I got home Monday evening and wanted to look at something in the back yard.
So, I slipped through the back gate, stomped around for a few minutes and then headed back out.
It was dusk, so you could see things in general, but not a lot of details on the ground.
And by details, I mean a specific tunnel of soft dirt recently excavated by yonder mole.
My toe sunk into the mole diggings, I tripped and pitched forward, feeling very much like Jobba the Hutt, staggered a couple of steps and landed on my knees.
After glaring in what may have been the general direction of the mole, I brushed the grass off my hands and pants and headed inside.
None of the neighbors were outside, so one knows about this embarrassing event except you, me and Kindra, and I’d appreciate it if we could keep it between us. Pubic image and all that, you know.
Supper was one of my favorites - a large baked sweet potato drenched in butter. Afterwards, I retired to a chair in front of the fireplace and was playing a guitar when - Lo! What’s this I feel crawling up my leg?
Why, it was a tick, that’s what it was. What we typically call a dog tick or a wood tick. One of those little hard, brown suckers.
(Unrelated: I used to know a guy at Fitzhugh who would often overeat and then say that he was “fuller than a boar tick.” It didn’t occur to me at the time, but now I wish I could go back and ask him how to tell the difference between a boar tick and a sow tick. Could be a great conversation starter at social events and church parties.)
Bear in mind that the temperature at our house was 10 degrees Sunday morning and there was snow on the ground.
I would have thought that was plenty cold enough to rid our back yard of ticks, be they boars, sows or ticklets, but apparently not.
I consulted Google, which informed me that, yes, ticks can indeed survive cold weather. They go dormant, then rouse themselves when things warm up.
There may a level of cold that they can’t survive, but, clearly, 10 degrees and light snow isn’t enough. This begs the question: What’s the use in winter, if it doesn’t get rid of ticks, chiggers and mosquitoes?
But I digress. The tick in question soon found himself in the fireplace, where I suspect his chances of survival were lower than in the back yard.
I turned my attention back to the guitar and all was well again, except for this one thing. Once you learn that ticks can survive 10 degrees and snow, you can’t unlearn it.
It’s knowledge that haunts you forever.