Got tangled up in nettles.....

[Shari]

Sheesh! At my age I had a 'first experience' with nettles yesterday - NOT to be recommended!

I was clearing out some weeds on the backside of my woodstacks with a weedwacker wearing (of all things) shorts. The dang nettles were about 3' tall and they fell against my bare leg when I cut them. Wow-zers! Like a razor blade - actually two razor blades because it happened twice.

To make a long, painful story short I checked out the internet and did a two step treatment:

1. Used duct tape over the affected area, smoothed it down and tried to pull out as many of those hairy nettles as possible.

2. Made a water based paste of baking soda and smothered the area - cooling relief but it didn't last too long and I simply hose rinsed it off my leg and reapplied about every two hours and tried to keep my leg elevated for at least 1/2 hour each time. For bedtime I did a fresh paste, let it dry and then covered it with a piece of large gauze & tape and then drizzled a very small amount of water over the gauze following up with 2 Advil.

Lesson learned -don't cut weeds in shorts.

 

[pyroholic]

That is a lesson we all have learned or will learn. I realize my errors about the time the first rock hits me in the shin. Make sure to wear crappy jeans, they will be green when your done.

 

[TimJ]

I have had many experiences with nettles and it ain't no fun

 

[midwestcoast]

One summer day when I was a kid my grandfather sent me in to cut the "weeds" out of the corral with an old hand weed cutter. When I got in there I found that the "weeds" were a forest of 5' tall stinging nettles with stems like little tree trunks. I had pants on, but just a t-shirt on top & that's all I had with me. I got thrashed by those things on the arms, neck & face for a couple hours. It's not the stinging so much, it's, well, no it IS the stinging! Goes away in a few hours for me.

Another time I went out to cut down a pasture had become infested with thistle. I hoped on the tractor with the brush hog attached & rode the 20 minutes or so to get out there. Hot summer day & I'm just driving a tractor so of course I was wearing shorts.
Well the thistles were mean and tall, tall enough that when I drove over them the front axel bent them over & they sprung back up to whip me in the legs. The first few times hurt, but it was only after my legs were raw, bleeding and full or spines that each new blow nearly brought tears to my eyes. The hour round trip to get jeans would have been time and fuel very well spent!

 

[PapaDave]

Jeeze Shari. Started mowing back in........uh, I don't remember, but I learned to wear long pants way back then.
Brain fart?
I usually have a nicer pair of jeans on, then decide to do something in the yard or shop. Bye bye to those. Doh!
Feel better.

 

[Shari]

Brain fart?

Nah, just anxious to try out the new cordless toy (tool). Lithium batteries - love them so far - freedom to go where no woman has gone before (and find nettles when you get there).

 

[Jags]

I trim with a sprayer full of roundup.

 

[charly]

I've learned, I weed whack with long pants and a long sleeve welding shirt.. Fits loose but covers my arms.... My arms use to look like buck shot hit them the next day, from what ever I get into.. Maybe Queen Ann's lace, Wild parsnip. My arms would take weeks to heal up, looked like hell.. No more, hot or not that shirt goes on, pants with my muck boots... I run through about 3-4 tanks to weed whack everything here..I'm in the war zone for quite a while so I need to cover up..

 

[Nick Mystic]

A friend of mine was weed whacking in shorts and bare feet and she got into a patch of poison ivy! Ended up with a trip the emergency room!

 

[Bocefus78]

I just had to take my lab to the vet from an excursion thru a patch of those bastages. He broke out in hives! $176 dollars later and I will now be trimming around the camper using Jags method.

 

[MrWhoopee]

I trim with a sprayer full of roundup.

My neighbor used to call me the Adolf Eichmann of the plant world.
Better living through chemistry!

 

[Shari]

I trim with a sprayer full of roundup.

Done and done.

 

[homebrewz]

Learned that lesson as a kid.. still surprised that there are people who have grown up around here who have never experienced them.

Believe it or not, they are an edible wild plant. The stinging comes from formic acid (same compound used by fire ants). People steam
them to neutralize the acid and eat them as a green, like spinach.

 

[Shari]

Learned that lesson as a kid.. still surprised that there are people who have grown up around here who have never experienced them.

Put me in that group - never experienced them. Good thing the area they were growing in was not an area our grandkids get into. I can't imagine how a child would have handled getting 'stung'.

 

[Blue2ndaries]

I trim with a sprayer full of roundup.

Ditto--spreading the "hot death", a mixture of Roundup and Crossbow via backpack sprayer.

 

[TimJ]

Put me in that group - never experienced them. Good thing the area they were growing in was not an area our grandkids get into. I can't imagine how a child would have handled getting 'stung'.

Well, I hope you know what they look like now and that you will never experience them again

 

[Applesister]

I trim with a sprayer full of roundup.

Same here, thank God for Monsanto.
Broad spectrum, general purpose and pre-emergent. ;-)

 

[Jags]

Same here, thank God for Monsanto.

The patent expired in 2000. I use a generic version and it is farmer strength. Not like the stuff you buy in the stores.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

I recall one time helping out in a woods where they used horses to bring the logs to the skidding trail then pull them to the mill with heavy equipment. Some of the loggers loved to take nettles and brush them on the horses behinds. Naturally the tails were always moving then and the poor guy who drove the horsed about went nuts. Funny in a way but I would not do that to a horse....

 

[Hills Hoard]

doh! That sucks! They are nasty plants...I cover myself completely when i use the whipper snipper (weed wacker) ever since I hit one of my dogs turds....it wasnt pretty....

(NOTE: I also find myself doing more spraying these days and far less weed wacking...)

 

[osagebow]

A friend of mine was weed whacking in shorts and bare feet and she got into a patch of poison ivy! Ended up with a trip the emergency room!

Bad idea poorly executed!

 

[Laurent Cyr]

I learned the hard way too!

People here swear by the application of Jewel weed on the part of the skin touched by stinging nettles and poison ivy. If you look it up on the internet, you`ll see what jewel weed looks like. I mash it up with a bit of water, and apply it like you would any paste. Really works! My son decided to crap in the bush and wiped himself with poison ivy. The application of the jewelweed liquid and paste on the "tender" régions, really helped.

Laurent
Québec, Canada


2. Made a water based paste of baking soda and smothered the area - cooling relief but it didn't last too long and I simply hose rinsed it off my leg and reapplied about every two hours and tried to keep my leg elevated for at least 1/2 hour each time. For bedtime I did a fresh paste, let it dry and then covered it with a piece of large gauze & tape and then drizzled a very small amount of water over the gauze following up with 2 Advil.

Lesson learned -don't cut weeds in shorts. [/quote]

 

[Hills Hoard]

 

[PapaDave]

Creature from the green lagoon.

 

[Flatbedford]

I can't imagine how a child would have handled getting 'stung'.

Speaking from experience, not well. I discovered nettles in the woodsy fields behind my best friend's house when I was 9 or so. 34 years later I have a fairly clear memory of how it felt. We were way to far from his house to go right home and do anything about it. I do remember rubbing the spot that was stung and it hurting even more! Years later, when my stepson was being treated for a GI issue, his acupuncturist suggested nettles as a natural remedy! I told her that she must be mistaken, but she insisted that after being boiled it doesn't sting. A nettles plant started growing in a flower pot at my house and my wife was unlucky enough to learn about them. She insisted on keeping it around for medicinal purposes. It now stands guard near the wood stack, very much out of the way. Awful stuff for sure.