Poison Oak

Suzannne, I forgot to show you my tiny patches of poison ivy this evening!

The hillside between our house and the one next-door is filled with live oaks and yucca and nandina and primrose jasmine and wild grapes and cedar and poison oak. Every several years I go on a weeding binge and pull out ALL the poison oak that I can find on that hillside. I did it 6 years ago when I was 41 weeks pregnant with Giselle, I did it 3 years ago when Paul was 4 months old and I'm doing it now over the next few weeks. I pulled out a garbage bag-full last week and that's not even half of it. And when I'm done with that I'll be pulling out TONS of English ivy that's growing there as ground cover.
Now personally, I can't stand English ivy but it makes an OK ground cover in the shade. But I make it my mission to keep it all in the neighbor's yard and out of my yard. The problems are that it's gotten overgrown on the ground surrounding the neighbor's house so all the pathways are overgrown and it's growing up the trunks of the live oaks. I got a good portion of the pathways cleared last week but getting it out of the trees is going to be tricky since it actually grows into the tree. English ivy is parasitic so I can't just cut it off at the ground like I do with the wild grapes and I can't get in there to take care of that until all the poison oak is gone.
And now I'm totally paranoid about every itch that I get, especially on my face. But today I double-washed my hands and arms so I'm pretty confident that I got it all off of my skin.