# scratched my eye today



## chuckwood (Jan 22, 2014)

I was cutting and piling brush. I wear chaps and ear muffs but no helmet. I hate having all sorts of stuff attached to me, the chaps are bad enough. I wear glasses with side shields, and always thought I'm good to go for eye protection. Today, somehow a tiny branch managed to make it in between my glasses and my eye, coming in from the top down. Now my vision is a bit blurred and my left eye tears up a lot. There's hardly any pain, and I know that this small injury will heal itself and I don't need to go to doctor or anything, I've had stuff in my eyes before, including sand, and it always healed itself. However, and it's a *big* however, this could have been *much* worse. As much as I hate to admit it, I'm now going to have to go shopping for one of those dorky looking safety helmets that have the mesh face shields. I've tried goggles before, but they always fog up on me and impair my vision.


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## griffonks (Jan 23, 2014)

I used to hate wearing head gear, but after buying a Husqvarna helmet system to deal with flood snags I am sold.

Its great hearing debris and twigs bouncing off the mesh shield.

The helmet came with a neck flap, no more debris down my back.

You are going to Love your new gear.


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## singinwoodwackr (Jan 23, 2014)

chuckwood said:


> I was cutting and piling brush. I wear chaps and ear muffs but no helmet. I hate having all sorts of stuff attached to me, the chaps are bad enough. I wear glasses with side shields, and always thought I'm good to go for eye protection. Today, somehow a tiny branch managed to make it in between my glasses and my eye, coming in from the top down. Now my vision is a bit blurred and my left eye tears up a lot. There's hardly any pain, and I know that this small injury will heal itself and I don't need to go to doctor or anything, I've had stuff in my eyes before, including sand, and it always healed itself. However, and it's a *big* however, this could have been *much* worse. As much as I hate to admit it, I'm now going to have to go shopping for one of those dorky looking safety helmets that have the mesh face shields. I've tried goggles before, but they always fog up on me and impair my vision.


Cornea scratch...been there...done that, almost the same situation. you can go to a doc and pay a bunch of $ or just let it heal with some over the counter eye salve. It will most likely be fine in a few days but keep and 'eye' on it for any sign of infection...excessive redness, crusty yellow crud in the morning for days, fever. If that happens...see a doc for some antibiotic drops.


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## imagineero (Jan 23, 2014)

The mesh helmets are pretty good, and you can get the attachment for most styles of helmet. Great if you do a lot of cutting at eye level (climbing trees). Glasses do fog up. bugz steel mesh goggles are very good and don't fog, but if you wear them every day you get a rim around your eyes that looks real weird since that part doesn't get sun on it.


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## shootingarts (Jan 24, 2014)

A few weeks ago I was trimming fence row wearing bubble "blues brothers" style safety glasses. I like those because a good fitting pair seals almost as good as goggles. I still don't know how but as I reached in to pull out some already cut small limbs a ragged ended little stob, maybe 3/16" or smaller went in under my safety glasses and hit my lower left eyelid so hard that I sported what looked like a black eye all the way from the inner corner about halfway across and maybe 3/8" down. Went right to my eyeball including the mating surface of the lid. Concerned about the things that can fall out of a tree when working alone too so I took advantage of a sale at Treestuff and got the helmet, muffs, and plastic shield for $60.

Tuesday evening a wildfire started on my place. Burned maybe thirty acres and reached into woods on three sides, main concern being the south side where there were homes in the woods and that was the side the fire had been wind driven and north winds likely to continue. Heavy briars, tall weeds, and second growth make the edges of the woods impossible to walk into normally. Most of the greenery was burnt away and I was mostly using a briar blade for access alternating with a chainsaw.

The helmet and plastic shield proved their value many times over in the first hour. Felt a little silly when I was laying out sixty dollars for plastic. By noon I was sure it was one of the best purchases I ever made. Look silly or not since I'm not a full timer, I will be wearing the hardhat and faceshield when working with the safety glasses underneath for dust protection and a final layer of protection. My Labonville chaps just arrived too so I'll look color coordinated anyway!

I have scratched, scraped, and burned my eyes over the years. Now that they aren't as good as they used to be I seem to value them even more. Still have the issue number of fingers, toes, eyes, all body parts. I'm hoping they all go the distance now, at least all get buried in the same place, . . . as a unit!

A side note, years ago a friend lost an eye to a piece of dangling stainless steel wire in a plant when he was wearing safety glasses and hard hat. "stuff happens" extra protection might seem silly, until you need it.

Hu


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## treesmith (Jan 29, 2014)

I've learned the hard way, leylandii has given me a couple of bad eye scratches and infections with its dry dead twigs and even when I'm wearing a mesh visor, now I wear sunnies and mesh


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## imagineero (Jan 29, 2014)

Hate those suckers when they get real big and all dead and nasty in the middle :-( Get completely showered in crap climbing them, and they're usually planted in rows so you've got a bunch to do! Stabby sticky awful trees. Unreliable hingewood too... can be real flexible or real snappy. If you've got a row of them in aus there's bound to be possums in there also! Which we humanely move to new habitats and build dwellings for as per environmental laws. We do not ever put them in the chipper.


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## himiler (Jan 29, 2014)

griffonks said:


> You are going to Love your new gear.


I don't cut or climb without my Orange helmet with mesh visor & ear muffs plus safety glasses. Too many times I've been either bonked in the helmet or had my head in a weird spot that sends the chips flying right into the mesh visor. 
Buy an assortment of bandana skull caps from Walmart, it keeps the sweat out of your eyes.


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## treesmith (Jan 29, 2014)

imagineero said:


> We do not ever put them in the chipper.


 I save the ring tails, they're cute. I wouldn't go near a bushy tail possum with a bomb suit, they're evil.... 

Sent from my GT-I9100


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## shootingarts (Jan 29, 2014)

treesmith said:


> I save the ring tails, they're cute. I wouldn't go near a bushy tail possum with a bomb suit, they're evil....
> 
> Sent from my GT-I9100



Possums have the most teeth of any four footed critter, those teeth are needle sharp, and since they eat anything and don't brush their teeth, highly infectious if you get bit. I'm not a big fan of the ones we have here!

Hu


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## himiler (Jan 30, 2014)

My adult daughter has two she raised from babies. One is still alive and I guess makes a great pet?
Go figure.


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## shootingarts (Jan 30, 2014)

himiler said:


> My adult daughter has two she raised from babies. One is still alive and I guess makes a great pet?
> Go figure.



There is a possum festival somewhere and I used to see pictures of people with the possums riding around on their heads or shoulders, some in harness and walking on leashes. Guess you can make a pet out of almost anything. When I was eight or nine I was with dad when he paid a visit to an old dairy farmer. The farmer told me come see and went down to his pond. He started calling and shaking a huge log chain that ran down into the pond.

An absolute behemoth of a 'gator, twelve feet or more, came out the pond. I started measuring chain and backed up the hill. The alligator walked right up to the old farmer and he squatted down and started scratching him under the jaw. They had been pards since the gator was only a foot or two long.

Hu


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## himiler (Jan 31, 2014)

Now you've got me started. Spoke with an African friend one time, he said life was different before the White Man brought his way of life to their part of the bush. His uncle would have a deadly poisonous snake come sleep with him at night. He would wake up in the morning and lift the snake up to the opening in his hut and the both of them would start their day. I had no reason to doubt his story.


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## shootingarts (Feb 5, 2014)

himiler said:


> Now you've got me started. Spoke with an African friend one time, he said life was different before the White Man brought his way of life to their part of the bush. His uncle would have a deadly poisonous snake come sleep with him at night. He would wake up in the morning and lift the snake up to the opening in his hut and the both of them would start their day. I had no reason to doubt his story.



Slow on the bounce with all that is going on with the site and my activities, no reason to doubt the story though. There is an island in the pacific somewhere I believe, overran with deadly poisonous snakes. They aren't particularly aggressive and the natives walk through them all the time barefoot. They said just be careful not to step on one, they occasionally bit someone if they got stepped on then you were dead in a few minutes.

Years ago I was commercial crawfishing. Blew my outboard so I made a deal to fish on a farm. Ran three to six hundred traps a day wading in a 50-90 acre pond and dragging a boat behind with the bait and sacking table for the crawfish. Started at first light and when conditions were favorable sometimes I was done by two in the afternoon. One morning I was walking through these weeds sticking up in the water. That's odd, don't remember them being here even yesterday.

As the sun came up a little I saw I was wading through hundreds of 18-20" long cottonmouth moccasins. Keerrrap! Looked ahead, there was a lot more of those weeds sticking up. Looked back, same story. I'm mid-thigh or a bit deeper in the water and Lee jeans not being what they once were I'm pretty sure they aren't snake proof. Just a minute's thought and I went back to pulling traps. It was at least a hundred feet through snakes in any direction to get free of them, couldn't really see how far. Might as well go ahead with what I was doing as anything else. happy to say it worked out for all of us!

Hu


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## himiler (Feb 6, 2014)

Wow! That makes my skin crawl. I had several run ins with poisonous snakes, none of em I want to repeat. One time in the military I was in training on patrol in North Texas (Camp Maxi), it was mid October with cool nights and warm days. Three other guys walked down the same path before I did, I heard a noise, stopped, turned 45 degrees, listened, and then looked down. There were two of the biggest Timber Rattlers coiled with mouths wide open not rattling and ready to strike about 18" away from both of my legs! My heart was pumping peanut butter. I stayed stock still. After about 15 seconds one crawled down a hole and the other crawled away. 
Steve


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## shootingarts (Feb 6, 2014)

himiler said:


> Wow! That makes my skin crawl. I had several run ins with poisonous snakes, none of em I want to repeat. One time in the military I was in training on patrol in North Texas (Camp Maxi), it was mid October with cool nights and warm days. Three other guys walked down the same path before I did, I heard a noise, stopped, turned 45 degrees, listened, and then looked down. There were two of the biggest Timber Rattlers coiled with mouths wide open not rattling and ready to strike about 18" away from both of my legs! My heart was pumping peanut butter. I stayed stock still. After about 15 seconds one crawled down a hole and the other crawled away.
> Steve



Good story, rattlers will get your attention even when they don't rattle!

A friend of mine, Blackie, had diabetes and the eye issues that often go with it. He could see a little a few feet from him but was legally blind when he walked up on the pine top behind his house. He heard what sounded like a large rattler very close, couldn't see it or tell exactly where the sound came from. The snake was close and unhappy, kept rattling for several minutes. Try as he might Blackie couldn't see it. Finally he eased back the way he had came, walking backwards trying to put his feet in exactly the same spots.

Was a cool morning but he was pouring sweat when he walked in his house. His wife asked what was wrong and he told her about the snake. Her first words were, "Did you kill it?"

"NO! It didn't kill me either!" Blackie was more than glad to call that a fair trade that morning.

Edit: I'm in rattler country now, kinda hoping my new full wrap Labonville chaps are snakeproof!

Hu


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## treesmith (Feb 6, 2014)

Saw a tiger snake in a car park before Christmas, gotta love Aus, even the birds here disembowel people


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## himiler (Feb 6, 2014)

shootingarts said:


> Edit: I'm in rattler country now, kinda hoping my new full wrap Labonville chaps are snakeproof!
> Hu


Made me laugh! I've had snakes bump my high top boots trying to strike, had squirrels hightail it out of trees I've been working in, once I even worked a tree with a beehive in the base of the trunk, but so far no snakes or other bad for my health critters up in the tree. Don't know if you know, but I've actually seen snakes climb trees before, not sure how they do it, maybe a little bit of an incline is all they need. Still I love being outdoors.


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## himiler (Feb 6, 2014)

treesmith said:


> Saw a tiger snake in a car park before Christmas, gotta love Aus, even the birds here disembowel people


We get the Nat Geo specials about your critters down under. Seems like you can just "wake up" and be in danger in the Au. The one story I remember is about a Duckbill Platypus that stung a guy with its rear leg fang. The pain was so incredible they were thinking about amputating his arm, and the animal was just a little bit bigger than his hand! Makes the OP with the eye scratch sound like a sissy!


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## shootingarts (Feb 7, 2014)

himiler said:


> Made me laugh! I've had snakes bump my high top boots trying to strike, had squirrels hightail it out of trees I've been working in, once I even worked a tree with a beehive in the base of the trunk, but so far no snakes or other bad for my health critters up in the tree. Don't know if you know, but I've actually seen snakes climb trees before, not sure how they do it, maybe a little bit of an incline is all they need. Still I love being outdoors.




Hate to tell you this, a snake is a climbing son of a gun! I've watched them climb six feet up a brick wall. Give them any purchase at all and they can climb. I had about a four foot green snake in my front fence row, It was cool to watch him hunting in the really thin stuff. He was fascinated by my red survey ribbon and had to climb several bushes just to see what it was. When branches were close he just went from bush to bush like a squirrel and often moved through the fencerow for a hundred feet or more without touching ground.

The cottonmouths climb trees regularly too. When I crawfished I would empty a magazine out of a 22 rifle shooting them off of a windblown tree I always ate lunch near. The pond was lousy with them when all of the ponds had water in them, then they drained the rest of the 1200 acres and wanted me to fish the last 93 acre pond for a couple weeks to provide crawfish for a festival. Want to take three guesses where all the cottonmouths came to?

I used to canoe a little river and you had to watch the overhanging trees closely. Snakes, including cottonmouths, always dropping out of them. I absolutely hated mistiming things and getting caught on the river after dark! Despite claims that all strikes are defensive, cottonmouths have an attitude and the best defense being a good offense is often their theory of operation! One thing I learned though, they make good crawfish bait if you rake them with rat shot when they get stuck in your traps.  The biggest ones would drown when they chased small fish into the traps. Medium sized ones could stick their heads far enough through the coated chicken wire of the trap to get to the surface for air but then they were wedged by their scales and couldn't go frontwards or backwards. They were a bit annoyed about this by the time I ran the traps!

Hu


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## himiler (Feb 7, 2014)

I gotta shut this down, laughing too much and working too little. Thanks for the stories Hu. Adventure is not found behind a desk!


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## shootingarts (Feb 7, 2014)

Yeah, south Louisiana snake stories can run on forever. Haven't even started on stories about the exwife, she was terrified of any kind of snake. She set a race walking record for the 50 yard walk once if there was such a thing. Another time at 5-4 and 105 pounds she bowled over a two hundred twenty pound man and left size seven cowboy boot prints from his feet to his head as she walked over him. Fortunately for him she wasn't wearing spurs that day!

Hu


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## Toddppm (Feb 7, 2014)

shootingarts said:


> Years ago I was commercial crawfishing. Blew my outboard so I made a deal to fish on a farm. Ran three to six hundred traps a day wading in a 50-90 acre pond and dragging a boat behind with the bait and sacking table for the crawfish. Started at first light and when conditions were favorable sometimes I was done by two in the afternoon. One morning I was walking through these weeds sticking up in the water. That's odd, don't remember them being here even yesterday.
> 
> As the sun came up a little I saw I was wading through hundreds of 18-20" long cottonmouth moccasins. Keerrrap! Looked ahead, there was a lot more of those weeds sticking up. Looked back, same story. I'm mid-thigh or a bit deeper in the water and Lee jeans not being what they once were I'm pretty sure they aren't snake proof. Just a minute's thought and I went back to pulling traps. It was at least a hundred feet through snakes in any direction to get free of them, couldn't really see how far. Might as well go ahead with what I was doing as anything else. happy to say it worked out for all of us! Hu



Could have been the smell of your shorts so close to the water after seeing them that kept them away!

Hiking at the top of the mountain with my daughter a few years ago we were hopping between large outcrops and boulders, she just about stepped on a big fat timber rattler. Had her foot in the air and saw it just before she put it down, scary for sure.


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## shootingarts (Feb 7, 2014)

Toddppm said:


> Could have been the smell of your shorts so close to the water after seeing them that kept them away!
> 
> Hiking at the top of the mountain with my daughter a few years ago we were hopping between large outcrops and boulders, she just about stepped on a big fat timber rattler. Had her foot in the air and saw it just before she put it down, scary for sure.





No idea if possible in the conditions you and your daughter were in but down here we learn to step on logs and such so that the feet are further away from anything chilling in the shade and hidden under a log. We deliberately step wide when stepping up and down. When they are sunning it isn't as bad, at least you can see them.

Believe it or not, after wading with the snakes seven days a week for awhile you develop a certain mellowness around them. A lot like climbing iron, can keep you up nights when you first start climbing to nose bleed levels but after awhile anything begins to seem normal. Still a funny comment though! Never quite created yellow water or brown trout but I came close a couple times. Had a very upset cottonmouth find an entrance flue in my trap and with me over knee deep in the water again he came out at warp speed and exited between my legs! Still had another eight mature cottonmouths in that trap, just knew it was a bunch at the time. Decided I would leave it alone for awhile. I caught between sixty and seventy-five pounds of cottonmouths in that one trap that day.

With the shallow warm water and the abundance of readily available food the ponds were a perfect breeding and growing area for reptiles. I did see a cottonmouth that would have had me calling LSU or the zoo if I would have thought it could be found. Huge snakes were normal in the pond. This snake was so big all the other snakes left the area because they were snack sized and this was a cottonmouth! After months of wading the ponds this one made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. I'll just say I'm confident he would have shattered all records for cottonmouths. If he dumped a heavy load of venom in me I was dead, snake bite kit in my pocket or not. Wanted him for a full body mount but I was afraid he was thinking pretty much the same thing about me. Besides, I hate killing huge specimens of almost anything.

Hu


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