Last week I had my first real encounter with poison ivy. Up until this point I had often bragged about being "immune" to the stuff, but alas, I was proven wrong!

I was walking through a forest that seemed to be carpeted with thick, waist high brush. To get through, I employed the just-plow-through technique, when I was tripped up by a hidden barbed wire fence. Of course, I've fallen over dozens of barbed wire fences while hiking off trail, so that was no big surprise. When I went to catch myself I landed directly on my forearms. I wasn't aware of what plant I had landed in at that point, but soon after I felt an overwhelming itch.

Author's note: Although I identified the cause of my itch as poison ivy, I now realize that it was probably nettles. Nettles tend to itch right away, but poison ivy takes a while to set in. My itch seemed almost instant.

My first reaction to this was a typical "oh crap, this isn't cool."

But, the "oh crap" soon turned to excitement. Maybe a bit too much excitement for a poison ivy "victim. "