I was over at Fred G. Bond Park, Cary, North Carolina, tonight checking out the evening view and came across a bumper crop of poison ivy.  Oh, how much easier life has become since I learned to identify poison ivy before I stomp through a knee high patch.  We have wonderful conditions for the culture of poison in Wake County.

I just had to snap a few photos, in absolute altruistic service to humanity.  Of course, the stuff morphs into several different formations, vines, bushes, sprawling plants.  So it doesn't all look like the photos.  We try...

This year I killed, I hope, a monster vine in a pine tree in my own back yard.  It goes 40 feet up into the tree.  I whacked the 1" thick stem with an axe, and cut out a 6" section.  And then dumped a good portion of herbicide onto the raw stem.  That 40 foot vine is now a withered brown mass of dried leaves, a mere shadow of its former glossy verdant pestilence.  At least it is this year.  Let's see what 2008 brings.  I'm still afraid of that dead vine!  You wouldn't understand unless you missed three days of work with a really nasty weepy rash.  And to think poison ivy is a member of the cashew family!  And I love cashews!   Hate their family, though...

Recently the Mrs. read me an article that says poison ivy is increasing in toxicity and becoming more aggressive due to increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.  Great.  Just great.  Keep the good news coming Sweetie.