Upon awaking, the sun was shinning. Shinning. I was concerned that I had been transported to the Pacific Northwest these past days, so much rain! And my house is in a pine grove and pine trees can fall over. So the sun was a most welcome sight. There is a theory that highly efficient people do what is most important to them first thing in the morning. Clearly this is what is important to me: 1. A load of wash and hung it outside to dry. There is no smell like the smell of outside-air-dried laundry. 2. Took an IKEA blue bag and gathered a bag full of twigs and small branches for starting the fireplace fires. Note to self: next time after hanging up the washing, put on the garden gloves. But I didn’t. Went inside grabbed the new garden shears and went to work on the errant growing vines and plants. I have never lived so undomesticated as this house is. It sits on the plateau of hill and there is acreage. There is no formal garden, but there is a lovely large lilac bush which i trimmed last year, and see that I will reap the benefit of that soon! For the rest, it is grass and wild growth. I have decided not to try to tame it, but to work with letting grow what like it here. in addition, nearly every evening I see a family of deer and I have no interest in broadening their palate. Last evening as dusk was falling, watched a white-tailed rabbit scamper away from the house. So with trusty tool in hand, I went at it. Pruned the apple tree, as far as I could sans ladder; cut down every growth of whatever it is that has thorns and bending branches. It might be a rose, a type of berry, but at this point in the season, there is no blossom and so it is history. While busy with this chore, I began to wonder if there was poison oak/ivy here as I am hyper-allergic. I did see a plant that could be poison oak. But there were also plants that could be sumac. I don’t have experience with sumac. The plants I saw I told myself were small trees. After clipping for some time, without gloves my hands began to itch from the thorns on the branches. [Also unfortunately exposed a bird’s nest] and so I came in and washed down. I knew where the kit was for anti-poison ivy/oak and I had worn long sleeves and pants and boots. But I took an extra precaution, I stripped down and put everything in the washing machine. Showered. Washed my hair and put on new clothes The only residue is some sort of swollen part of my left hand, but we’ll see what that looks like in the morning. In the meantime, I have divine smelling wash, cut back bushes and a huge stock of kindling.