I’ve been able to stop scratching just long enough to ask myself this existential question: Is poison ivy worth the price? Is the beauty of a manicured border worth the agony of a rampaging rash? Poison ivy possesses some sort of native, as opposed to invasive, intelligence, I suppose, calculated to make your life miserable.
Just when I thought I’d found the secret formula to avoiding the scourge, I came down with a killer case of it. Not the worst I’ve ever had – I’ve landed in the emergency room at least once – but not the best either. On a scale of one to 10, one being an errant itchy spot, 10 being enhanced interrogation techniques, this bout registered a 7.5 on the allergic reaction scale.
I’d been able to avoid the affliction this bushwhacking season by strenuously scrubbing my hands, arms and face three times in quick succession after encountering the demon plant; someone recommended it on a YouTube video I chanced upon. This time that remedy failed. That’s the thing about poison ivy. It seems smarter than your average plant. It possesses some sort of native, as opposed to invasive, intelligence I suppose, calculated to make your life miserable.
The plot of land I was preparing for combat boasted four year-old apple trees. After spraying them assiduously with Deer Off since April’s first buds, our resident bucks and does, apparently having grown accustomed to the smell of rotten eggs, last week devoured their leaves and left their branches dangling by a thread. What I’m coming to realize as a new farmer is that heartbreak is an important, perhaps even indispensable, aspect of your education.
Another way of looking at it is that this is our fauna’s home, too, and what do I expect if I’m dumb enough not to surround my saplings with an electrified, barbed-wire fence as well as, perhaps, guard towers with spotlights?
But I suspect the most emotionally healthy way of viewing the situation is to treat my apple trees, as well as the contents of my garden, especially my beloved tomato plants, as a food pantry for the benefit of our resident wildlife.
I was weed-eating the area around the now nearly defunct apple trees because I’d finally succumbed to the notion that to rekindle whatever little life these twigs had left required some sort of barrier. And since the area had become so hideously overgrown since the last time I cut down the weeds and vines about a year ago (and probably contracted poison ivy then, too) I had to clear the underbrush to create some breathing room to install the fence.
By the way, the job still isn’t done. The fencing isn’t up. Between the effort the weed-eating required, the poison ivy that emerged from it, a palliative visit to the big city (where blessed concrete rather than soil is the ground cover) and this week’s heat wave I’m taking a break. I’ve been totally demoralized and wondering what I was thinking planting apples when the neighborhood abounds in commercial pick-your-own orchards?
The other thing about poison ivy is that I’m skeptical about the literature. The experts claim it’s not contagious. But if you can acquire it from your dog’s coat, why not your wife, or vice versa? Can you spread poison ivy by scratching it? Again, the dermatological consensus is no. The rash only occurs where the oil has touched the skin. Yet I was wearing long pants as well as a snug, long-sleeved shirt and it still spread all over my arms and legs. Also, why is it popping up on my back a full week later? It feels systemic.
The Oracle of Delphi allegedly told Socrates that he was the wisest because he realized how little his wisdom was worth. My learned opinion is that medical science doesn’t know squat about poison ivy and that you can contract it any number of ways, including just by thinking about it.
If nothing else, I thought I’d taught myself to recognize it. People have tried to describe it for me but, unless you’re a botanist, it looks as innocuous as any other weed. The only difference is that some of its leaves are notched. But poison ivy still finds ways to baffle your expectations.
I always thought of it as ground-hugging – there’s a carpet of it mere inches from our outdoor shower, adding an element of danger to dropping the soap – but it also grows as a big, leafy vine. That’s probably how I contracted it this time. I ripped the vine barehanded off a tree not realizing what it was until too late. But I didn’t touch my face and immediately washed my hands.
I might have suffered an even worse case of poison ivy if my weed eater hadn’t broken halfway through the process. Or maybe it just shut itself off to thwart my self-destructive tendencies. I took it to the local hardware store to have the equipment repaired and yesterday they called to tell me it was ready. I’m in no rush to pick it up.