I believe one can safely assume that most of the world isn’t sleeping through the night anymore. Dropping onto their pillows and immediately overtaken by blessed, recharging sleep can only be associated with those on the front lines of the coronavirus.
The medical folks, food distributors, city workers, linemen, bankers and bakers — likely have little trouble falling asleep.
The rest of us? Probably it’s a challenge following the arrangement of our cozy blankets and pillows. And, aren’t we the lucky ones who have cozy blankets and pillows? That’s the maddening part. The realization we are so lucky compared to hundreds seen on television around the globe, should provide a good night’s sleep. Alas, it often does not. Instead it provides minutes, if not hours, to freely fritter away the hours fretting.
How to cope? How to fall asleep? I listen to KDFC, our Bay Area classical music station. Since there aren’t any Giants games to fill the airways, music can fill the void.
One of the causes of my sleeplessness is the result, in retrospect, of a really incredible (somebody’s favorite word these days) decision I made two weeks ago to clear out some poison oak. Since I own and utilize proper protective gear when I spray my orchard trees, I donned all of that and set to the task of ripping six-foot branches of poison oak out of the oleander within which it was growing. There are four happy oleanders lining the fence leading to our front gate. They were there when we bought our farm.
Periodically I bring their height down to keep them controlled. With pruning shears and a small saw, I made the decision to remove all of the various limbs, because I couldn’t discern the poison oak wood from the oleander. Carefully I dragged each branch to two separate piles — the oleander to the pile we will later burn, and a different pile for the poison oak that we won’t burn.
The family helped drag the branches to their designated corners of the farm. The next day I noted a small poke in my face with a reddening surface and also a tiny patch of redness on my wrist. By nightfall, the itching began and my face and arms were covered with the red rash.
Recently my daughter, Sarah, commented, “Mom, the bathroom looks like CVS.”
There must be a dozen tubes, salves, cotton balls, bottles and wipes cluttering the sink. All of them work to lessen the itching for at least 10 minutes. None of them can keep me from scratching. I am an incredible scratcher.
Doctor Tom has prescribed Prednisone and I have high hopes it will finally succeed, but my family and I suspect that I continually re-expose myself from a piece of clothing or tool. Agreeing with their suspicion, I have washed my farm boots, which I overlooked as a problem, and I have washed my wool hat that I wear on cold mornings.
I share my experience in the hope that I might prevent somebody else from doing something so stupid as to think I can work around poison oak when I am obviously very allergic to its toxic oil, urushiol.
The U.C. Cooperative Extension writes: All parts of the plant are toxic to those persons who are sensitive to the urushiol present in oil-resin in the sap of the plant …
Contact with sap, pollen (that’s the part I believe showered down upon my head) or smoke may cause severe dermatitis characterized by large blisters and swelling for several days — make that weeks in my experience. And here’s the real bugger, “Sap, dried sap or pollen on clothing can remain toxic for years.”
In an online site from Trailblazers was a story of a young back-packer whose trek took him off trail through untouched woods. As a result, all of his equipment and clothing had contact with urushiol. He wrote that his contaminated backpack and tent sit in the attic and he is afraid to approach in the attempt to clean them.
Meditating upon all things itchy, it was 1:30 a.m. and the DJ on KDFC had introduced a piece composed by, “Johann Christian Schieferdecker,” the DJ said. “He is my favorite composer because I can always surprise the listeners. And, you will have so much fun if you repeat his name three times.”
So I spoke out loud, “Johann Christian Schieferdecker, Johann Christian Schieferdecker, Johann Christian Schieferdecker.”
He was right. It made me smile while I was itching, a step in the right direction as long as I don’t wear my farm boots any time soon.
Renee Kiff weeds and writes at her family farm in Alexander Valley.
