Free Republic

How far would you go to avoid a rash from a common pest on hikes? Well, one reporter for The Wall Street Journal has gone as far as to blend poison oak into smoothies and mix them into his salad bowl — all in a bid to develop an immunity towards the chemical irritants found in the plant's leaves. Jeff Horwitz, who usually reports on technology, wrote about his slightly mad mission for a feature article in the Saturday newspaper. "I started eating poison oak in January, when the first buds began to swell on the hazardous plant’s bare stems,"...

As some of you know, I recently purchased a small cabin. There is a path leading from the back door to a small pond a few hundred yards away. Walking this path yesterday, I was able to identify poison ivy, poison oak, poison sumac and Virgnia creeper on either side of the path just waiting for some hapless soul like me to brush against them. Just typing this is causing me to break out in a rash...that's how allergic I am. I would welcome any horror stories from Freepers about their encounters with the aforementioned plants and advice about any...