Keeping the Ticks At Bay
Dirty, rotten, little, disease carrying bloodsuckers. Lyme's isn't the only thing they can carry. If you get bit by one, even if they don't carry Lyme's, you can still get an infection from them and have a spot that swells up and doesn't heal for about a week or more. Some areas have more of them than other areas. Some areas seem to just have a natural infestation of them. That's the case in the woods around where I live. When I was a kid growing up here I remember there were always lots of ticks here. Not as many as there were mosquitoes (mosquitoes get so big and numerous here that they can carry away small livestock).
Wood ticks are ugly enough, but bloated, they are just gross
The ticks seem to be immune to any type of bug repellant. I'm not sure if even ant and roach killer spray kills them unless it is sprayed directly on them, and they suffocate. And that takes a long time too. I've seen it. Those little buggers can hold their breath for well over an hour. I've found that the best way to kill them if you find one crawling on you is to throw it into the microwave for a couple of minutes. My dad, grandpa, and others used to try to hold onto them as they burned them with a lighter or a match. I watched a lot of burnt fingers that way, and heard a lot of cuss words that went with the burned fingertips. IF you can get a good grip on them between your fingernails, then you can tear them in half. But if you keep breaking fingers and thumbs and having other injuries to your digits, getting the necessary grip is kind of hard. So microwave it is. But don't get caught. Your family will want to empty a 55 gal. drum of bleach into the microwave, and then still throw it out to the dump.
The best thing you can do is to try and prevent them from being around you in the first place. But like I said, repellant doesn't work. I knew a guy from around here who took tick and flea collars meant for dogs, and tied them around his ankles. Since a tick can jump 20 feet (*actually, ticks can't really jump, even though my old World Book Encyclopedia I had when I was a kid says they do - and I do still have that old encyclopedia - they can't. It just seems like they do. They just sit high on the foliage and wait to fall on you - like hungry, bloodthirsty goblins. But for the sake of drmatic writing I will still say that they do, because it sure seems like it*), they just jumped up(**), way past his ankles, and into his hair. The only thing those collars did for him was make him look dorky.
For about ten years I raised chickens along with a lot of other livestock. During the entire time I had those chickens I hardly ever saw a wood tick (unless I went out into the woods, of course, which I do a lot). At least I didn't see them in my yard, or have them wait outside the door like hungry goblins and wait for me to open the door and make their 20 foot leap into the house (**I really have no idea how they get into the house, but, **). I'm not joking or exaggerating about this. They really have done that this year. I've found them crawling along the floor about six different times. They went right past the ant and roach spray barrier, that the ants won't cross. I know. That sounds really sad. I think that maybe they like to eat the poison in between their three blood meals. At least the poison kills some of the bacteria that infests their mouths.
An infected sore caused by by a wood tick bite
That's one of the weird things about ticks (besides looking weird, being able to leap long distances, and being too flat to crush like any normal, self respecting bug). They only eat three blood meals during their entire two year life. I get crabby if I go a few hours late on my lunch. No wonder they sit outside my door like a bunch of angry, bloodthirsty goblins. They are a bunch of angry, bloodthirsty goblins. If they could talk, you would be able to hear them say, "I smell man flesh!" I don't know what they eat between the blood meals - maybe nothing.
The tick, specifically the deer tick, however, isn't the real culprit in Lyme's disease. The tick is just sometimes a carrier. I read an article on PBS Nova's web site wherein the causes of Lyme's disease were discussed. The real culprit is the White Footed Mouse. Apparently the White Footed Mouse always has Lyme's disease. It;s like they're born with it or something. They don't live long enough to be affected by the disease. Ticks get the disease when they bite a White Footed Mouse for one of its three blood meals. The White Footed Mouse eats a diet almost exclusively of acorns. Every three years oaks produce more acorns than normal, and the population of the White Footed Mouse explodes. Then more ticks get the disease. Fortunately for me the forest around me has no oaks. They were all burned out in a massive forest fire almost a hundred years ago. The fire was so severe that there were no oaks left for seed. They never came back.
About seven years ago I quit raising livestock. I was always having to mend fences that were knocked down during the night by the deer, and then chase my cattle halfway across the township to get them all back in again. I think the deer wanted them to go free. No, actually the deer are just really stupid and will run through the same fence again and again. Their brains are too small to have any room in there for anything that they wouldn't experience in their natural world. Their brains are only about the size of a tablespoon or two (why do I know this? I've saved the brains before for brain tanning their hides, and that's all that's in there). This is the same reason they run out in front of cars. Their little tablespoon sized brains can't see anything that can move faster than they can.
So I got rid of my cattle herd (to a really odd man), and while I was at it I quit raising hogs and even the chickens too. The entire time I was raising all those critters I was pretty much stuck at home all the time, or at least I had to make two daily appearances. Whenever I wanted to leave for a weekend (and for a reenactor that's several weekends per year), I had to find someone to come over for me and do all the chores. I could have never had them while I owned a business 215 miles away. Then I was gone for a week at a time, and only coming home for the weekends.
Then the wood ticks came back. In a few years time they were in full force. The chickens used to run around the yard and were constantly eating the ticks and whatever little bugs they found, just like a bunch of mini-T-Rexes. They also used to eat the larva of the ground mosquito, and the grass mosquito.
I'd like to have at least chickens again, just for their bug prevention qualities. Unfortunately I still can't, because my schedule changes daily. One day I might be sent home around lunch time for a lack of work, and the next day I might work 12 or more hours (because you can't leave a family without water or a working toilet - I have to finish a job and turn their water back on or reconnect their sewer before I can leave). With a schedule like that you can't have livestock.
The only other option I have then is to mow a very large lawn, and keep it really short. If it's short enough it does two things to the ticks. IF it's sunny out (which is not too common around here, but at least we have more sunny days than Seattle or England) then the ticks kind of burn a little. They don't like it and wait until it's overcast to come hang around the house like hungry goblins. The second thing the short grass dies is make them more visible and accessible to the birds that like eating them.
I keep about two and a half to three acres mowed like this. This gives them a much bigger gauntlet to go through to get to the house. That also means that about once a week I have to spend about ten to twelve hours with a lawn mower. That's how I got to spend my day today.
I enjoyed reading you are very funny you have a good way of making light of it so thank you for sharing I cannot stand those little bastards LOL
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