hugged that vine too.

☠ BIG MISTAKE!!! ☠​

The sail went up without problems, at first the ducks were afraid of that big evil thing in the sky, obviously just waiting to snag an unsuspecting, or careless duck and swallow it whole… - A few bites of cat-food later all ducks were enjoying the water bowls and the shade. And the humon (me) went on with his outside-duties for the rest of the day.

It started on Monday morning: My upper right arm started to itch and without any thoughts i scratched. The itch got worse and i scratched more. The itch got even more worse and i developed a reddish/orange rash on my arm. Later that day my chest started to itch, in the evening the whole right side of my body was one itching uncomfortable mess and i developed chills. On Tuesday i went to the doctor, thinking i have an allergic reaction to something i drank or ate and was told just two words: »Poison Ivy«
When i hugged that vine, some of the resin must have gotten on my upper arm and due to profoundly sweating on that day i literally spreaded it all over my right upper body, about ¼ of my skin was affected.

I can hear y'all laughing already, but believe me it was not funny at all!!!

Yes we Europeans all have heart »poison ivy« in countless Hollywood-films, TV-shows and jokes, but we don't know how sneaky and mean that stuff is!
We all think about it as another kind of stinging nettle, you touch it, you get stung, have a reaction immediately, realize what has happened, act immediately.
I did not know that so much time will pass between touching a poison ivy plant and having the reaction!

And what a reaction that was: Even after multiple cortisone injections, lidocaine spray and cream, applying cortisone creams i was tempted to use a wire-brush to remove the skin on the entire right half of my body.
I was unable to sleep!
I filed my fingernails dull to prevent me from scratching myself bloody!
I was about to go insane!
The only relief for short durations was a Muscle Rub gel, containing Menthol, relieving the itch for a short time by cooling the skin.
That were ten days of pure HORROR!
Most of the time i just tried to sleep, using sleeping pills.

I'm still itching, but it is bearable.

That poison ivy plant was sentenced to death, but i have not decided yet how to execute the sentence. Dynamite is not an option, i need that tree for the sun-sail and the tree's innocent. Maybe a Magnifying glass, slowly roasting it from the top leaves to the roots…

Btw: Is poison ivy dangerous for Ducks?

 

[NuggetTheChicken]

A couple of goats will fix that problem up right away

 

[K0k0shka]

From a fellow European - I feel your pain! Quite literally, I have felt that pain multiple times. I have developed a fear of nature. And my (American) husband just laughs, and says European nature is for babies

A targeted spray of Roundup (mixed in a spray bottle) to the leaves will kill the monster and spare the tree.

 

[susan6sw]

Oh, sorry - so sorry for your trouble. Whatever you do don't burn it , green or dry - do not inhale. If it makes you feel any better here is a story from my Army days. I am in a mental health unit, and at the time a Reserve one; they sent my 45 people to set up a camp in an area that was covered with weeds 3-4 feet high. So my First Sergeant and I rather than do a full walkabout, drove around over the area about 10 times (whee) to make a road through it and a friend of one of the Sergeants talked an engineer into scraping and clearing enough area to be able to pitch 4 medium tents (8x20). We brought the other soldiers, moved in to start work. We had to walk 1/4 mile to use a latrine (the combat arms people were messing with us) and the temperature in Minnesota was 95-100 degrees in the shade so we didn't do much work and everybody being adults, didn't watch what anybody was doing closely. During the night, a male and female soldier snuck off into a relatively cleared area to surreptitiously have sex without anybody even knowing they were an item. They came back COVERED in poison ivy oil front and back. I mean full front and back too. Hope you're feeling better soon.

 

[Isaac 0]

I pull poison ivy in the Garden regularly with my bare hands (No problems) I get a slight itchy feeling a few hours after, but it subsides fairly quickly. It is Poison Ivy too, I'm not mistaken. I use to get into it a LOT as a kid so maybe that has something to do it with it.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

A couple of goats will fix that problem up right away

Goats eat that?
I have seen my ducks shaking their heads violently after nibbling at that stuff, then running to the water and rinsing their bills.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

From a fellow European - I feel your pain! Quite literally, I have felt that pain multiple times. I have developed a fear of nature. And my (American) husband just laughs, and says European nature is for babies

A targeted spray of Roundup (mixed in a spray bottle) to the leaves will kill the monster and spare the tree.

Your husband is right! - Compared to what you find here, nature in Europe is child's stuff:

• Many kinds of poisonous snakes, with rattlesnakes being my personal worst. Never got bitten, but came close to it several times while i lived in Texas
• Cougars, Coyotes, Wolfes, Brown-, Black and Grizzly bears who all would not hesitate to eat you alive
• Dangerous insects like scorpions and (my personal enemy #1) fire ants. I still have the scars from them on my legs after 12 years.
• Poisonous plants like ivy, oak, sumach and whatever else i don't know (yet)

There is nothing like that in Europe, just one mildly poisonous snake and plants are only dangerous when eaten. Well the Wolf is coming back from the east…

As said, i knew about poison ivy, but not the details. There is an article called »Urushiol-induced contact dermatitis« to which is linked from the article about Poison Ivy and only there one can find a hint about the delayed development of the rash and the itch, see 2. Cause: »For people who have never been exposed or are not yet allergic to urushiol, it may take 10 to 21 days for a reaction to occur the first time.« - Well i certainly have not been exposed before and i do hope that there won't be another reaction next weekend, when i hit the 21 day mark…

It was too wet here this week to destroy the plant, but this weekend... The spray-bottle with Glyphosate is waiting in my shed. I bought the really evil stuff from Monsanto! I will fence off the area to [protect the duckies and then have my satisfaction!

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Oh, sorry - so sorry for your trouble. Whatever you do don't burn it , green or dry - do not inhale. If it makes you feel any better here is a story from my Army days. I am in a mental health unit, and at the time a Reserve one; they sent my 45 people to set up a camp in an area that was covered with weeds 3-4 feet high. So my First Sergeant and I rather than do a full walkabout, drove around over the area about 10 times (whee) to make a road through it and a friend of one of the Sergeants talked an engineer into scraping and clearing enough area to be able to pitch 4 medium tents (8x20). We brought the other soldiers, moved in to start work. We had to walk 1/4 mile to use a latrine (the combat arms people were messing with us) and the temperature in Minnesota was 95-100 degrees in the shade so we didn't do much work and everybody being adults, didn't watch what anybody was doing closely. During the night, a male and female soldier snuck off into a relatively cleared area to have sex without anybody even knowing they were an item. They came back COVERED in poison ivy oil front and back. I mean full front and back too. Hope you're feeling better soon.

Thank you very much for the warning - i already had the gas torch in my hands! Fortunately it was too wet here this week and in the meantime i read about the effects of inhaling Urushiol. Did not know that this stuff is so dangerous!

O M G !!! - Being fully covered in that stuff must have been hell on earth. Added to the fact that everybody in the camp knew exactly what they have done in the woods…
You had to tie them down to prevent them from scratching away their skin, did you?

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I pull poison ivy in the Garden regularly with my bare hands (No problems) I get a slight itchy feeling a few hours after, but it subsides fairly quickly. It is Poison Ivy too, I'm not mistaken. I use to get into it a LOT as a kid so maybe that has something to do it with it.

According to the Wikipedia articles there are some people who are not allergic to Urushiol at all, some individuals have a minor reaction (lucky you!), but most of us scratch themselves until their fingernails become dull…
Also WP claims that the reactions become more severe with age…

 

[K0k0shka]

Your husband is right! - Compared to what you find here, nature in Europe is child's stuff:

• Many kinds of poisonous snakes, with rattlesnakes being my personal worst. Never got bitten, but came close to it several times while i lived in Texas
• Cougars, Coyotes, Wolfes, Brown-, Black and Grizzly bears who all would not hesitate to eat you alive
• Dangerous insects like scorpions and (my personal enemy #1) fire ants. I still have the scars from them on my legs after 12 years.
• Poisonous plants like ivy, oak, sumach and whatever else i don't know (yet)

There is nothing like that in Europe, just one mildly poisonous snake and plants are only dangerous when eaten. Well the Wolf is coming back from the east…

As said, i knew about poison ivy, but not the details. There is an article called »Urushiol-induced contact dermatitis« to which is linked from the article about Poison Ivy and only there one can find a hint about the delayed development of the rash and the itch, see 2. Cause: »For people who have never been exposed or are not yet allergic to urushiol, it may take 10 to 21 days for a reaction to occur the first time.« - Well i certainly have not been exposed before and i do hope that there won't be another reaction next weekend, when i hit the 21 day mark…

It was too wet here this week to destroy the plant, but this weekend... The spray-bottle with Glyphosate is waiting in my shed. I bought the really evil stuff from Monsanto! I will fence off the area to [protect the duckies and then have my satisfaction!

You must not have taken a walk out in nature with any Americans, if you didn't know the details! That's basically the first thing on people's minds the moment they plant their foot off the beaten (paved) path. The gruesome and fearsome details were my husband's way of trying to convince me to just stay on the couch where I'll be safe So I was prepared. It still got me anyway... many times... I still can't reliably identify it to save myself. I either think everything is poison ivy, or nothing is.