Last week one of the dogs got skunked in the face. Still stinks, that hairy bitch. Over the weekend I ripped out poison ivy that is climbing up and around the house and despite my best efforts to protect and cleanse myself I got it all over my arms and a little on my leg too.

So does this mean the usually once-annual events have happened so hey, they're outta the way for the summer? Or does it imply that it is gonna be a stinky, itchy year?

you got ticks your way??? check for those too, oooh nasty...I successfully pulled out poison ivy with a garbage bag over my arm, as soon as my bag covered hand is full, I flip the bag...not one hive this time, usually I'm not so lucky...Saw a coon at my bird feeder last night, skunks will be coming soon...

Monkeyman just pulled a tick outta Mina (the one who messed with the skunk) the other day too. I'd forgotten that. We check the dogs regularly for ticks since they lay around in the backyard and run in the woods a lot.

Ticks are little devil-discs. I hate those fuckers. You could pound one 10 times with a hammer and it would still crawl around. Someday when all the mammals are gone the ticks and cockroaches will be the only thing left alive. LOL.

I'll kill them til the cows come home and then pull them off the cows and kill more...I see no purpose to them...

I never had ticks or poison ivy until I came to this neck of NYS, then I got poison ivy that made my arms look like popeye's and two ticks in as many weeks, one on the side of each boob, little legs sticking out, freaking screamed bloody murder with each, my husband dug them out...luckily no bullseye.. then three years later got a bullseye in the exact same spot as one, but never saw a tick, the nymphs are pinhead size...sick as shit, hate anti-biotics...hate ticks worse...gotta be capitalists, they suck you, poison you, and make you sick...

Shit, you probably don't want to know.

One of my pards back in the reptile compound days, upon return from the field or when inspecting newly acquired critters would, upon finding a tick, impale it on a straight pin and stick it on the bulletin board, where it would wave at us for days before expiring.

Come on down! We gots chiggers and leeches too, the latter seldom bother ya but the former are really, really annoying.

And then there are the fire ants, those dudes are very bad news, I've done the Fire Ant Dance a few times, sort of a frenetic masochistic strip tease. Very bad for wildlife too, they have extirpated quail from my neighborhood in recent years and all other ground nesting critters are getting pretty thin on the ground.

That's what I like about the South....

soon enough. That's an inspiring anecdote about the ticks on the bulletin board, heh.

I was at a Rainbow Gathering in Missouri back in the mid 90s or so and there was a serious chigger problem, as you can imagine, half-naked hippies sitting in the dirt and all..

I spent half a day in the 'medical' tent on chigger duty, helping people apply nail polish to their chigger spots. It was my first chigger experience. There was one lovely young hippy girl, tripping her ass off, said ass being totally covered in chigger bites, and I had to put nail polish all over it. It was crazy.

We have leeches up here too. We used to wade around in the creek and mucky pond near my house as kids and I'd get a leech on me now and then. They're gross.

It is an urban myth or something. Used to think it was effective myself until a few years ago when an entomologist set me straight. They do not burrow under the skin, they bite you, inject an anticoagulant, and drop off. It is the anticoagulant that causes the itching. The nail polish has acetone in it which produces a cooling, very temporary numbing effect. I got eaten up a couple years ago and got some(better) relief from one of those aloe/hydrocortesone ointments.

Stay out of the tall grass and do not mess around with the lovely Spanish Moss, it can be full of them.

live in the andes on the equator, bugs can't live that high...