a kiddledivey too, wouldn't you?

I have one little piece of advice for you today.  Keep this one.  It may prove useful to you, you never know.

If you buy goats with the express purpose of putting them out in your woods to eat all the poison ivy, because you wouldn't dare venture into the woods with all the poison ivy that's there,

and you put them out there and they're very successful, as goats will be, because those little guys can eat the stuff with amazing impunity,

Do not believe, no matter what the woods may look like after the goats have been there, that poison ivy is such a pansy plant that it gives up its main objective in life just because goats have happened along and eaten its leaves.  No, no!  Now, you see, it's all out war.  At first the poison ivy played nice, marched up in a row like redcoats, grew all over your woods with lush, easily-identifiable "leaves of three", but now that you've set goats on it, now that you've proclaimed your intentions toward the vile vine, it's guerilla warfare. 

Because the goats eat the leaves readily enough, but leave the brown, unassuming vine sticking straight up from the ground.  Or wound around a nearby tree.  The vine, I assure you, will hurt you just as badly as the leaves.  Worse than this, though, and far more insidious, is the invisibile coating of poison ivy oil that your happy, well-fed goats carry to you on their furry sides, their little faces, their nibbly little mouths...

The mouths that love to search your hands for carrots or half-eaten pancakes, or a pizza crust that you may have brought.  Because you've already made the mistake that will cost you your dignity and your upper layer of skin.  You made friends, pets, out of the animals that are really only intended to eat your enemy.  It's understandable, after all, that once you had an ally, an effective weapon, you would be appreciative, but making pets of them, bringing them treats, letting them rub against your legs...that was a deadly misstep.

Poison ivy oil, by the way, also goes by the name of "urushiol".  "Sheol" is the Hebrew word for "hell".  I leave you to decide, here in a week or so, as you're peeling off another sock encrusted with your own plasma, whether they're etymologically related.

Of course when you go into the house you'll wash your hands.  They're animals, after all, and you have a decent understanding of basic hygiene.  But although you will be unable to believe it, you will know with blistering certainty, in a couple of days, exactly where you touched yourself between the woods and the house.  Because urushiol is invisible.  For now.  

So, from the "don't-do-as-I-have-done" department here at the Mother Bird household, I offer my little bit of advice for today. Don't get too friendly with the goats.  They're cute, they're sweet, but they carry the enemy's biological weapon.  They'll leave you in the house, glaring out, planning your next tactical move, for an oozy, itchy couple of weeks. 

Enjoy your last few days in my woods, poison ivy.  As soon as I can put my boots on again, you're going down. 

~MB~

Comments

[Emily]

I'm itching like a beast now. But I did so love this analogy. You sew your words into the most magnificent quilt with the skills of a master. In my next life, I'll be able to write like this. Forget children's patterns. Write, dang it!