Do you know what time of year it is?

Tick engorged (left) and ready to latch (right).
I put them on a piece of tape, throw them away,
having removed them with the tiny, pointed tweezers.

Once engorged, they look like a
fat, brown pea.

We're back to tick time!

Yes, its tick season.
For those living in the fringes of potential tick territory, you best watch out.
All it takes is vigilance.
By June 21st we had found and removed 76 ticks. By July 10th we were up to 80. Things slowed down in the summer. We were only finding one or two a week. Late August, they picked up again and we are up to about 85. Read the full story here!

Daisy loves the forest.

In the past week, just when we thought things had calmed down, we've found two ticks on Buster and FOUR on Dorah.
They are easy to find. It takes 24 hours or so for anything like Lyme Disease to go from the black-legged ticks digestive system into the host.

Buster grooms his sister, Dorah

If you pet the animals, you can feel a partly-engorged tick and then remove it.

Now, most of our ticks are likely brown ticks or dog ticks, not the black-legged kind. But you cannot be too careful. All I do is shout "BUG!" and hubby grabs the tweezers, a piece of tape, ad the sucker is toast.

They are very tiny.
Here is one on Dorah.

Dorah is the cat, much like Sady (the queen), who spend the least amount of time outdoors. Dorah, while almost as big as Buster, and such a lovely white, has been in and out 6 or 7 times since dawn!
So why Dorah has more than the others, I do not know.

Buster usually goes out in the wee hours (3:00 - 7:00 a.m. today). Buster, despite being alpha male –the only male, defers to Dorah and lets her eat, she nudges him out.

Grumpy Sadie, tick removed!

Daisy has been outside since 7:00 a.m., I saw her off in the back 40, waved, she meowed, hopped up on the bench, and then went back to her mouse patrol.

Sadie watched carefully by Dorah,
enjoying the last warm days

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