tick tock

With spring comes the ticks.
Deer ticks that is.
As a kid, I do not remember ever having a problem with ticks. I spent my childhood mucking around in the woods too.. Sure, dogs got dog ticks here and there but there wasn't this problem with deer ticks and all the nasty diseases they carry.
The only bugs we had to worry about other than yellow jackets were earwigs. Earwigs really didn't do anything but the rumor was that they climbed into your ears and burrowed into your brain laying eggs. You would find them hiding in the lining of your damp bathing suits (usually the crotch area) if you hung them outside under a pine tree. I remember shaking out my suit vigorously not wanting any 'surprises".
I don't remember knowing so many people who have spring allergies either. Maybe I am immune to outside allergens due to making club-houses out of poison sumac branches when I was a kid.
Who knows.
Most of the dogs I take care of have been diagnosed with lyme disease. Most of these same dogs wear frontline flea & tick collars too. The ticks are sneaky little things because they are out ALL year long just waiting on a blade of grass to jump up and bite you on the arse. Most owners put their collars on their animals seasonally. Some owners don't bother because they are afraid of exposing their pets to possible neurological problems that some pets have reacted to due to the chemicals in these collars and applications. The collars do not prevent the ticks from going on the animals but when the ticks bites the animals the chemicals in the animals blood stream kill the tick so that it is how it works.
Dog ticks aren't as bad as deer ticks. They are bigger and easier to find and remove. They are about the size of a lady bug and are brownish red in color. They may give you a bacterial infection but not lyme disease or any other tick "nasty" (i.e. rocky mountain spotted fever).
My brother was telling me he found a tick crawling in his arse crack. Now, I do not know if he was just pulling his usual sophomoric Adam Sandler gross out humor on me just to gross me out or if indeed it was true. I know that ticks do have a nasty habit of migrating to the groin area. Even Former President George W Bush got lyme disease from a tick bite. I do find deer ticks on my legs periodically. They are really really tiny. I do find ticks on the dogs periodically as well. At first I got really grossed out when I saw them and now I just methodically pick them off and chuck them.
I guess it is just one of those things you have to be vigilant about when you are walking through grassy areas.