Sunrise Guy
Addicted to ArboristSite
I was doing a tin roof gig, yesterday, that we all know and love: Get on the tin roof in the morning and it's like being on a sloping sheet of ice. Lots of fun, right? I did what I normally do on these types of roof clearing jobs. I roped into a leader over the roof and pulled myself along, using lower leaders to steady myself as I hiked up the slope. On the lower limbs, trumpet vine, Campsis radicans, was growing like mad. No big deal, I thought, as I have worked around this stuff for many years. Well, as you know, it only takes that "one exposure over the line" to get you into trouble, and yesterday was, apparently, my time to step on over that line. About a half-hour after clearing some limbs off the roof, as I worked another part of the same roof, my inner, left arm started feeling like I had just rested it on a hot stove. I kept working, figuring I might have burned it on a saw and not been aware of it, immediately. Strange. About ten minutes later the pain was building. I rolled up my sleeve and took a look. Nothing. OK, back to work. Ten minutes later it was getting more painful. I rolled up my sleeve---Uh-oh. It looked like a burn, now, rough, raised skin was on my inner arm, on the side opposite my elbow, in the bend, and spreading up and down my arm.. That was in the area that I had hooked over the limbs with the trumpet vine, as I inched along the roof. I got down and used Technu to wash the area. It burned like heck. I then poured a bottle of water over it, wrapped some paper towel around it, taped it, pulled back down my sleeve, and went back to work. Mistake. My sweat soaked through the paper towel and the oils from the vine went back to work, burning me, anew. Back down, stripped off the shirt and knocked on the ho's door. "Can I borrow a shirt?" She was cool, and gave me one of her son's old shirt. I washed my arm, again, put on the shirt and finished the gig. Everything was cool. After that, about two hours later, the pain returned. I gave the shirt back, came home, did Technu, again, and jumped in the shower. As I type this, the redness and swelling has gone down except in the actual fold of my arm, and it's weepy. I'm putting on Aloe vera from my garden and it seems to stop the pain and keep the skin from sticking together.
The longer I am in this biz, about twenty-three years, now, the more I am feeling like if a tree has any damn vines on it, I'm going to pass on the gig. PI and I are mortal enemies, so even if an ho tells me that the dead, leafless vines I am looking at on his/her vine covered tree are no way PI, I doubt them and don't do the gig. Now, with trumpet vine thrown into the mix, I think my "no vine policy" may go into effect, immediately. I don't need the money that bad, thankfully.
You guys and gals watch out for trumpet vine. It may just get you, and it's no fun, I've got to say.
The longer I am in this biz, about twenty-three years, now, the more I am feeling like if a tree has any damn vines on it, I'm going to pass on the gig. PI and I are mortal enemies, so even if an ho tells me that the dead, leafless vines I am looking at on his/her vine covered tree are no way PI, I doubt them and don't do the gig. Now, with trumpet vine thrown into the mix, I think my "no vine policy" may go into effect, immediately. I don't need the money that bad, thankfully.
You guys and gals watch out for trumpet vine. It may just get you, and it's no fun, I've got to say.
