Trowel and Error

ticks

ticks

and

more

ticks

!

!

!

Growing up were the days of bare feet tickled by the grass between our toes as we sat in the middle of a sea of green in our front yard.  Our fears were of fire ants, horseflies, and irate bumblebees...small potatoes compared to my days now in the not so deep south.  It's never a question of shoes or shoe-less.  If it's not rock or concrete or winter, it's gear up for battle time...socks, lace-up shoes, long pants with legs that are tuck-able into your socks and a gallon of pyrethrins spray to douse said shoes and pant legs up to the knees.

With a lethal dog by my side and trowel in hand, I dare any tick to take a taste of my poison coated hound or wander up my poison coated gear...I dare you, dare you, dare you!  Ops! Forgot the poison coated hat for all you little ticksters that like to climb to high places and drop onto my head for dinner.  I LOVE the south.  I LOVE the south.  I LOVE the south.

Widows...more of an enigma of our imaginations out west, it was horror time when one was actually spotted and a day to remember in infamy.  Big fat black spider with red hourglass, right?  Well, sort of...not prepared for what the south had to offer, they lived quite comfortably in my garage for a season until a bit of education hit me squarely between the eyes.  I was living with the enemy!  My Bad.

Black widows, brown widows, big widows, little widows, red hourglass, red three dots...these buggers don't know when enough is enough in these lands.  Widow fighting gear...insecticide that slows it down so a shovel can bash it to smithereens.  I'm sad to say it's a worn out saying in these gardens these days...if a rock has laid on the ground for more than five minutes a widow will be living under it.  So true.

Brown recluse...more black than brown...looooong legs.  I don't know how else to identify one.  Saw a live one at a bug museum once, saw a live one on my living room carpet by the edge of the coffee table trying to get away from a clueless curious Lacey once.  That's two times too much.  I still can't identify one.  While it was in the small mason jar before I flushed it down the toilet it was a stretch of my imagination to say I could make out a clear fiddle on any of it, but it WAS a brown recluse.  The house reeked of insecticide the day after!!!

For this chick who's lived at the equator (bug purgatory) for a few years, anything the upper south throws at me is a piece of cake...

except

brown recluses,

widows

and

ticks

especially 

ticks

hundreds

thousands

zillions 

of

ticks