There really is no such thing as a free lunch, and I knew that when I traded in my safe, geeky career in medical research for the life of a small farmer, I would eventually find a downside to my newly chosen work.
Now, I’ve met a lot of farmers in recent years, and I must say that as a group, their one defining characteristic is that none of them are wimps. I certainly wasn’t going to be the first. Still, as someone who took up farming in mid-life, it was a bit of an eye-opener to come to terms with my physical limitations. It had always been much easier to focus on my strengths. Thanks to my late daddy’s good genes, I’m sturdy as a carnival pony and have about as much endurance. I can lift and carry half my own weight in hay bales and topsoil, and am generally unfazed by working in the whole spectrum of weather conditions.
There really is no such thing as a free lunch, and I knew that when I traded in my safe, geeky career in medical research for the life of a small farmer, I would eventually find a downside to my newly chosen work.
Now, I’ve met a lot of farmers in recent years, and I must say that as a group, their one defining characteristic is that none of them are wimps. I certainly wasn’t going to be the first. Still, as someone who took up farming in mid-life, it was a bit of an eye-opener to come to terms with my physical limitations. It had always been much easier to focus on my strengths. Thanks to my late daddy’s good genes, I’m sturdy as a carnival pony and have about as much endurance. I can lift and carry half my own weight in hay bales and topsoil, and am generally unfazed by working in the whole spectrum of weather conditions.
On the other hand, for someone who so loves to work outside, I’m in many ways poorly equipped to do so. I’m a mild asthmatic who’s also allergic to the stings of every member of the bee and wasp clan. I sunburn like a polar bear on an Aruba beach in June. Pollen and other plant allergens make my face look like the losing side of a bar fight. I’m cursed with a body chemistry that’s irresistible to every mosquito, deer fly, and chigger within a country kilometer.
I was a kid with lousy coordination, and therefore spent my early years tripping over my long legs and big feet. Now, I trip over shovels, hoes, and garden hoses instead. Worst of all, any part of me only needs to make a casual acquaintance with a poison ivy plant before I become a medical textbook model of ugly rashes and itchy blisters.
Getting ready to go to work in the garden and field is, therefore, a daily exercise in combat preparation. I keep great supplies of sunscreen and bug repellants on hand. My pockets are always stuffed with tissues so that my runny nose and eyes never need to meet a dirty sleeve. Gloves go on before I even open the garden gate. When heat and humidity rule out boots and long pants, I resort to Ivy Block, which I think of as long pants in a bottle. The stuff smells like house paint that’s sat in the garage too long, but it prevents the poisonous part of the ivy plant’s oils from binding to the skin.
Every time I come back inside, I buy extra insurance by washing arms and legs with TecNu, a gooey detergent famous for removing and denaturing toxic plant oils. I nearly went into full-fledged panic when these two products started to disappear from drug store shelves, but I was saved by Amazon.com, which seems determined to sell everything on the planet.
But even the best precautions sometimes fail, and once the tell-tale rash and blisters of ivy exposure appear, there’s nothing to do but resort to battlefield interventions. Twice-daily scrubbing with soap and a stiff-bristled brush might be painful, but it stops blistering in its tracks and cuts short the agonizing itching. Scrubs are followed by brisk disinfection with rubbing alcohol, and then liberal application of a calamine ointment spiked with a topical antihistamine. If it sounds sort of like decontamination after radiation exposure, it’s close. The good news is that the scars eventually go away.
There’s a rumor on the Internet that someone has developed a poison ivy vaccine, but I’m skeptical. Still, if they ever need a guinea pig, I’m signing up. After years of pouring rubbing alcohol on open wounds, I figure I haven’t got much to lose. 
