Secondarily, I'm now sharing my home office with my husband, who earns real money---(no offense to the Suite intended here, I love this column) and therefore takes priority until our new modems are installed. I hope there is sufficient material in the list of articles to keep readers going while I get up to speed!
Thanks for your patience and support!
And now, to the subject of ticks in the garden...a subject with which I have greater familiarity than the bugs in my internet service...
...those misbegotten bloodsuckers, ticks.
We have all picked them off our persons and pets, but they are so disgusting that nobody wants to talk about them. Deer, or 'dog' ticks become active in the spring and stay busy searching for hosts until the first freeze. Some sites say they desist in midsummer, but I've found them working away in September.
At this time of the year, the females you may see out and about look like big, gray marbles, with six teeny weeny legs at the front. I shudder just thinking about them. They are full of blood and tiny larvae, ready to expire and send forth thousands offspring. If you find one of these, handle it with a paper towel and destroy it.
There is a picture of a mature female in its' engorged stage at the bottom of this page. (If I put it here, you might not make it to the end of this article).
A recent foray into the back woods in our yard found four large females hatching out zillions of ticklets on a woodpile, where they will rest until they are mature enough to find a hapless mammal on which to feed. I sprayed them with a flea and tick spray reserved for the dog, and will hope for the best, but I realize that the foliage is filled with the little buggers and will be careful.
Tick larvae are very tiny versions of mature adults, as small as pieces of ground pepper, and are difficult to see.
The surest way to keep ticks away from you is simply avoiding their habitat. They love brushy areas, and stay low enough to the ground to attatch themselves to mice, voles, rabbits, dogs and of course- you. Anything warm-blooded with a pulse.
