seed ticks: the devil’s spawn

Lest anyone [re: city folk] think living in the country is all sweetness and light, let me disabuse those folk of that notion in one word: seed ticks.

Okay, it was two words. Sue me. But really, seed ticks are disgusting, horrible, nasty, annoying, and gross. Now, let me tell you how I really feel.

I HATE SEED TICKS.

And we live in Tick Central. This is the Tick Ranch. Our main crop is, you guessed it, TICKS. It’s just a fact of life in central NC.

What? You don’t know what a seed tick is?

A seed tick is the larval stage of a tick. They sit in masses of hundreds, if not thousands, in grass, or maybe in some alternate tick dimension where they phase into existence just as one of the kids walks by. Innocently brushing said grass/inter-dimensional portal, hundreds of tiny, teeny seed ticks glom on and begin swarming up the leg or arm at near superluminal speeds. When you notice it, you look down and see this massing army of what looks like moving dirt spreading up your leg and generally what happens next is you freak the fuck out.

Here, look:

Can you see those little dots? Those are about a hundred baby ticks crawling across my hand and up my arm. This is actually a small tick bomb, as a big one can look like mud on your hand, the tick mass is so large. Can you believe I had the presence of mind to stop and take a picture before I washed those mother fuckers off? I can’t.

When this happens, we call it a Tick Bomb, as in, “Mom! I just got tick bombed!”

If you don’t get the ticks off, they bite in, leaving tiny, blister-like bites that itch for weeks, months even. Seed ticks supposedly are too small to spread Lyme Disease or Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, so there is that in their favor I guess. I don’t know—if someone introduced me as “At least she doesn’t carry any major diseases,” I don’t think it would be a huge compliment. Just saying.

When we were looking at this land to buy, we hired a semi-realtor dude to come out and handle the paperwork for us. He came out to walk the land with us with the seller’s realtor—I guess this is normal, like having your lawyer present or something. Anyway, we warned him about the ticks. We told him to take preventative measures. But he totally dismissed this and showed up in slacks and loafers. He later told me that no amount of money from the sale of that land could make up for the torture-by-itching that he experienced from all the tick bites he got on that walk.

So what ARE preventative measures? Well, some people use the chemical method, some people use the barrier method. For the ticks, I mean. For example, people try to keep the ticks away with tall boots, sprayed down with poisonous toxins. This can do all right, unless you get ticks on your arms. And if you spray your whole self, there you are, covered in poison. No thank you. Other people say to tuck in your clothes tightly, putting your pants into your socks, that sort of thing, in an attempt to keep the ticks on the clothes and off your skin. They they toss the clothes in the washer. But I’ve seen ticks come out of the washer alive (obviously they are the scourge of the earth, a mix of nuclear waste and the Undead), and one or two or ten always seem to get through anyway and bite you in the armpit, or along the elastic of your underwear. I HATE that.

Here’s a weird one: I used to put a super thick layer of lotion or vaseline around my ankles. The ticks couldn’t climb any higher than the lotion (they would get stuck in it) and I could just wash my feet after the walk and be done with it. I did this until one summer I got about 200 bites on my left foot and decided even localizing the torture wasn’t good enough.

What to do?

The first thing is when you see this:

Don’t Panic!

And the second thing to do is pull out some TAPE.

Because look:

Tape pulls those ticks right up! I’ve gotten tick bombed so bad at times that the tape has been wall-to-wall ticks. DISGUSTING! We NEVER go on walks in the woods around here without tape.

Look at what the macro feature on my camera does to that tape:

Can you see their evil little legs??? They are about the size of the head of a pin. Smaller. There have been a couple of times where we have been out on a walk and forgotten the tape. Someone gets bombed and we just run for the yurt, yelling. It’s pretty funny. “Tick Bomb! ARRRGGGG!!!” We make a joke about it, to stave off the horror and panic. And I buy lots and lots of tape. It never hurts to have extra.

You can pop seed ticks between your fingernails if you’re feeling vengeful, or you can burn the tape, maybe, and maybe do a little victory dance around the flames.

I knew a gal who lived a couple of miles from here who thought she had a spider infestation in her carpets—you could run your hand across the shag and a little hail of tiny bugs would spring up out of them. SEED TICKS. The exterminator was so grossed out he went home to take a shower. She was from the north and had never seen ticks before. Her dogs had brought them in. NASTY. Don’t worry, every one lived. And they didn’t even have to burn down the house.

Moral: don’t give up walks in the beautiful woods. Don’t live in fear! Just don’t leave home without your tape.

Finally, although this post is about ticks, look at what a yellow jacket did to little Sophie’s hand:

Poor baby! It swelled up so much she couldn’t make a fist. Mean old yellow jacket.

There are a few advantages to living in town. Not getting Tick Bombed is one of them.

ETA: There is quite a discussion in the comments section on this post. Including a longish reply from me that talks about how to get them off, once they have bitten in. Scroll down to find it—look for the bold print if you don’t want to read the other comments—especially if you’re googling because you’ve got ticks on you and you are freaking out.