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There are two kinds of blackberries (at least) growing along the Arroyo Seco Canyon trail (that sounds so heavy-duty and hiking-boots grand, doesn't it? But it's an asphalt path along the edge of a city park), One of them is ripe right now. So when I take the dogs down the trail I collect berries, usually getting a good handful each time. That's my fresh fruit -- I feel guilty bujying anything when I haven't finished off the pears and peaches I canned last summer (I did finish off the plums). This summer, I think I'm, drying more of the fruit if I get similar windfalls to last summer.
The sides of the trail are completely lined with these berries, and poison oak, and there's a patch of native honeysuckle. Native honeysuckle is smaller than the thug kind, and has a purplish flower that grows in clusters. It's lacking the heavy fragrance, but it has the sweet nectar: a smaller drop, to be sure. Also it doesn't have the thug growth habit: instead of sprawling all over and choking out everything in its path, it grows gracilely up through the underbrush and sends a few slender waving branches into the air.
I've always been immune to poison oak. When I was a little kid I was horrible about it. I would cart around the leaves and show them to people to harrass them. I didn't realize then that poison oak rash can be really serious for people. Then I also learned that immunity can sometimes go away without warning, so it became clear that it was not a good idea to test that. So I avoid poison oak like other people, except that I don't worry about it when I do. I don't want to find out the hard way that I'm nt immune any more, and I don't want to be spreading the oils anywhere where people might have to touch them.
So I'm pickign these berries and keeping an eye out for the poison oak, which is really lush and beautiful at this time of year, with big, tender leaves and goregous sprays of yellowish-green berries. And then I notice a soft touch at my elbow, which is uncovered because I wasn't thinking about how I'd be picking berries and should wear long sleeves to protect against the thorns. The soft touch is a big fat beuatiful tender poison oak leaf. I'm disappointed that I've failed to notice it before. All the way back up the trail my elbow itches, in that phantom way that your head itches when people are talking about lice.
That was yesterday. I don't have any rash today, though.
On another note, Emma still has a nasty black eye from getting head-butt by a big dog on Thursday. The hospital visit cost, with discount for paying up front, two and a half times as much as the one in Prague. And I'm not sure that the doctor's fee isn't separate . . .
The sides of the trail are completely lined with these berries, and poison oak, and there's a patch of native honeysuckle. Native honeysuckle is smaller than the thug kind, and has a purplish flower that grows in clusters. It's lacking the heavy fragrance, but it has the sweet nectar: a smaller drop, to be sure. Also it doesn't have the thug growth habit: instead of sprawling all over and choking out everything in its path, it grows gracilely up through the underbrush and sends a few slender waving branches into the air.
I've always been immune to poison oak. When I was a little kid I was horrible about it. I would cart around the leaves and show them to people to harrass them. I didn't realize then that poison oak rash can be really serious for people. Then I also learned that immunity can sometimes go away without warning, so it became clear that it was not a good idea to test that. So I avoid poison oak like other people, except that I don't worry about it when I do. I don't want to find out the hard way that I'm nt immune any more, and I don't want to be spreading the oils anywhere where people might have to touch them.
So I'm pickign these berries and keeping an eye out for the poison oak, which is really lush and beautiful at this time of year, with big, tender leaves and goregous sprays of yellowish-green berries. And then I notice a soft touch at my elbow, which is uncovered because I wasn't thinking about how I'd be picking berries and should wear long sleeves to protect against the thorns. The soft touch is a big fat beuatiful tender poison oak leaf. I'm disappointed that I've failed to notice it before. All the way back up the trail my elbow itches, in that phantom way that your head itches when people are talking about lice.
That was yesterday. I don't have any rash today, though.
On another note, Emma still has a nasty black eye from getting head-butt by a big dog on Thursday. The hospital visit cost, with discount for paying up front, two and a half times as much as the one in Prague. And I'm not sure that the doctor's fee isn't separate . . .
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The inherent character of a pit bull is eagerness to please, high energy, intelligence, and endurance. The aggressiveness we think of as being a pit bull characteristic is secondary to a more general personality set, which can be molded either towards or away from aggression.
They do go all out to give you exactly what you tell them you want. If you raise a pit bull the way you raise a pet dog, you get a pet. If you raise a pit bull to be aggressive, you get a very aggressive dog.
But no, the head butt is not bad: the cuts are supeficial and didn't need stitches, the bones of her face are not broken, the black eye will fade.
Funny you should mention pit bulls, because the dog was a pit bull, and Emma suppressed that information because of pit bull prejudice. It wasn't relevant to the incident at all. Any big dog would have done the same damage, leaping up in surprise like that.
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