Jacque was covered in ticks at Blues Creek!

Ticks are nasty little buggers. Actually, they are arachnids, not bugs at all, with eight creepy little legs. Some ticks are bigger than others — seed ticks are teeny tiny, while deer ticks are a little bigger. They all make us cringe!

Sometimes we discover ticks on us while we’re in the field, which is preferred because that usually means we’ve found them before they’ve had time to imbed themselves into our bodies! Every so often though, a few hours after leaving the woods (or even a day or two later) we’ll feel a little itch… and there it is, a damn tick! How did we miss it?? We always do a tick check, afterall! Those things are just plain devious.

Last time I found a tick on me, I was driving to work and felt something on my head… it was an imbedded tick! I pulled it out immediately! I know they say to light a match on its butt or use nail polish and this and that, but after all these years of getting ticks, I’ve found all of that to be a major pain. The first time I was covered in ticks was after a visit to Ocala National Forest (that place is wrought with them). I immediately went to the doctor, and this is what he told me: 1) It’s rare to get Lyme disease in Florida. 2) A tick has to be imbedded for at least 24 hours to transfer the disease. 3) There is no way to actually test for Lyme disease, it’s just based off of symptoms (flu-like ones such as dizziness, headaches, fever, sore throat, joint pain) and the level of probability that you could have contracted the disease based on answers to a questionnaire.

So I was sent home, Lyme disease free (supposedly!). Ever since then, I haven’t worried too much about it and have learned to embrace being a CHICK WITH TICKS!!