Well, unless there's some kind of weird challenge-reaction natural medicine type thing going in, it's not allergies. Because I feel BETTER after being out in the field among all the pollen and mold. Or maybe my immune system just ramped up because of the allergens, and some guy lymphocyte in Sector 7-G finally realized realized, "hey, there's cold virus here" and they started kicking its tail.

Or so I hope.

It was kind of a stressful afternoon's collecting: I was out there all by myself (I don't like doing fieldwork all alone but sometimes there's no choice). And when I got out there, there was a big pickup parked near the area. So I was in Bambi-mode the whole time, looking up and all around me every time a twig snapped, and being totally prepared to run like the wind if I had to. 'Cos you never know if someone's got a Weed patch growing out there, or if someone's poaching, or if there's some other kind of illegal activity going on, and most people who do illegal activity don't like being surprised by college professors out in search of Quercus stellata.

I had my cell phone, but a cell phone's not always going to help. And I had the pole pruner that I was using to get the twigs with, but it's not a terribly effective weapon. It's long and topheavy and unwieldy, and the most I could say about it was "Back off....I can poke you in the 'nads from six feet away!"

But I got the twigs, and got back safe.