Turtle Sculpture

I love my little fern gully in my back yard! It is a great place to photograph my latest creations....except for the fact the area is buzzing with mosquitoes! Since I have stopped using chemical bug repellent, I've been using Burt's Bees all natural herbal insect repellent. It' got as the ingredients: castor oil (no wonder the bugs hate it!) rosemary, lemongrass, cedar, peppermint, citronella, clove, geranium. The carrier oil is soybean and the natural preservative is vitamin E...or tocopherol.

It actually works and does last a long time. If I sniff my skin and it smells like its worn off I re-apply....especially if I'd been sweating......excuse me....perspiring! No, actually I do sweat like a man, because I do all the work around here with me being a single mom and all!

This is a better snapshot of the sculpture showing the cute turtle on the top and surrounded by lovely mosquito ridden ferns. I got rid of all the poison ivy last year with a topical treatment...which means I had to find all the plants and spray the growth tops, so I was gingerly looking around to see if there was any new growth. There was some but it was out by the woods. Don't worry, I am prepared with Burt's Bees Poison Ivy soap:

The main ingredient is jewelweed, of which was studied by Robert Rosen Ph.D, a chemist at Rutgers University. The chemical in jewelweed, called lawsone, is a substance that binds to the same molecular sites on the skin as urushiol (the stuff in the plant that gives us a rash)and in effect locks out the urushiol. The simple result is that you do not get the rash. That bar of soap is a gardener's friend!