Poison Ivy? Who's afraid of Poison Ivy?

In search of poison ivy
Originally uploaded by Brite Lights photos.

VALOIS, New York - The admiral wanted a fire pit, and she wanted it overlooking the lake and that led me to one spot, a nearly flat, 10-by-20 ledge with a cliff that drops 60 feet straight down, but it has a beautiful view of Seneca Lake.

The brush had grown up over the years, some it actually small trees, so with an assortment of implements of destruction I attacked it for two days, sawing, hacking and pulling.

And it was just about the time this photo was taken that I realized that all that sawing, hacking and pulling was right in the middle of a patch of poison ivy.

Yup...just like the song...which I have had stuck in my head for several days now.

At that point, there wasn't much to do except saw, hack and pull, hoping that my resistance to that creepy vine was high enough to ward off an attack.

I sit typing right now sans symptoms, extremely lucky that I'm not on massive doses of benadryl and typing by braille.

The area is clear, a fire pit dug and last night we had our first fire-by-lakeside, which almost turned into forest-fire-by-lakeside when the dry wood I had stacked sent sparks 50 feet into the air and the dry tree branches nearby.

That's two bullets I dodged with the fire pit project.

The third - having someone step off the cliff and drop to the rocks below in the dark - I plan to handle by building a railing, after I clear just a little more brush to set the posts.

You guessed it...

The area where the posts need to go is covered with poison ivy, too.

But who's afraid of a little Poison Ivy?