Tick Season

We have now almost completed a full year at our new home on the Middlefork prairie. One of the true pleasures is a greater appreciation of the year’s cycles. The movement of the setting sun across the horizon and the waves of migrating birds were both anticipated and welcomed. Our seasonal infestation of ticks, however, was not. Starting in early May, the ticks will be tracked into our house in droves, clinging to our dogs. The anti-tick goo keeps the ticks from lodging on the dogs, but currently there is no human version available, though I have been tempted to go canine and dab the stuff on the back of my neck. Our poorly trained dogs jump onto the furniture and the bloodthirsty ticks drop off and search for new prospects, namely us mortgage payers. We didn’t catch on to this until the ticks starting routinely showing up in our bed. Nick would wake up in the morning and discover three ticks on his neck as he was brushing his teeth. This led to frantic tick checks before getting into bed, carefully making the bed in the morning to keep the ticks out of the sheets, and diligently keeping the doors closed during the day to deny access to the dogs. However, this belt and suspenders approach is not fool proof. One night there was an old gummy tennis ball on the bed, a sure sign that there had been a break down.

This tick situation caused a crisis at bell choir rehearsal. We were practicing a tricky piece that had a riff of competing doublets and triplets, and I requested that we drill on several problematic measures. Just as we launched into the piece, I felt a tick marching across my forehead. Since we were rehearsing for my sole benefit, and both hands held bells preventing any discrete removal of the tick, I tried to stay focused and ignore the patter of little feet. However, when the tick turned northward and headed into my scalp, I snapped. I dropped my bells with a clank, the music slid off the stand and I yelled, “it’s a tick!” I threw the tick onto the floor, and when I looked up, now relaxed, I saw the horrified look on my musical mates, who looked at me like the epitome of pestilence. At this point, I had grown used to peeling ticks off, but I can understand their disgust and intimation that it is a simple courtesy to delouse oneself before social events. The very fastidious women next to me did not want to proceed until we had found the tick and killed it. While the tick was easily found, killing it is another matter, since you simply cannot crush them. I was then instructed to impale the tick with a pencil, and when I attempted to do this, the point of the pencil snapped and the tick flipped away out of sight. We bravely continued on with our rehearsal, but I noticed everyone nervously fidgeting and looking at the floor.

This morning I have enjoyed my sojourn on the internet, learning more about the life cycle of a tick, and am pleased to report that they all die by the end of June. Those that have had the great good fortune of a blood meal die after laying millions of eggs, the others just die of starvation. The life cycle includes egg, larva, nymph and adult. The latter three stages all require blood meals, often from different hosts, which seems to be an inefficient and risky way to live. The larva has six legs, but the nymph and adult have 8 legs. What’s up with that? You’ve just got to love the mysterious ways of Ma Nature.