Not everyone is your friend

Due to an intoxicating mixture of laziness, depression, a sense of futility, and a renewed appreciation for and sensitivity to pollinators, I allowed my yard to grow wild over the last few years. The bees, butterflies, moths, dragon flies, fire flies, chipmunks, squirrels, woodchucks, raccoons, black bears, coyotes, red foxes and a wide variety of birds seem to enjoy it. With the re-wilding comes the proliferation of all sorts of plants. Among them are a few very aggressive ones I'd rather not see quite so many of. Briars, tree-strangling bittersweet and , worst of all, poison ivy. 

Poison ivy does well in the shade of other taller plants and shoots its woody vines out across open areas. It's flowering white right now. Beautiful in its way, but it makes me realize that most of this parcel that I colonize has a ground cover of poison ivy. 

Between the ages of 7 and 18, I found myself allergic and highly sensitive to the oils of this plant. I didn't even need to come into direct contact with it. Sometimes several times a year, including during the winter months, I'd find myself with an unbearably itchy, oozing rash everywhere that I had skin - from my scalp down to the soles of my feet. I've had it less severely a few times as an adult too. So, I have a certain amount of antipathy toward that plant. 

One could say that my relationship to plants has changed and deepened significantly during this passed year. I have a growing awareness of our interactions. I am more careful with them. I think about reciprocity - what they give me and how I might give back to them. First, do no harm, right? 

Well. my jungle experiment shows me that without some sort of behavioral management program (limit setting) these aggressive plants will take it as far as they can. How should I respond? Part of me thinks that man should probably just surrender and let the jungle reclaim what we've built. Some other part thinks that I have a right to exist like everything else and that harmony is something that only exists from high above the fray of the every day. In the moment and up close, there is tension and conflict in co-existence. 

Roundup kills poison ivy effectively. It kills everything else too. I don't want to resort to that. Over the last two days I filled a spray bottle with a solution of salt, distilled vinegar, and Dawn dish soap and went to war. Let's see what happens. I have to learn how to communicate more skillfully with that plant.