Poison ivy. It’s my bane, my scourge, the melter of my skin. And now? I will add a breaker of my bones to the list of frown-inducing encounters that I’ve had with this pesky climate change lover.
You may have noticed that I’ve been somewhat quiet lately — that’s because I fractured my wrist about 7 weeks ago. I was cleaning up that last large bed next to the house when I had a pivotal argument with a vine of poison ivy. It quickly escalated into a tug o’ war worthy of filming (though, to my knowledge, my pride escaped being caught so compromised)
To be fair, I admit to having muttered aloud hateful things for a good three hours as I pulled all the offspring of this evil mother plant. I told each and every morsel that it was mean and horrid and unworthy. Definitely one for the karma books that the tug o’ war ended in point ivy.
After ignoring the little voice suggesting that I’d done enough for the day, I decided “one more vine.” After all, I was already protectively clothed and so close to being finished that I might as well just do it.
We seemed evenly matched, that vine and I. I tugged, it held strong. This continued for several minutes. I strengthened my tugging, it continued to hold. Then all of a sudden, quick as you please with no warning whatsoever… bam. It broke and I tumbled backward on a slight downslope, all of my body weight and quite a bit of momentum onto my left wrist. A loud crack followed by a small snap then my “Aw, man!”