Ick - a tick!

Just took off my boots and found a tick had hitched a ride on my leg at some point today. I don't understand how these little arachnids can burrow their head beneath your skin and you just don't feel a damned thing. Not sure how long it had been there - less than eight hours for sure.

At least this one had the decency to attach itself somewhere I could easily reach. The last tick I got managed to attach itself to the center of my back - directly beneath my bra clasp.

You can't just brush a tick off. You need to pull the fucker out with tweezers. This is impossible to do when it's in the dead center of your back. I drove down the hill to a neighbor-cousin's house and had him remove it for me. It's a little embarrassing to show up unannounced at someone's house and ask them to get pull a bug out of your skin. But I've known this neighbor-cousin since we were little kids and he has far more embarrassing tales he could tell about me.

The other extra-creepy thing about ticks is that they are extremely hard to kill. Can't just squeeze 'em. My method of choice is to drop them in a shot glass full of rubbing alcohol. Even then, it still takes about ten minutes for them to die.


Another neighbor-cousin, Bocephus Boomhauer (my second cousin once removed that I met last fall after his release from prison), killed another rattlesnake on his property this morning. I was driving to one of my odd jobs when he flagged me down to show me the dead snake - all four feet of it, stretched out on the tailgate of his pickup.

He's always warning me about rattlers. I'm pretty sure half of our conversations have been about rattlers. I know they're around and I'm always cautious of that, but the only two I've ever seen were both dead - killed by Bocephus. Today, he also warned me again about a large rattlesnake that's been seen crossing between his brother's property and the back edge of my woods. "Big around as my leg!" he tells me. "Big around as a stovepipe!"