Natural remedy

[Alan R McDaniel Jr]

This morning I was foraging among the fig trees... I was finding a few and wasn't watching what I was doing. I turned my head and a fig leaf, I think it was serrated, scraped right across my left eyeball... It hurt like the devil and I cursed the leaf into a little shredded mass of fig leaf debris... I finished picking the trees with one eye and headed back to civilization. I didn't quite make it so I stopped at the water faucet and washed my eye out with natures natural elixir, cold water.... It felt so good I washed the other eye out just for good measure... Then I rubbed some on my face and even took a drink of it... It was good and cured me on the spot. I still complained about it when #1 wife got home from the store hoping for some sympathy... She sympathetically said, "Did you wash it out with water?" as if I didn't know my bush medicine.... "Where are the figs? I want to give them to (enter DIL's name here)." Picking those figs nearly cost me an eye.... I grabbed a handful and ran out the door...

But, DIL made Beans and rice and beef and chicken fajitas so I guess it was an even trade!

Alan

[Rick]

You know the old saying, Alan. An eye for a fig. I think that's in the Bible but don't quote me.

[crashdive123]

They even wrote a song about it......When the fig hits your eye, like a big pizza pie........

[Alan R McDaniel Jr]

Well, I can see my brush with death is getting the same kind of sympathetic response I'm getting at home.... I won't even bring up the itching on my hands and arms I got from picking okra...

Alan

[Rick]

That IS sympathy around these parts. Walk it off, is what they used to say. Of course, not being able to see where you're walking might be a bit of a bother what with the trees and all. As for the okra...you sort of deserved that. Some foods have defensive mechanisms 'cause they ain't foods. Okra ain't food. You can tell from the slime. It's the leech of the plant world.

[crashdive123]

Weii, there's that.

[Michael aka Mac]

This morning I was foraging among the fig trees... I was finding a few and wasn't watching what I was doing. I turned my head and a fig leaf, I think it was serrated, scraped right across my left eyeball... It hurt like the devil and I cursed the leaf into a little shredded mass of fig leaf debris... I finished picking the trees with one eye and headed back to civilization. I didn't quite make it so I stopped at the water faucet and washed my eye out with natures natural elixir, cold water.... It felt so good I washed the other eye out just for good measure... Then I rubbed some on my face and even took a drink of it... It was good and cured me on the spot. I still complained about it when #1 wife got home from the store hoping for some sympathy... She sympathetically said, "Did you wash it out with water?" as if I didn't know my bush medicine.... "Where are the figs? I want to give them to (enter DIL's name here)." Picking those figs nearly cost me an eye.... I grabbed a handful and ran out the door...

But, DIL made Beans and rice and beef and chicken fajitas so I guess it was an even trade!

Alan

Alan I hope you went to the eye doctor since this post. I had something similar happen to me years ago and I did not go to the Doctor and wish I did. My eyesight in my left eye is forever changed now due to not getting it looked at. This past year I was given a prescription for glasses with one eye yep that one being farsighted now

[madmax]

Puhleas. You haven't lived until you have done your business in FL wire grass and become infested with chigger (redbugs). Misery for days.

[madmax]

I reread your post. It was not a shrug off injury. Sorry

[Rick]

Oh, it ain't just Florida. Chiggers live up here too. I have been home to chigger condominiums. Plush high rise apartments and even chigger skyscrapers on one or two occasions. There was a time when I had stock in Avon's clear nail polish. I can find no good reason for the little beggars to exist other than to serve as an evil torment to mankind and as an incentive to turn man to God to beg for relief.

[Alan R McDaniel Jr]

In East Texas there are Chiggers... In South Texas we have a particularly Evil little Demon that we call Seed Ticks... They're probably about twice the size of a Chigger and about a million of them can fit on a tiny twig of brush ready to invade any warm blooded passerby that happens to foolishly brush against their launch pad... I've found that the best way to remove them is by shaving them off with a dull knife. They seem to prefer nooks, crannies and crevices in human skin..... I normally apply toxic levels of OFF whenever I venture into the wilderness around here...

Alan

[Rick]

Seed Ticks...On the List.

[madmax]

I spent a lot of time in MN in my formative years. They have big ticks. I can't tell you how many that were already imbedded I picked off. But they were big and easy to see. Seed ticks are tiny little buggers. But I'll take a mass tick attack over chiggers any day of the week. I'll scratch them bloody every time. And skeeters don't even make the list if black flies (I'll never go back to northern, Maine black fly season...or Alaska) , deerflies, or horseflies. Not much can keep me out of the woods. Those really push my limits. That and the FL heat and humidity this time of year.

[kyratshooter]

I have seen times I would not go into the woods due to tick infestations. I have lost several friends to lime disease. The deaths were listed as being some kind of organ failure, but they all began with lime disease weakening them and causing their immune systems to destroy their own bodies .

I have also seen people hospitalized due to chiggers. Knew one guy that threw his blankets down in the grass to sleep one night and we had to send him to the hospital next day. He was covered and swollen to the point of bleeding from head to toe. It was nasty looking.

When people tell me they don't want to put poison on their skin just to keep an insect away I start quoting off the names of people I know that have died from insect related situations, lime, West Nile Virus, Dunge fever.

I usually leave off all the people I knew that died of exotic insect stuff while soldiers and missionaries all over the world.

I never knew anyone that died from applying Deep Woods Off.

[madmax]

Ya know newbies to camping would be quite put off by this thread.

Good

[Alan R McDaniel Jr]

Alan I hope you went to the eye doctor since this post. I had something similar happen to me years ago and I did not go to the Doctor and wish I did. My eyesight in my left eye is forever changed now due to not getting it looked at. This past year I was given a prescription for glasses with one eye yep that one being farsighted now

I don't believe in going to doctors, unless I need refills on my meds.... Or I get sick or have a bobo that won't stop bleeding....

Alan

[Alan R McDaniel Jr]

Ya know newbies to camping would be quite put off by this thread.

Good

Hey, we haven't even gotten to the scorpions and snakes part yet! I South LA the snakes would go the opposite direction if they sensed a large animal nearby. the large animal more than likely ate snakes... but, South Texas rattlesnakes think nothing of crawling right into camp with all the festivities going on... Since everybody is armed to the teeth, they seldom crawl away though... And THAT is likely the most dangerous part of all..

Alan

[Rick]

(sigh) rattlesnakes. On the List. We just have bunny rabbits, squirrels and frogs up here. Oh, sure, we have the occasional cotton mouth and copperhead. But, they are Northern snakes with manners. They usually send out an invitation before biting and ask for an RSVP. That's why so few get bit around here.

[Alan R McDaniel Jr]

There are those that say Rattlesnakes are good to eat... To my palate they are marginally edible and not something I would seek out or partake if there were nearly anything else to eat... I have tried them fried by the roundup guys and grilled by my sons (one that crawled into camp). I find the rattles amusing and they skins somewhat useful if I remember that they are in the toolbox... but I do not find anything else about them appealing, except perhaps their expeditious demise...

Alan

[crashdive123]

Bunny rabbits? On the list!