The most important point here is: are you up to date with your tetanus sots?
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i go barefoot mostly unless it’s cold or I’m doing projects and building stuff. which means i step on a nail like every year.
i get a tetanus shot every time.
be aware that you won’t get a TDaP if you do this, you’ll still need a booster for whooping cough ever ten years. ask me how i know
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I always walk around in shoes, and I have gardening gloves for when I’m digging a LOT of stuff out of the ground, because that tends to dry out my hands, and I have very dry skin. But I don’t use gloves unless I need to. The feelings of my hands in the dirt is very pleasurable.
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Looks like I need to get dirtier too…Thanks!
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You sound like a nudist or naturalist. When I was a kid, they were more popular. Maybe they still are but have not heard much about them. I think they started in Europe. Seems like a healthy thing to get sun all over. I can’t do it here most of summer. The bugs will eat you alive. I am really armor plated in summer.
Lady down the street got ringworm from a public pool. At least that is what she thinks. Public pools are pretty dirty. Lots of kids and camps use them.
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Interesting!
A feral person is an individual living outside societal norms, often characterized as untamed, savage, or lacking basic socialized behavior, similar to wild animals. Usage spans from children raised in isolation to adults appearing unkempt or antisocial, sometimes used as a slur for those with poor hygiene or aggressive, chaotic behavior.
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Nope, have not got one in many decades. Maybe when I was a kid??
Yep…no-see-ums. I have to be covered head to foot.
I wear a mask when making bulk potting mix for the fig pots. I wear a mask when cutting the grass in dry dusty times or mulching leaves in fall. That is about it. And sometimes in the kitchen when doing dusty jobs.
Here is the mask rundown on Chinese masks vs USA made masks…
Back in the '90’s I worked in demolition. I would wear 3M N95 masks and Baxter surgical / procedure masks. I bought the surgical masks in bulk by the case from Henry Schein Dental Company. Surgical masks were for light demo work, N95 was for heavy demo. I eventually got out of demo in 1999.
When covid hit I found a stash of old masks from the 90’s I had squirreled away. I looked at the Baxter surgical masks and they were made in the USA. When I compared them to the Chinese surgical masks that were being distributed, I found a big difference. I could breathe somewhat through the Henry Schein USA made mask material if I formed a seal around my mouth. The Chinese surgical masks were not porous and I could not breathe through them. So, when I wore the Chinese surgical masks I was taking in unfiltered air from around the mask edges as opposed to getting some filtration from the USA Henry Schein masks.
Plain and simple…if you can’t breathe through the mask material, you are not getting any filtration from it.
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Oh, I also have to wear sunscreen a lot. I’d rather not have to . . . in fact, before living in Utah, I rarely ever bothered to, because my skin’s got enough melanin that in most places, I don’t need to bother. But here at high elevation with very hot sun and no clouds at all in the summer, we get insane quantities of UV, and on the worst summer days, I can burn in only half an hour outside. 
Even on clear days in winter, I can sometimes burn after four to six hours outside.
I know redheads who basically just . . . don’t go outside in the summer, unless it’s early morning or late evening, because they’ll burn in two minutes flat if they do.
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100%
Big fan. When i lay in the grass on a sunny windy day it makes feel great 
Usually at the park on a hill as my kid plays. Way better than the bench.
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Yes, it’s good to get a booster every 10 years. Tetanus is a Horrible (and potentially fatal) infection.
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I get a tetanis shot every 5 years because that is about how often i cut my foot at the beach
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i had to get a tetanus shot every damn year for the past ten years.
i got whooping cough in October and it took months to recover and I’m still not well. tdap is tetanus, pertussis (whoop cough) and diptheria shot all in one but!! if you get a tetanus shot for stepping on ANOTHER NAIL AGAIN then it’s just plain tetanus!
tdap usually you get the shot as a kid, you’re supposed to get a booster maybe every ten to twenty years once you’re over 25. I’ve never had that booster. ever and i grew up in a real poor area in PA where they had to come in and give us new measles shots because the whole area got expired ones that didn’t work (this was like 40-50 years ago). I’m also one of the last people in the US to need a smallpox vaccine, kids my age in that region.
anyway so yeah. if you go get a tetanus shot ask for the tdap booster next time. whooping cough is REALLY BAD I would not wish that on my worst enemy. we’re lucky the tetanus shots are so good, that’s a bad way to go too.
reading about masks for dirt, i have a lot of n95s left over after wearing them out and about and they do fine when I’m working with dry dirt or amendments. i wear one when I’m spraying stuff too. the auras are easy to get to fit if you bend em right and they last for viruses and stuff about 40 hours of wear, then continue working for dust and particles for a good long time after that. aura masks are pretty cheap by the dozen too.
I feel like naturalist might be a closer definition, but my wife might disagree. I have the acres and don’t care for clothes unless they’re required. Playing in high UV or significant bug pressure would be a good time for me to put clothes on. I keep my clothes on when the mosquitoes are bad, but I generally don’t feel their bite anymore. Ticks are easier to spot and remove without clothes. I live outside of the no-see-um areas, and black flies aren’t in my yard. I do fear where a bulldog/horsefly may attempt to bite me, though.
There is lots of evidence out there that Tetanus and “lock jaw” are actually figments of big pharma’s imagination!
great Aunt of mine died of it
that was in 1950s.
bad way to go. she thought the injury was no big enough to worry about.
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If you are serious, I am truly sorry. You can try rubber booys a tyvek coverall suit and poly work gloves. You will never need to touch anything. Hope this helps.
I have never questioned the idea of healthy contact with a diverse environment, with soil or water. But of course I grew up in places and at a time when such conditions of natural diversity were common. Now I’m more careful, but feel comfortable in my own landscape.