The good news is, I can now immeDIately recognize that vile weed, poison ivy. Plus, I’m working hard to learn the characteristics of poison oak and poison sumac, as well.

The bad news is, I have several clusters of poison ivy growing in my back yard and possibly a batch or two of poison oak. And, who knows, perhaps some poison sumac, too!

Actually, I think I had a bit of poison something on the back of my right leg a couple of weeks ago. If so, I “caught” it the day of the storm when I was out trying to shoot The Last Hurrah of this year’s dogwood blooms: I saw a bunch of white flowers on a tree in a small patch of “residential woods,” so I waded into the weeds to get close enough for a decent photo — and then I looked down, just in time to see random growths of poison ivy nearby. I snapped a shot or two and then tiptoed out, hoping I’d avoided any contact … and I believe I did, mostly.

Then, of course, along came The Day of the Ticks, and ever since then I’ve been too busy scratching various tick bites to notice any previous skin irritations!