Your Are a Tick Magnet!

Welcome to spring time in Alabama! Last weekend my husband took us on a stroll around our property to look at a few trees he thought may need to be removed. Pretty uneventful, ducking in and out of brush and under tree limbs, neither of us any worse for the wear. The rest of the afternoon was spent dodging rain showers and tracking through plant nurseries to get some cost for replacements.

It wasn’t until later that night while doing laundry (my absolutely favorite past time) that I thought ‘hmmm my back is itching”. I reached back to scratch and felt a bump through my shirt, “uh oh”. I asked the hubby to take a look at my back; after all I wasn’t aware of any reason for this newly acquired bump. Guess what he found…yep you guessed it a TICK! Ick, a tick and not just any tick, but a female Lone Star Tick, with the prominent white dot on her back. “OMG, get it off of me!” So, with the skill of a surgeon he plucked that tick right off my back with my best set of eyebrow tweezers…eeeewwww!

Then it hit me ‘what if there is more than one?” I mean what if they brought a plus (1) to the party? Darn Lone Star Tick, its position was “Don’t Mess with Texas”, but I was clearly stating “Houston we have a problem” before launching into my battle cry of “Remember the Alamo?” (sorry for all the Lone Star inspired catch phrases hee hee!).

Well as it turns out I was right to be concerned because my little parasitic friend did bring a plus one and it hand landed on my thigh...oh my! "Off with his head" was my mantra and with one swift pluck he too was gone!  Of course, I couldn't help but be grossed out by this creepy crawly things - yuck!

Just when I thought all our troubles were over, my husband announces "Lulu has a tick!" me out loud "great"!  So, out came the handy dandy tweezers and with a skillful tug our Lulu Belle was tick free!  The next course of action a round of Frontline for both her and Lexi, it is a shame they don't make that for us humans!

So for now we are 'tick free', but given the number that we have plucked off us thus far (4), I would say we can't say farewell to our friends from whose name hails from the fine State of Texas just yet!