Ticks & Me

In the olden days, I never, ever got ticks. Since moving to Whites Creek, I get ticks all the time. I get at least a tick, but usually two or three, when I go out to Bells Bend. My one day high is 12, which was, until that day, twice the amount of ticks I’d had in my whole life. The Bells Bend ticks are black.

Today I pulled two small red ticks off me. I had been briefly to a park to review it for Pith, but mostly I had been out in the back yard with the Professor planting sunflowers.

I have checked the dog and cats and none of them have ticks. We Frontline them, but Frontline doesn’t repel ticks, it just kills them, so if we were in a particularly ticky place, you’d think we’d all be particularly ticky.

But no, it’s just me.

It about makes me not want to go outside any more, but I can’t not go outside. I have flowers and vegetables to tend!

I joked about getting a small, diaper-wearing chicken to roam me and eat the ticks off of me, because I read online that the surest way to get rid of ticks is with guinea fowl.

But I am seriously skeeved. Is there something–Deep Woods Off applied every twenty minutes, some pesticide, something, that I can spray on myself to make myself less attractive?

And is there a possibility that it’s not the move, but the metformin?  Could I be altering my body chemistry in such a way that it makes me irresistible to ticks?

Too Bad the Battery Died, My Front Irises Look Awesome

We went to a park this morning (though not the park I was trying to find) and I took these pictures. And the Professor came over and we got two of the beds that will be full of sunflowers planted, which was awesome. I have blisters, now, so it’s going to have to wait until next week before I get on to the other two beds. I may have too many sunflowers. Though, I have to admit, the prospect of having too many sunflowers tickles me just a little bit.