Invasive plants... me vs. "them"

Why Cal-IPC? It's been suggested that if I'm to put myself through so much physical pain and mental torment for a cause, it should be for something truly worthy of the effort, like UNICEF, Make-A-Wish Foundation, and the like - worthy causes, of course. But read on... if you had no opnion of invasive plants before today, I hope you feel your blood boiling and your check-writing hand twitching to support my fund-raising efforts for Cal-IPC and their mission.

My distain for invasive plants crossed the line from professional to personal long ago. During the course of invasive plant field work or 'weed wacking', I have been ambushed by an alligator, pursued by water moccasins, attacked by 60,000 yellow jackets (painful, but worth it... I still managed to killed the jubata grass where the nest was), and charged by a very angry wild boar who was scratching his ginormous hairy butt on a tallow that I wanted to sample.

I have nearly decapitated myself while noodling around in a Chinese tallow swamp on an ORV, fallen out of tallow trees, come within inches of planting my foot directly on the bitey end of a 5' eastern diamondback, and have been bitten beyond recognition by every disease-carrying mosquito in the Everglades and Savannah NWR.

I have been crapped on by virtually every bird species in south Florida, had as many as 45 ticks in places that polite people refrain from speaking of after a field day at Ossabaw Island, and waded waist-deep through canals I know to be teeming with gators - how else are you going to sample that last tallow tree? I've naively engaged characters of questionable repute and sanity, discovered a dead body, and have been side-swiped by a crazy horse. I've even been nailed squarely in the head by a leaping red drum (true story to which there are witnesses) in Ossabaw marshes. My friends say I really haven't been right since.

And still, I got the data or killed my target.

As if all this isn't enough, I've exposed my friends and field assistants to the same misery in the name of invasive plant ecology. Jeanne and I spent an 'unexpected' evening in a south Georgia swamp with KKK members - not the most savory situation in which a NY Catholic and a NJ Jew could find themselves, but it's amazing what a 6-pack of beer and a few jokes can get you out of. Gayle attended her own wedding covered in mosquito and tick bites after a weekend of tallow-busting (thank you, PhotoShop). Aimee literally crawled on her belly for hundreds of meters under mats of Colubrina with a foot of ground clearance in a full bug suit in 100 degree weather in south Florida. Andrew risked life and limb in tallow tree canopies to collect seeds for testing...but then, that crazy monkey liked it.

Amazingly, they still talk to me.

Clearly, invasive plants are conspiring to kill, hurt and/or humiliate me. By raising funds for Cal-IPC, I ensure that I get the last word.

Visit the California Invasive Plant Council (Cal-IPC) website at: http://www.cal-ipc.org/ and please generously support my "100-mile Run for the Wildlands" event. Thank you so much!

Here's how: http://www.cal-ipc.org/Run4Wildlands.php