Just a reminder

If you're like me and doing the shadetree thing, be sure to check for ticks.

I saw 3 today. Vise-grips got one, a cigarette got another and the third got away.

Ticks are the only bugs that creep me out. Spiders and snakes, no worries at all.

I think it stems from a bad experience several years ago, when I ran into a tick 'nest', and became absolutely freakin' covered in the things.

That sucks...

I'm not real fond of them either. Sneaky bastards.

We mostly end up with fleas around here. I fight those bastards all summer long.

Talstar is your friend. Broadcast it across your entire lawn, landscape areas, and gravel drives. You will have no ticks, fleas, termites, chinch bugs, mole crickets, etc. for 6 months. You can find it at do-it-yourself pest treatment stores or feed stores. The active ingredient is bifenthrin.

I live in SoFla, and for whatever reason, we don't don't have fleas or ticks at our house. Other places we have lived in Florida we have had horrible problems, but not here. Our dog is a low rider, so if there were any out there, he would have them. I HATE ticks, and spending a hour getting them off my late dog Sadie is a very unpleasant memory. Just lucky, I guess. Now, let me tell you about our mosquitoes................

having crohnes disease.. I have more than once had to use the "great outdoors" as a rest room.

Once I squated down over a hole I dug in a sand/dirst trail in the pinebarrens here in NJ and could see dozens of the things homing in on my Co2.. that really freaked me out.

The one that REALLY freaked me out.. friend of mine had some on him from walking through a field.. they got in my car and had one walking across my face while in traffic.

I remember being a kid with long scraggly hair because I never wanted to get it cut. One day I kept complaining that my hair was tickling my ear, so my dad told me to shut up or he'd cut it for me. But it kept tickling... turns out it was a tick crawling into my ear canal. I apparently kept moving it out and it would crawl back in, until I finally realized what it was.

I pulled one off my wife's head, and 2 off one of our dogs the other day. I had one on my arm last year, and it jumped off. For whatever reason, fleas, ticks, and mosquitoes don't like me, and don't bother me.

Ticks used to bug me... but after 3 or 4 years of pulling 'em off the dogs, it's not so bad. They've had enough that I can pull out a bit-in tick with nothing but my fingers, head and all.

It's kind of sad/funny, but one of our dogs starts getting really paranoid whenever she sees a tick, or sees us pull one off one of the other dogs. She'll start getting jumpy/twitchy and biting at herself rather than just scratching.