The kids and I went on an insect trek. We found more than insects.

Ooohhh…creepy. I think this is a spider and her babies, but I could be wrong. I suppose it could be a spider and her second breakfast.

Our quarry: the monarch butterfly caterpillar, doing what it does best: munching milkweed. The kids now can spot a milkweed plant from across a field.

Too bad we weren’t better at spotting stinging nettles. Don’t get into this stuff. Gannon and I did, and boy does it live up to its name.

Happy kids with bugs.

Our last find was this cool cicada skin, found on the bark of a tall pine tree. Doesn’t it look nasty? If I were writing a screenplay for a horror movie where some bug turns giant-sized, I think this one could do well in an audition.

Thanks, Pat and Carol, for letting us traipse around your field while you were away. Oh, didn’t you know we were there? 

…of rashes, I thought I’d post an update on my chronic idiopathic urticaria. (If nothing else, it always generates a few hits.) If I don’t take a Claritin every day, I develop hives all over the place. They’re worse if I spend time in the cold, or if a place on my skin gets more than average pressure on it (i.e. if I read in bed propped up on my elbows, the next day I’ll have itchy elbows). Trips to the allergist have yielded no satisfactory answers, hence the term idiopathic.

I tried not so long ago to discontinue the Claritin. It was fine for a few days, then gradually it became just as bad (or would have, I think, if I had chosen to stay off the medication). Then I had to hit it with all the big guns instead of just keeping it at bay with one Claritin. I took a Claritin in the morning, two Benadryl at lunch, and a Zyrtec at bedtime. After a couple of days of that, I could go back to just the Claritin.

So that’s where I stand now, not itching, but taking daily allergy medication. If that stops working, and the Zyrtec and Benadryl don’t do the trick, I’ll have to either bear it (yikes!) or take some heavy immuno-suppressing drugs. Because basically I’m allergic to my own skin.

I decided, on my own, to try Claritin for these hives. It’s been working. Just as an experiment, I didn’t take one today. The results confirmed what I’ve always heard: The scientist should not use herself as a test subject. It’s gotten progressively worse over the course of the day. So I took another one just a few minutes ago, and hopefully it’ll kick in soon. Brian’s new theory is that I am allergic to our dryer sheets. I don’t really think it’s the case, since I think I have been using them for a while now, and because they are the kind with no perfumes, etc. Wouldn’t that be easier on a person’s skin? I don’t know. It’s maddening trying to figure this stuff out.

As I have been sitting here typing, the welts on my arms have been getting bigger and itchier. Maybe the secret is that they grow if you think about them. Wouldn’t that be cool. Maybe I could think about them being on someone else. What power.

Strangely, when I called my buddy in another state this afternoon, she said she is also suffering from some sort of itchy skin malady! Shingles and flea bites have been ruled out. Her situation sounds worse than mine, because she is also feeling icky and run down. Perhaps we both have some sort of virus. That’s what the doctors seem quick to tell us. Perhaps, at the college we both attended, we picked up some disease that is just now manifesting itself. Or maybe we ourselves were picked up during one of our many hikes in the NH forests by little scientists from another galaxy and made part of some vast experiment that is even now affecting thousands, if not millions, of people Earth-wide. Our Earth doctors have no clue this is happening, and so have labelled it Chronic Idiopathic Urticaria.

If cows start losing their lips around here, I’m freaking out.

That’s an alien mythology reference, in case anyone needs to know.

Once again, I woke up itching this morning. This has been The Year Of The Strange Itchy Skin Conditions. People all have different suggestions as to what could be causing me to break out in hives. Please feel free to add your own, making use of the comments link below this post.

Guess I should take another Benadryl. I’m hiving again.