I happen to think “nozzle” is an inherently funny word. I also considered “Nozzle of Death” as the title of this episode.

“I am become death, the destroyer of weeds.” ~Richard, misquoting Robert Oppenheimer, who was misquoting the Bhagavad-Gita, which itself was quoting the banned version of The Apocrypha, which itself was written by me using a time machine.

Anyway.

Hawken the Irish Wolfhound and I have taken our last woods walk of the season. Earlier this week, we spotted pubescent poison ivy on the trail… a lot of it. There’s always been a fair amount in our woods, but the patch near one of the cedars has experienced explosive growth this spring.

Last night’s misadventure started when I was weeding the garden and saw, much to my dismay, a poison ivy plant.

I grabbed the sprayer (initially typed “spayer,” which works too), which is loaded with an herbicide of unknown origin, but which was described by an unnamed family member as maybe “requiring a license to handle.” In addition to the one in the garden, I decided to take a stand against the stand of poison ivy at the back of the pasture. This isn’t as straightforward as one might imagine, since there’s always a risk of getting into it while trying to spray it.

But I felt this was a critical move. I can picture myself out there, like an idiot, trying to tiptoe around some poison ivy plants, then falling into the whole giant patch of it. Like an idiot. I’m very allergic to the oil, urushiol, in poison ivy, and have made a point over the years to learn to spot it, and the harmless plants that cohabitate with it: box elder, bois d’arc, Virginia creeper, and blackberry.

“A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent.” ~Oppenheimer