New Experience!

Category: dribblings

So I’ve had some new experiences this September and I’ll not talk about them because they’re not fun to talk about, but I will tell you about the thing that happened on the last day of September while I was out weeding and trimming and other assorted yard clean-up duties. The yard is a disaster, it’s kept mowed but any kind of “landscaping” is completely accidental. I’m not fond of plants. Take them or leave them. I don’t care.

But there is one plant on the property that I feel beholden to, Anna’s rose bush. The rose bush is on the side of the house, next to the creek and has been here on this earth longer than I have. I think that’s a pretty good run for a plant that’s not a tree. So I try to do right by it, and what that means is three times a year I’ll clean up around it because since it’s close to the creek all these other bush things and vines try to choke it out.

It’s not a fancy rose bush, just one of those shrub rose types. And the damn thing has blooms on it for most of the year, I don’t know how.

So on Friday I was cleaning up the rose bush, fighting the poison ivy, poke weed, strange vine flower devil thing, and since I was close to the water, working on not falling in the creek and watching out for snakes all while keeping an eye on Roxie because I was letting her hang with me outside of the fence. She’s really good about sticking to me. Unless of course a squirrel comes by. Anyway, it was cool out so I figured the snakes would be hiding and/or slowish so I wasn’t too worried about them. My main concern was poison ivy and running across a yellow jackets’ nest (because they live in the ground and they are fierce this time of year.)

I worked for about an hour and half and was having great luck. I was on my last batch of limbs and weeds (in the wheelbarrow) and I noticed that there were three yellow jackets buzzing around the wheelbarrow. I thought, “Cool, that’s my last load. If I can get this to the street without getting stung I’m gold!” and I did. No stings. I’m awesome.

So I put up the wheelbarrow because the only stuff left to clean up could be toted to the road by hand. I’m cleaning up all the bigger stuff and this wad of vines, and I’ve got both hands full, dragging the very last of the junk to the road when I feel this poking pain near my wrist. I figured it was a thorn or stick poking into my skin so I keep walking and kind of shook my hand to move the stick/thorn. I’m still walking to the road and yet, this poking thing is still poking. I’m probably 30 feet from the road when it hits me, “You’re not being poked, dumbass, something is biting you.” So I drop my stuff and sure enough a smallish black spider is busy biting me and filling up my arm with all of his menacing spider ju-ju.

It wasn’t a terrible spider like a black widow or brown recluse, it was just some ass hole yard spider. So don’t think that this is going to lead to pictures of my arm rotting off.

I’ve never, in my life, been bitten by a spider. The bite itself isn’t that painful. Like I said, I thought a thorn was poking me, it wasn’t like a bee or wasp sting. But the hours and days after a spider bite? It is a sight to behold. It looked like a mosquito bite, for the first hour. Oh, and I should mention that as soon as I smooshed the spider I decided I was done with the yard for the day. I went insde and took a shower because I’m no dummy and I know all about poison ivy, that shit is sneaky and it’s best to get clean ASAP.

After my shower I tooled around on the internet for a bit and noticed that the spider bite was getting bigger. Two hours in and alla sudden my arm was swollen and hurting like a son of a bitch. And the itching, my God, the itching. Well, I’m not a total idiot, but I know nothing about spider bites, and I was home alone and thought who do I ask about this? And it hit me, go to work and ask Joanie, she knows everything. She’s seen it all, done it all, knows it all.

So I go to the library and say, “Hey Joanie, I’ve got this thing-”

“That’s a spider bite.”

“I knew you’d know! Now, what do I do about it?”

She’s like an encyclopedia, that woman. She told me what to do, and she told me what would happen to it. It would hurt for days, itch for days, and it would turn into this yellow pimple thing that would probably ooze pus. And she said if it got worse than that to go to the doctor because they’d probably give me an antibiotic. She knows everything! Because all of that totally happened. Except for the doctor part. It’s not bad enough for that.

This is day four and the bite still hurts like a bruise. It’s not leaking so far this morning, but it’s early yet. The swelling is way down. And? It’s not hot to the touch any more. Up until yesterday the bite was huge and red and really swollen and was so hot. Today, it’s much better.

Also, some people at church yesterday suggested I put a salve on it. So I hopped into my time machine and picked some up at the Oleson general store. I don’t know if you’ve ever bought a drawing salve before, but it’s like buying a tiny tin of sticky earwax. Yeah, gross, I know. I kind of hate to admit it, the salve seems to have helped.

So now, for half the day I go around with my wrist bandaged so’s the salve can work. That’s fine, I just wear a sweater or jacket to cover it because I don’t want people thinking I screwed up a suicide or something. The bad thing about wearing sleeves though, is that I have poison ivy on both arms (this is the most poison ivy i’ve ever had at one time) as well, and the sleeves constantly irritate the VERY STUPID ITCHY RASH. I’m going out of my mind with burny, itchy, hurty arms.

So to sum up: Pray for my arms, you guys.

Tags: nature, roxy