We had a wonderful mother's day here in Oklahoma. Had a cool, sunny day with just a bit of a breeze - Perfect! Went out for breakfast - Wonderful! Went home and relaxed in the back yard for a while - also Wonderful.
As my son Mat (19) was leaving for work, a bit later, he and I picked some mulberries off the trees in our yard (Yum! Another post). We began talking about some of the different plantings around the trees, most of which I had planted and knew a species. Mat pointed at one particular green, leafy vine and asked, "What's that?". I reached up and tugged on it and replied, "I have no idea, I didn't plant this". We proceeded to pull it up as it was getting into a clematis under the trees. Good son that he is, Mat did most of the tugging and we got it out alright. Thanks Mat!
I knew about 2:00am (14 hours later) something was going on with one of my eyes, tried to sleep. At 6:00am when Mat stumbled into the kitchen, with both of his eyes swollen...well, we knew it was not good.
Retracing what we had done the day before....and a quick search on the internet...I'm embarrassed to say that after 50+ years of living, I did not know what poison sumac looked like in the spring. I knew, as most folks in Oklahoma do, the red leafy vine seen along the road, in the fall, is poison sumac. I just had no idea this stray green vine could be so much trouble.
We have been to the doctor twice, the pharmacy, and several other places where people have commented, "There's a lot of that going around this year". I guess that's a pitfall of the wonderfully mild winter we had this past year. As you can see in the photo I have a potted plant nestled, in the shade, next to the fence. All that green leafy stuff around the pot, that's poison sumac. Beware, it's no fun!
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