Hello to all. I have recently relocated to a suburb of Houston after living in North Texas for the past 20+ years. I am looking forward to reading and reading and more reading off all the posts to the forum. Thanks in advance to all for making such a great reference as the whole family is into organic gardening.
Now to my immediate concern. I am a volunteer soccer coach for a local little league. We recently had our practice location moved to a different park. I have visited this park once prior with my son to fly his kite. Upon arrival we find the kite string is tangled so we have a seat on the grass and begin the puzzle. Once de-tangled I use a hand to aid in getting up and I feel a sharp shroud of some sort in my hand. I did not see any thing so I assumed it was a wasp sting as I have had this happen before, but it was not. After my son was tired of flying that boring 'ol kite we started rough housing a little bit. Well, that didn't last long. In less than a minute of rolling around on the ground we both thought we were being stung by fire ants. It's the darndest thing I've seen in a seemingly nice field. Time went by and we forgot all about it until yesterday when we had out first soccer practice. Being 1st grade boys, they have lots of "extra" energy that they need to expel by floppping around like fish out of water and needlessly falling down with "spaghetti legs". It was not long before this all came to an abrupt halt. Some started crying while others did not seem to be affected. Some of the boys arms looked like they had been stung by fire ants. (Small swollen whitened areas on their forearms and other affected areas.) I felt horrible. I used my water bottle to wash and massage the kids where they had come into contact with the grass and applied zinc oxide ointment which provided relief to most. So to cut it short...all the kiddos are ok.
The best way to describe the feeling: Fiberglass or a bee sting. Whatever the irritant, it is much too small to see. I have searched the internet for "burning grass" and "stinging grass" to no avail. The closest result was Bull Nettle. It was definitely not this. The park field looks as if it is rye grass and there are no weeds of any kind. (That I can tell anyway.)
Then a little lightbulb went off, "Dirt Dr." When in North Texas I listened whenever I could. I did not even know there was a Dirt Doctor website. So, has anyone ever had any experience with this sort of grass? What is it called? Any recommendations as to how to combat it?
Thanks in advance, Jeremy
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