I’m missing Germany again.  Not only did a former neighbor and Facebook friend upload photos of her recent trip to Munich, but I “found” poison ivy in the backyard.  I thought we’d eliminated the plant from the yard last year, but I was wrong.  The poison ivy merely moved from snuggling under the peonies to crouching in the sedum, violets and daylilies under the crabapple.

In our decades in Europe, and while either wandering through the Continental woodlands or Volksmarching, I never once had an allergic reaction to plants.  Not once.  Here in the U.S., it’s a yearly occurrence, despite my vigilance.  Nettles grow in Europe, but they “merely” sting for a while.  They don’t produce this weeks-long weeping rash of hard bumps that, between showers, collect bits of calamine lotion between them because you can’t really scrub the area because it not only itches, it hurts.  Ugh. Ick. Gross.

In looking for any benefit from this yearly happening, I guess it could mean that I shouldn’t weed the parts of the garden with taller plants.  I suppose that could be an up-side to this allergy since no one in the household seems affected but me.  Now to convince the rest of them that I’m “special”  — and get them to care about weeds.