Tick Tock

Spring has officially arrived to our area once again, and with it have come the birds, the flowers...and the ticks.  Last year, we discovered that our neighborhood, which borders a woodland lot, is infested with dog ticks.  I found four embedded in B's scalp before realizing the state of infestation.  We battled ticks on her, me and the dogs (Adam was the only lucky one who never found one on himself) before the season ended. 

Our neighbor warned us last week that the ticks were back, and that not only had she found one in her son's leg, but that it was a deer tick, not a dog tick.  While dog ticks can (very rarely) spread Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, the deer tick (also known as the black-legged tick) is infamous now for spreading Lyme's Disease.  Not wanting to deal with that scenario, Adam did the unthinkable (at least to this wildlife biologist): he spread pesticide all over our backyard to kill as many latent ticks as possible. I've been afraid to look back there for fear of finding dead birds all over the place.  So far, however, so good. At least, in terms of the bird community.

Yesterday, we spent some time in the front yard, then decided to take a walk with the dogs along the river trail.  At one point, we stopped at a playground to let B run around, and Adam and I sat with S and the dogs.  Neither of us thought much of it.  Last night, while in bed watching tv, however, Adam suddenly said, "Lauren, this is serious. Do you see anything?"  He tilted his head in my direction and pointed to a spot on his scalp.  Sure enough, a little bugger was latched on.  Now, I got fairly accustomed to removing ticks from B and the dogs last summer, so I'm not overly bothered by them anymore.  I think it was creepy for Adam to actually have one on him, especially since last summer he was spared.  I got out the tick "key" I bought for such removal purposes, as well as a pair of tweezers.  The key didn't seem to work, so I resorted to old school tweezers removal, and voila!, the tick (head and all) came out.  It had a small chunk of Adam's scalp in its mouth parts. I took a look at it in the container, and was surprised to find that it was a deer tick, not a dog tick like the ones we found last year.  Granted, this one likely came from the park we were sitting at, and not our backyard, but this discovery has put us on alert.  You don't want to mess with Lyme's Disease.

Several friends and acquaintances who grew up in rural parts of the country have told me about how "tick check" was a part of their daily summer existence as children.  You just knew that at the end of a day of playing outdoors, you'd have to do a thorough bodily check for the little parasites...no big deal.  I'm trying to acquire that way of thinking.  We as a people, especially as we've become more urban, have become so dissociated with the land, the Earth, that things like ticks become a crisis of catastrophic proportions where once they were just a normal part of life.  I grant you that with the onset of Lyme's Disease, the tick issue has become more complex and concerning, but many people are just "grossed out" by the idea of a parasite to begin with, diseases aside.

I've decided to try to make the necessary tick check process a game this summer.  First person to find a tick wins a prize.  And no, the prize won't be Lyme's Disease.