Maybe knitting tonight

Or maybe embroidery. Or maybe finish the Mabel Pines doll.

Monday and Wednesday nights I had meetings. Also, Wednesday evening was lost for another reason: my hands swelled up.

Tuesday I mowed the lawn. And then, looking over where the brushpile used to be, I realized there were all kinds of weeds that had invaded - most of them something in the carrot family that I am now pretty convinced is poison hemlock*. I wasn't thinking that before because I was remembering poison hemlock as being typical of wet areas (that's actually water hemlock, though, and anyway, we had a wet spring). But looking up in my references, the leaves are closest to that among things that could be found in my state.

Anyway, I pulled tons of it up. With my bare hands. For me,. pulling anything in the Apiaceae (carrot family) is not a good idea given my sensitivity to things like carrots or celery). Also, some things in the carrot family just cause problems - there's something commonly known as poison parsnip where, if you get the juice on your skin and then expose it to UV light (sunlight), you get big ugly water blisters. (I still have a scar on one hand from when I did fieldwork back in grad school and got exposed to the stuff).

But not thinking - or rather, thinking more about wanting to avoid a nastygram from the town over "weeds," I pulled it out barehanded.

Late in the evening, I thought, "Why are my hands itchy?" I tried putting aloe on them - that often stops hives and the like - but I still caught myself scratching them periodically. Which is bad, because that leads to more histamine production, more swelling, and more itching.....by Wednesday morning, I couldn't get my ring on, couldn't make a fist all the way with my right hand.

And no, I didn't go to the doctor; I had learned if I waited it out in 24-48 hours it was gone. And it is, now. (All my doctor would do would be to want me to get a steroid shot, which I'd rather avoid. I'll take one if I'm ever miserable enough I'm not sleeping or am in danger of not being able to breathe, but for mere discomfort, no.)

Next time (and there will be a next time, this stuff is awfully prolific), I'm gloving up. (And mowing or brushhogging it is a bad idea - if you pull it out by the roots, it's gone, but if you just break the stem not only do you get exposed to the toxic sap but you also just allow it to resprout)

(*Yes, the stuff that allegedly was used to kill Socrates. It's toxic if you eat it, and actually, the sap can be toxic if it's absorbed into the skin, but I was mostly dealing with unbroken stems - the ground is still wet enough I can pull the whole big rosette out of the ground, best way to get rid of it.)

But yeah. My biggest frustration with living in the south is the sheer volume of weeds that will overtake any open area. I now see why some people put gravel down anywhere they don't have plants. I'm not quite there yet, but I'm getting there.