Everyone who lives in the northeast learns the little rhyme, “Leaves be three, let it be.” Poison ivy, which is increasing in potency, is a vine with clusters of three shiny leaves, and if you have ever encountered its effects, you become very wary.
As a public service announcement, I will tell you that it doesn’t need to have leaves to to cause red swellings and incredible itching. If you are cleaning up brush in the spring before the leaves appear, you can get it even if the vines have no leaves.
The good news is that after a steroid shot and something called a Z-Pack of pills, it goes away. Or at least I hope so.
I've had problems with poison ivy all my life. The first time I went to Boy Scout summer camp I got a bad case. I got it every year except when I was 16 and we went to Camp Rodney I Delaware. Since I was working all my Scout lifeguard I spent almost a whole trip in the pool or on the bay. I didn't get it that year.
ReplyDeleteWhen I bought my first house we cleared a section of the yard of scrub trees and bushes. A landscaper did that and took the debris away. We bought forsythia and I dug three holes to plant it. The urisol was in the roots. Really bad case on my hands.
Definitely nasty stuff.
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