I took my boy out Saturday morning to a little 5 acre plot I lucked into a while ago to scout it out for some October recreation. It's surrounded by about 350 acres of woods, so even if it's only a small piece of land, it's in the middle of a suburban wildlife magnet. It happens also to be a tick magnet, and this year in NoVA is worse than any I've seen since I arrived to the area. We did a tick check as soon as we got home and found a grand total of 15 between the two of us. Most of them were in our clothes or still crawling around looking for a warm meal, but still, 15!! Yesterday, the boy came to me and said, "Dad, I have a bump on my head, and I think it's a tick." Yup, make that 16. Nasty. Stuff like that makes me want to flee back to the [supposedly] wild west--where I never saw a tick despite spending the majority of the summer outside. At least we got to see a wild turtle sitting in the woods munching on a big mushroom. L thought that was pretty cool.
Seeing the wild turtle sounds pretty cool but just thinking about ticks creeps me out. We are being bombarded by millions of mosquitoes this summer in our neighborhood. I don't dare go outside after 5:00 p.m. We have aphids on our flowers and something is eating the leaves on my marigolds in the backyard. Bugs are definitely pests! Mom
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