The ticks are fine, they made it through the winter without a dip in population or vigor. The chiggers are doing even better, they produced a bumper crop and are feasting on mankind with the usual vengeance. I have a strip of hide around my belt line that is raw with bites. The spray to ward off bugs seems to work pretty good on ticks but those dang chiggers are powerful little critters!
Blackberry season is here. The showers have been perfect for the filling out of each berry and they are all plump and getting ripe. I will pick -- I hate to do it -- but I will go picking in order to get that cobbler and enough to put in the freezer for several more as the year progresses. That picking is the ideal time for the chiggers. They train their children to wait in the perfect place and attack. That place is usually on me.
I walked a half mile of fence last week and straightened wire. I enjoyed the job, liked the tall grass and listened to birds chirping. I didn't think about the ticks and chiggers before I hopped out of the truck or I would have ridden Snip instead of walking. In the truck I carry a can of the meanest repellent I can buy, but it does me no good in the can.
Folks, be very aware of tick bites. We have had some Rocky Mountain Spotted Tick Fever cases and they are becoming more common. Lyme disease is carried by infected ticks and these two diseases are long-lasting and miserable. I suppose we didn't know of the terrible things that could happen from a tick bite when I was young, but the itching is a small problem compared to what could be hiding in the venom.
Spray the horses with fly killing chemicals because the mosquitoes also carry West Nile disease and they are gonna be more than plentiful for the summer. I have made it a habit to spray Snip every morning as he eats his breakfast. I have seen horses with welts the size of dimes all over their body due to mosquitoes lunching on them.
The Grands are out and about now and helping or disrupting, depending on their age and what they are wanting. I would like to take them all for ice cream at the close of the day, but the older ones have things to do that don't include eating ice cream cones! My close relative keeps the cookies and pies plentiful and makes the sweet tea by gallon pitchers. We are always thankful to have one or all of them around. I keep them sprayed and my close relative wipes their necks and cheeks with something to keep the bugs off there.
The pest I can't seem to rid the place of is old sneaky snake. I was showing a feed salesman the last of a load and how it wasn't as good as it should have been. We walked around the feed tank and I almost stepped on the long thick old snake. Of course, I screamed like a little girl and ran backward over the salesman, knocking him down and scaring him half to death. He said he figured I had seen Big Foot or something as mean as that.
We had to quit and go to the house for a glass of tea. My close relative got a good laugh and she will remember to relate the incident to all her friends and family. I finally stopped shaking and we journeyed back to the feed tank, me walking gingerly and the salesman out of my path!
It is my opinion, and everyone has one, the one thing that strikes fear in a strong man's heart is personal. You don't get to pick a fear from a lineup and you sure don't get to pick your reaction to it when it faces you. I sure would like to shrug my shoulders and kick a snake over, act like it didn't amount to a thing but that ain't gonna happen. I know some who are afraid of simple little things like spiders or mud puppies. I knew a feller who could not bait a hook with a worm. But do they scream and run backward?
Take your time thinking about this and don't laugh at another feller's apprehensions. Yours might be just as bad but a lot quieter!
Bill is the pen name of the Gravette-area author of this weekly column. Opinions expressed are those of the author.
Editorial on 06/03/2015