24 March 2009

Every spring M and I spend a weekend working on the massive amounts of brush and vines that are clogging up our property.

So on the first weekend that is nice and warm each spring we go through the same thing. Cussing and getting torn up by vines with thorns, burning whatever we drag out of the woods and getting horrible bouts of poison ivy.

Well about two weeks ago M had one of those “A-HA!” moments. Instead of waiting until the first warm days of spring, why not do it on the first NOT COLD day of spring. Now I’m sure some of y’all are confused by the difference, I was too, until M explained her thinking.

The first NOT COLD day means that we can wear long sleeve shirts to protect our skin from the thorns and poison ivy without getting too hot. Plus if we do it now, the poison ivy won’t have any leaves on it and we won’t have to deal with that either! Thus reducing the chance of spending the next week itching and scratching ourselves silly.

Now this might have worked out pretty well if I had picked the weekend to do this. M picked this past weekend because it was going to be sunny and in the mid 60’s both days. For her this is perfect long sleeve weather and she may still be cold. Me on the other hand, begin sweating at the thought of temps over sixty. To tell the truth, I can, and have, sweated in the midst of a snowstorm.

Well, to make a long story… well, less long, I ended up working in a sleeveless T-shirt and jeans. I have been torn up by thorns and poison ivy once again. I even have a patch on my right arm where I thought I had some oil from the chainsaw on it, but it turned out to be sap from something that likes to eat my skin. It looks like some one burned my skin, it’s all blackened.

The worst part is that I have to finish what we started. I still have piles of vines and brush that need to be burned and I don’t wanna touch that stuff anymore!

Any-hoo, tomorrow is supposed to be cool and a bit rainy so I’ll probably get to work on cutting the stuff into small enough bits to go in the fire pit tomorrow.

I’m going to run into town later today and pick up some Benadryl from CVS so I won’t itch so bad. The stuff I have here at home just isn’t up to the task of battling poison ivy.

Well that’s it. I’ve got an idea for posts if y’all want to play along. I’ll explain in the next post.

 I’m Alive… So Far…