Ticks are a total and complete waste of nature. They are here for no other purpose other than to make us, our pets, and the little creatures that wander the woods miserable for 8-9 months of the year. They are parasites that suck blood to propagate and they carry and spread diseases such as Lyme Disease, Q Fever, Colorado Tick Fever, Tularemia, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Ehrlichiosis, and Meningoencephalitis. All of those diseases from that darned little thing! It is astounding.
I have known many people that have been afflicted with both Lyme disease and even a couple that have suffered from Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. Lyme disease is very prevalent in New England; most pets have been exposed to it at least once. There is a vaccine they can and should get to avoid developing the symptoms of the disease. Lyme is a wily disease. It manifests itself in so many different ways that it is hardly ever suspected or detected on the first trip to the doctor. It usually takes many other blood tests coming back negative for a doctor to suspect Lyme Disease, and even then the Lyme testing is not 100% accurate, and is sometimes hard to interpret.
Logic would say we are SO big and a tick is So small that we should have the advantage over them, hands down. They have a secret weapon though. They have stealth on their side. They can attach to your head, or your back or your private regions where they can't be easily seen and can spend enough time sucking blood from you and depositing Lyme disease bacteria) or other diseases) before you detect their presence. I have had a few ticks attached to me and let me just say, it was NOT PLEASANT any of the times. I am a person who is slightly bug phobic, so having one stuck to me is a little scarier than having something just crawling on you. A flick to remove a bug is much less traumatic that having to have someone else pull half of your skin off to get all of the tick with it!
My Scottie, Lily, gets ticks on her face every Spring and Fall. She is a terrier and thus likes to use her snout to snuffle along the ground and in the leaves. The ticks LOVE the leaves and grass and they just hop onto her as soon as she sniffs nearby. We do use a chemical spot tick medication (Advantix) on her but for some reason, they still manage to attach themselves to her anyway and then we have to freak her out by getting them off of her.
As far as I can see there are no positives coming from these dastardly scoundrels. All they want is our blood and they leave us nothing good in return. At least bees give us honey and pollinate the flowers. They have usefulness.
I am unsure if there is any natural predator of the tick, I would have to consult my cousin Gerald, the bug expert, on that. It doesn't seem to be so; it seems that there are more and more ticks every year, and more and more cases of Lyme disease.
I said to someone the other day, we usually get one or two glorious days of Spring where nobody else seems to notice it's arrival. Then as soon as the rest of the insect world wakes up and thinks "hey, the weather is nice, Cowabunga," they all start to come out and annoy us.
It's like a parade of demons. Here come the black flies, and the mosquitoes. Followed quickly by the ticks and midges. Then, as soon as we get one really warm day, the carpenter ants start their campaign of harassment. Once the weather starts to stay warm, my nemesis, the Scarlet Lily Beetle, starts to eat all the leaves off of my Asiatic Lilies, and the grubs start to make their appearance in a back corner of the lawn. In certain parts of the country and for certain time periods, locusts and gypsy moth caterpillars appear and wreak havoc. I know I have painted a disgusting picture of bugs, and creepy crawlies. Sorry about that. I am getting itchy just thinking about all of them, and yet I am planning my strategy as to how to deal with each of them in the most effective way. I guess I could live in a bubble!
In summary, we have to learn to take the good-nice weather, no jackets required, spending time outside, fun family time- with the bad-bites, stings, dead plants, dead lawns, dry rot. Ticks happen to be one of the most annoying and hazardous things to share our space in the nice weather months.
Beware and please use your bug juice when you go out in the woods! Have someone check you over if you have been hiking or deep in the wooded areas. Wear long sleeves and socks if you can. Maybe someone will introduce a predator that will wipe these darned things out for good one day. We can only hope!
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