The Enemy - On Harn's YouTube Channel

[Nessie]

I am glad that the only thing I have found here in BC is poison ivy, but it is mostly in the valleys, and not around my bogs. However, I do encounter stinging nettle in some areas in the mountains, as well as in the valleys.

Years ago, when I first started the tentative beginnings of mud-hunting, stuff like thistles and nettles and sawgrass nailed me all the time. I didn't learn how to approach a strange mudpit properly until around 2005, when an experienced mud partner showed me by example that NOT bounding like an excited puppy toward the mudpit through any terrain that one encounters without so much as a glance around one cuts down a great deal on accidents and injuries.

Up until then I exited all outings with a lot of cuts, scrapes, bumps, bruises, welts and bug bites...and not much mud either.

I always coated my legs and feet with thick, gooey clay to help protect them in case I came into contact with poison ivy, which was all over the place.

That is pretty inventive!

We're kind of peat-intensive and clay-rare around here so, I guess, I just need to wear long pants more often, at least until I get to the pit. Although, actually, my heaviest rashes were on my arms! Yup. There were plants there that tall.

Nessie

[Nessie]

Just a small update on the sumac-laden mudpit:

I got a set of small pruning clippers. Too cool out for clips today (well, not really, I could shoot, it's just that I'm sick of wader/wetsuit vids) but the path to the mudpit is much easier to navigate now.

(angry scream)

DIE, YOU VERMIN PLANT! I SHALL CHOP YOU INTO A THOUSAND PIECES! MAY YOUR SAP LINE THE FOREST FLOOR AS BLOOD SPILLS ONTO THE BATTLEFIELD AND YOUR SEVERED BRANCHES DRY BRITTLE LIKE BONES SLOWLY WHITENING IN THE SUMMER SUN!

Nessie

[nachtjaeger]

Oooh, I love it when a woman talks that way!

Why not give 'em a taste of their own medicine? Ortho "Brush-B-Gon" is reputed to be deadly to these tough critters, but is pretty nasty stuff. Glyphosate (the active ingredient in Roundup) is also reputed to be effective, and is probably the least toxic herbicide as far as humans are concerned (don't get it in your eyes, though.) FYI glyphosate-containing products have other nasty stuff in them and are more toxic than straight glyphosate.

I seem to be semi-immune to urushol. The only poison ivy/oak/sumac rash I have ever had was from mowing over a patch with the brush cutter, then falling down on the cut-off ends and getting the stuff injected into my arm. And then I was too exhausted to get a shower before bed, so some urushol got on the sheets also. Given the fact that I only got a very mild rash and a couple of blisters where the stuff was injected, I must be pretty resistant.
BTW, burning the stuff won't help- it makes it more dangerous. A father and son were burning brush containing poison oak, and got into the smoke. The urushol did to the tender inside of their lungs what it does to skin, and the results were, sadly, fatal to both.

Just a small update on the sumac-laden mudpit:

I got a set of small pruning clippers. Too cool out for clips today (well, not really, I could shoot, it's just that I'm sick of wader/wetsuit vids) but the path to the mudpit is much easier to navigate now.

(angry scream)

DIE, YOU VERMIN PLANT! I SHALL CHOP YOU INTO A THOUSAND PIECES! MAY YOUR SAP LINE THE FOREST FLOOR AS BLOOD SPILLS ONTO THE BATTLEFIELD AND YOUR SEVERED BRANCHES DRY BRITTLE LIKE BONES SLOWLY WHITENING IN THE SUMMER SUN!

Nessie

[rgadt]

Nessie, you may not have to worry about them up around your neck of the woods, but a nasty little surprise I found out about here several months ago is mesquite thorns. I was out walking around a wooded area near a local lake in a pair of knee-high walking boots, looking for muddy spots, when I stepped on something that felt like a piece of glass had punctured my foot. I raised my right foot and discovered that a thorn had penetrated the arch of my boot about an inch into my foot. I carefully extracted it and returned to my base to look at my foot. It wasn't bleeding much, so I didn't do much beyond drying my foot and putting shoes and socks back on and returning home. I did the usual soap-and-water and antibiotic ointment thing, and didn't think much more about it for a few days. However, I guess some of the soil around the thorn got into the wound in spite of my cleaning efforts, and it developed a minor infection. I decided to go to our family doctor to let him take a look, and he pronounced it not to be too serious, but worthy of a week or so worth of antibiotics just to be sure. Everything turned out fine, but that's just another one of nature's hazards to look out for.
rgadt

[Nessie]

Oooh, I love it when a woman talks that way!

Okay.

DIE, DEMON WEED! MAY SATAN FEAST ON YOUR VILE BERRIES AS THY FLOWERS WILT IN THE HEAT OF HADES AND THY LEAVES ROT IN THE PITS OF HELL! I SHALL CUT THY LIMBS OFF! YEA, O FOUL REPRESENTATIVE OF FLORA, I SHALL DECAPITATE THEE! AND AMPUTATE THEE! AND CHOP THEE INTO TEENY WEENY PIECES WITH MY LITTLE TINY HAND-HELD CLIPPERS!

SNIP! SNIP! SNIP!

Glyphosate (the active ingredient in Roundup) is also reputed to be effective, and is probably the least toxic herbicide as far as humans are concerned (don't get it in your eyes, though.)

Sounds like a good way to mete out appropriate justice although I'm not sure I'd want the runoff in my mudpit and I also got a feeling that me taking things into my own hands with the pruning shears on public land was nervy enough. Not only did I trim them back on Saturday, but I went back and cleared the way to the BIG mudpit yesterday. Entire bushes expired at the hands of the shears. I dunno if anybody's going to notice this...probably not, I mean, the mudpits are not exactly a well-traveled area of the park, but if they do notice the carnage, they're already gonna think that this is just TOO weird.

I ain't HACKED off at those things, am I? (Ha-ha.)

Given the fact that I only got a very mild rash and a couple of blisters where the stuff was injected, I must be pretty resistant.

Both me and the camera guy can't be too allergic either. I never posted the wetsuit footage that we filmed in the big mudpit immediately before I did the bikini sequence in the smaller pit. (The reason is that I forgot to adjust the focus properly and he didn't know, because you can't see that in the viewfinder, so it's not very good.)

I took down a bush EXACTLY where he was standing and cut back branches that had to have been brushing his ams. Yes, he was wearing shorts and a tank top. If either of us were highly allergic, we'd have landed in the hospital.

BTW, burning the stuff won't help- it makes it more dangerous. A father and son were burning brush containing poison oak, and got into the smoke. The urushol did to the tender inside of their lungs what it does to skin, and the results were, sadly, fatal to both.

Yeah, I read about how dangerous that is. Do not burn it. Just DON'T.

And I was going to say that the demon weed should meet a gruesome demise to burn for eternity, but I'm not sure that even the devils down in Hell deserve this, so instead, let's allow the deceased plant to rot down there naturally, in a cooler, danker area of Pit Of Eternal Punishment.

Nessie

[Nessie]

I was out walking around a wooded area near a local lake in a pair of knee-high walking boots, looking for muddy spots, when I stepped on something that felt like a piece of glass had punctured my foot. I raised my right foot and discovered that a thorn had penetrated the arch of my boot about an inch into my foot.

I'm not sure what's braver...sinking in boots (I don't, because of the problems of my feet getting stuck) or braving the thorns.

I decided to go to our family doctor to let him take a look, and he pronounced it not to be too serious, but worthy of a week or so worth of antibiotics just to be sure. Everything turned out fine, but that's just another one of nature's hazards to look out for.

I am glad you're okay now. We have thistles up here and they're thorny but they won't go through boots.

I wonder if your thorns are as bad as cactuses. On a mud trip to a state that's a lot farther south than I live, that's what I had to look out for.

Teeny, weeny, little baby cactuses hiding in the grass. Not big ones (big cactuses are easy to see!) just little itty bitty ones, maybe just softball-size. But they had big thick thorns. My mud partner said that they WOULD go through my shoes but thankfully, I was very careful not to step on any and I only have his word for that...which is good enough for me.

Nessie

[Billie Bonce]

Huh... I never heard about any of the poisonous plants you mention here, except stinging nettles. I believe they do not grow in my part of the world. However, the nettle grows everywhere and makes great bushes

[Nessie]

Huh... I never heard about any of the poisonous plants you mention here, except stinging nettles. I believe they do not grow in my part of the world. However, the nettle grows everywhere and makes great bushes

No poison ivy? No poison oak? No poison sumac? That would make your country urishiol-free!

You have nice mudpits too. I saw the clips on YouTube.

Seriously, they grow nettles for bushes over there? If you completely surrounded your house with those things, you wouldn't even need to install a burglar alarm. Just listen for screams.

Nessie

[nachtjaeger]

Alas, the Demon Weed also lurks at Studio 588. Happy to say between Fred and the crew, no models were infected. However, the mosquitoes at the Studio seem to really go for Asian food. (Sorry, Nyssa, if you are reading this, but you are very tasty.)

[dougiezerts]

Wow, Nessy, I loved seeing your bare feet in the mud, at the beginning!
Great PSA. They should run this on PBS!