Danny D. wrote:
On Thu, 27 Jun 2013 16:44:17 -0500, Natural - Smoking Gun - Girl
wrote:

aaahhh Dark horses are good entertainers!

Naaaah. I ain't no dark horse; I'm just a responsive polite
experienced inquisitive friendly erudite nntp poster who likes to
learn & teach.

I like that too!

--
Natural Girl //(**)\\

Danny D. wrote:
On Thu, 27 Jun 2013 22:20:19 -0500, Natural - Smoking Gun - Girl
wrote:

I was going to try to catch one THAT big?

I've never caught a tarantula - but that story of the spider being
bigger than the jar is interesting!

My penultimate black widow was huge - but - she turned out to be
pregnant!
http://www5.picturepush.com/photo/a/...0/13430013.jpg

ugh ... my worst nightmare ... years ago when my kids were toddlers, a
black widow decided to make it's nest right nest to our front porch steps.
I was scared of it, but more protective of my kids, so I said my short
condolences to the spider with the egg sac and prompted smashed it and its
progeny with a big board!

--
Natural Girl //(**)\\

Danny D. wrote:
On Fri, 28 Jun 2013 07:30:56 -0400, Pat Kiewicz wrote:

Oh, I hope he plans to release them somewhere. What a lovely snake.

All dangerous critters get released into my ravine, which is filled
with poison oak (which I had to tunnel through wrist-thick poison
oak fines with a chain saw, just to get to).
http://www1.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11947484.jpg

The only one who goes down there is me; this picture shows why:
http://www1.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11917454.jpg

We call it the "ravine of death", since there are so many poisonous
creatures and plants living and relocated there ...
http://www5.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11917693.jpg

That must be the ultimate place to take out your frustrations on!

--
Natural Girl //(**)\\

Danny D. wrote:
On Thu, 27 Jun 2013 15:05:59 -0500, Natural - Smoking Gun - Girl
wrote:

Those thorns are crazy!!

That's why I own a lot of very long and thick gloves and why I've
researched which are the best price for the best protection.
(Hint: Welding stores have the best value in wrist-long work gloves.)
http://www2.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11925505.jpg

You may or may not have noticed the black stains all over those
gloves. That's oxidized urushiol. The oil from the poison oak plant.
http://www5.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11917988.jpg

My work clothes are covered in these black splotches because the
oil literally splashes on me when I'm chain sawing tunnels through
the poison oak jungle.
http://www2.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11917950.jpg

Literally a human cannot pass without cutting through or hacking
through. I used to use a machete, but, it was just too tiring.
http://www2.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11925520.jpg

Of course, I've also learned how to deal with avoiding, and
ameliorating the inevitable rash - all of these topics we've
covered in gory pictorial detail in a.h.r in the past year or so
when I came out.
http://www4.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11926557.jpg

hmmm I've never known anyone to tackle poison oak on such a gigantic level
before. I'm not sure I really understand how you manage to not get the
rash, tho.

--
Natural Girl //(**)\\

On Fri, 28 Jun 2013 11:18:02 -0500, Natural - Smoking Gun - Girl wrote:

Naaaah. I ain't no dark horse; I'm just a responsive polite
experienced inquisitive friendly erudite nntp poster who likes to
learn & teach.

I like that too!

It's amazing, but some people think I'm weird, simply because I post pictures
of what I'm doing, and I ask a lot of questions, yet I always answer all the
requests politely, and I even buy a few more things to test them out for the
group (e.g., with the hose nozzles).

They're not used to someone being responsive, and closing the conversation
with the updated results, and, giving updates along the way. They think there
is something sinister about that ...

Oh well - I guess I am a dark horse after all ...

On Fri, 28 Jun 2013 11:22:07 -0500, Natural - Smoking Gun - Girl wrote:

That must be the ultimate place to take out your frustrations on!

Well, it's 500 yards of poison oak jungle! I'm the only one who ever goes
there (I wonder why). It's very peaceful. The birds like me because I hacked
out a trail,and they were right behind me, eating the bugs that I had to
dig out of the steep hillside with my gas cultivator in tow.

Note: Using a cultivator on a steep hillside of poison oak was when I
got the worst case yet. Something about chewing up poison oak vines in
the tines got the stuff on me, no matter how hard I tried to dress for
success.

Here you can see one of the "momma vines" which was about as big as they
get in my ravine, where it's just oozing with enough urushiol sap to
infect every human on earth!
http://www1.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11947484.jpg

On Fri, 28 Jun 2013 11:20:14 -0500, Natural - Smoking Gun - Girl wrote:

I was scared of it, but more protective of my kids

Every mother would do the same to protect her kids.

My kids always knew to scream, and I'd come a' running, to take care
of whatever it was that scared them, whether it be a rattler, gopher
snake, black widow spider, daddy longlegs, or even a bee or horsefly!

On Fri, 28 Jun 2013 08:50:10 -0700, Oren wrote:

Later I noticed that the gloves felt like it had thorns inside.

That's because it did!

On Fri, 28 Jun 2013 11:27:04 -0500, Natural - Smoking Gun - Girl wrote:

hmmm I've never known anyone to tackle poison oak on such a gigantic level
before. I'm not sure I really understand how you manage to not get the
rash, tho.

I tunneled through about 500 feet of poison oak jungle over a period
of a few months.
http://www1.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11917454.jpg

I learned a lot! It's all in the a.h.r threads.
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!to...B1-25-false%5D

Of course, you'll notice I'm covered in a sweatshirt and boots and jeans
and leather gloves. I probably should have worn a hat and a scarf, but
there's only so much you can wear in 70° to 80° weather.
http://www4.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11917872.jpg

If I were a fireman, I could afford (at public expense) the expensive
ivy block creams and the ultra expensive ($40/ounce) Technu creams; but,
since I'm just a regular guy, I get drillers Bentonite clay for free
ivy block, and and I buy 20¢/ounce Dawn liquid detergent as my poor
man's Technu:
http://www5.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11917988.jpg

Of course, the urushiol catechol penetrates the skin within 15 minutes;
but I can't wash up every 15 minutes so after about 2 to 3 hours of
being covered in poison oak bits, I disrobe in the laundry room, wash
everything I have, and take a shower covered from head to toe in Dawn
dish detergent.
http://www4.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11926802.jpg

Detoxifying the camera is an additional step, I incur, for the team,
since poison oak has been known to stay viable for over 100 years:
http://www4.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11926557.jpg

For any spots I've missed, I'll know within a day or two, and for those,
I brew up the concoction that I had posted, which includes tooth paste which
contains silicon dioxide (i.e., very find sand) which scrubs away the skin
around the spot, and then I let the Dawn dish detergent work its magic.

I should buy a pint of spermicide, that would work even better because
the surfactant disrupts cell membranes, and it yanks the oxidized urushiol
(which is a quinone by now) off the cell receptor site.
http://compare.ebay.com/like/1209722...pes& var=sbar

At the risk of saying too much, the quinone attached to Langerhans cells
under my first few layers of skin, is what my body's T-Cells react to
by producing a cytokine storm, which, like a hand grenade, destroys all
the cells in the vicinity of the quinone (hence the blisters from dead
cell cytoplasm, and the itching from dead nerve cells, which get caught
up in the dragnet).

The spermicide is a tiny surfactant, which is small enough to wiggle
into the tight spots, where it wrests the quinone off the Langerhans
cells before the body does too much damage with the cytokine grenades.

Oh oh ... I think I've said too much. Anyway, that's how it works.
Sun Tzu told me (a few thousand years ago) that you must know your
enemy and know yourself - and only then, do you stand a fighting chance
of not getting poison oak too badly after battling all day against this:
http://www5.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11917693.jpg

On Thu, 27 Jun 2013 15:12:04 -0500, Natural - Smoking Gun - Girl wrote:

Nice tools!

Well, I experimented this morning with the weed washer thing:
http://www1.picturepush.com/photo/a/...0/13435889.jpg

It gave mixed results ...

Here you see me begin my attack on a combination of Scotch &
Spanish Broom, which infests acres of my hillsides:
http://www3.picturepush.com/photo/a/...0/13435901.jpg

I start by plunging the double-barreled weed waster directly into
the heart of the noxious weeds, and holding it there for minutes
at a time, as muddy fluids bubbled out and down the hillside:
http://www4.picturepush.com/photo/a/...0/13435907.jpg

The Scotch Broom surrenders as easily as the French in WWII,
after just a few moments of coercion; but the Spanish Broom
stood its ground with the tenacity of Japanese Bushido:
http://www3.picturepush.com/photo/a/...0/13435936.jpg

The problem is that you can't press any deeper than the foot
pedal, so, you can only go about six inches deep:
http://www3.picturepush.com/photo/a/...0/13435916.jpg

So, you can soak, and soak, and soak, but you're only going to
liquify the first foot or so of soil - and nothing much deeper:
http://www2.picturepush.com/photo/a/...0/13435920.jpg

So, I ditched the double-barreled water washer:
http://www3.picturepush.com/photo/a/...0/13435926.jpg

And, brought back my trusty American Made brass hose nozzle:
http://www5.picturepush.com/photo/a/...0/13435928.jpg

I wrapped the Spanish Broom in my hand like a bronco rider:
http://www2.picturepush.com/photo/a/...0/13435930.jpg

And I pulled. And I tugged. And I pulled harder. And tugged harder!
http://www2.picturepush.com/photo/a/...0/13435940.jpg

It wouldn't budge!

Finally, I resorted to *the claw*:
http://www3.picturepush.com/photo/a/...0/13436001.jpg

Exhausted, mud spattered, battered, bruised, the enemy finally
yielded, the wrist-thick root cut off, its dying grip still
holding fast to the soil:
http://www1.picturepush.com/photo/a/...0/13436014.jpg

Having said all that above, the mixed results are that on much
younger and smaller enemies, the water weeder things did work
wonders, making it trivially easy to pull them out by hand:
http://www4.picturepush.com/photo/a/...0/13436017.jpg

On Fri, 28 Jun 2013 15:12:35 +0000, Danny D. wrote:

I like the idea of the water weeder!
http://www5.picturepush.com/photo/a/...0/13430193.png

Just to report back to the team, when I picked on the smaller,
more vulnerable weeds, like the Wild Mustard, and baby Scotch
and infant Spanish Broom, the weed washer method worked rather
well.

These branched Spanish Broom babies came up easily:
http://www5.picturepush.com/photo/a/...0/13436063.jpg

The Spanish Broom infants were almost trivial when wet:
http://www3.picturepush.com/photo/a/...0/13436066.jpg

Some held on for a few seconds, but eventually yielded easily:
http://www3.picturepush.com/photo/a/...0/13436071.jpg

The thick-rooted ones were the worst - but even they fell:
http://www4.picturepush.com/photo/a/...0/13436082.jpg

So, it seems, the water nozzle trick *does work* rather well:
http://www5.picturepush.com/photo/a/...0/13436083.jpg

As long as we pick on weeds with taproots of only a foot or two:
http://www1.picturepush.com/photo/a/...0/13436084.jpg

On 6/28/2013 11:32 PM, Danny D. wrote:
On Fri, 28 Jun 2013 11:18:02 -0500, Natural - Smoking Gun - Girl
wrote:

Naaaah. I ain't no dark horse; I'm just a responsive polite
experienced inquisitive friendly erudite nntp poster who likes
to learn & teach.

I like that too!

It's amazing, but some people think I'm weird, simply because I post
pictures of what I'm doing, and I ask a lot of questions, yet I
always answer all the requests politely, and I even buy a few more
things to test them out for the group (e.g., with the hose nozzles).

They're not used to someone being responsive, and closing the
conversation with the updated results, and, giving updates along the
way. They think there is something sinister about that ...

Oh well - I guess I am a dark horse after all ...


Not at all Danny, I think it's great that you post links to pictures of
what you're writing about. You're not forcing anybody to look at your
pictures and anyone who chastises you for posting links to pictures is
an idiot. I have pictures of the kind of work I do and have posted a
link here to some of them in the past. Since me and JH do contract labor
for a national service company, I have to take pictures of the repairs
and installations we do all the time then upload them to the company's
website. I also must label the pictures with the work order number, job
name and the date. Keep on posting links to your pictures Danny, it does
help me learn about what your problems are and the solutions that you
come up with. ^_^

TDD

On Sat, 29 Jun 2013 04:32:27 +0000 (UTC), "Danny D."
wrote:

It's amazing, but some people think I'm weird, simply because I post pictures
of what I'm doing, and I ask a lot of questions, yet I always answer all the
requests politely, and I even buy a few more things to test them out for the
group (e.g., with the hose nozzles).

They're not used to someone being responsive, and closing the conversation
with the updated results, and, giving updates along the way. They think there
is something sinister about that ...

Relax Danny. I enjoy your threads and photos. I've learned a few
things from them and enjoy the banter. Keep doing what you do.

'course sometimes I will poke you a bit for fun, but nothing personal.

On Thu, 27 Jun 2013 15:05:59 -0500, Natural - Smoking Gun - Girl wrote:

I've seen something similar to those growing on
the side of the highway

Funny thing happened today when I opened the green garden recycling
bin. All the nascent flowers had erupted into seeds!
http://image.bayimg.com/854d9f9f82de...20bf7c98e2.jpg

Now I know why they said you have to collect the heads - as the
Bull Thistle spends all its remaining energy making sure the seeds
survive:
http://image.bayimg.com/d966555a10e5...c92347c4f1.jpg

And, I can see why they said the plant only spreads a few feet, as
the seed itself extremely easily falls off the downy parachute:
http://image.bayimg.com/50a9de66c000...93d0af524e.jpg

Danny D. said:


On Fri, 28 Jun 2013 07:30:56 -0400, Pat Kiewicz wrote:

Oh, I hope he plans to release them somewhere. What a lovely snake.

All dangerous critters get released into my ravine, which is filled
with poison oak (which I had to tunnel through wrist-thick poison
oak fines with a chain saw, just to get to).
http://www1.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11947484.jpg

My brother would freak just thinking about such giant poison oak plants.
As a kid, he spent much of one summer indoors due to an extreme reaction
(that required medical intervention and injections). He can get a rash
just walking by a patch. As the older sib I had to learn to identify poison
ivy and point it out. All these years later, it's still automatic for me to ID
poison ivy, oak, or sumac to anyone nearby. I am amazingly good at
spotting it.

Oh, an good on you for relocating rather than eliminating the snakes and
such. Though I don't think I'd be as kind to the black widows. I only
rescue jumping spiders. I sometimes rescue the crab spiders that come in
on flowers. The rest get squished.

--
Pat in Plymouth MI

"Yes, swooping is bad."

email valid but not regularly monitored