These little neighborhood walks I’ve been doing are having a sort of impact I hadn’t suspected. Because I have more time to check out each flower, bush and weed I stroll by, I end up testing my knowledge of local wildflower names. It brings me back to a high school Biology class project where we were to collect umpteen various wildflowers, dry and press, and glue to a page with latin and common name neatly written. I really enjoyed the project and took great pride in being able to ID random flora. Apparently, that part of me is still in there. So much so that it bothered me to not remember so many and ended up spending some time the other night researching North Carolina wildflowers on the internet. This, so I can say for sure that yes, that’s hop clover, this is chickweed and those are dwarf irises. I’m also having images of me imparting little Remy all this wonderful knowlege in a few years. I’m just going to have to break down and buy a full-fledged wildflower book sooner or later.
When it comes to local plantlife, it’s more than the wildflowers flourishing with the spring weather and decent rainfall. The real winner in the battle to proliferate is a 3-leafed climber generally referred to as poison ivy. The stuff is everywhere. This doesn’t bother me too much, personally, because although just about everything else in the world seems to make me itch, scratch or otherwise display a form of allergic response, I’ve had much luck in the poison ivy arena. Not so for Gary, and this is my concern. The last time he tousled with the weed, he ended up with a nasty systemic response that left him so swollen his eyes were little slits. I was ready to force him to the doctor if he wasn’t ready to submit himself to medication. It took a six day course of prednisone to let his body get the edge against the evil weed. It was super ugly. We don’t want a recurrence of that scenario.
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