Ticks
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There are early signs that it could be a bad year for tick bites. In May, the rate of people seeking emergency care for tick bites was the highest it's been since 2019, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
https://www.npr.org/2025/06/23/nx-s1-5438566/tick-bites-symptoms-region-disease
2019 was the year I got Lyme.
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I'm sorry to hear you got Lyme Disease, wtg.
Last year we had barely any ticks at all. The year before, I got a bullseye rash and had a course of antibiotics. This year is a bad tick year. Loads of them. I was coming in from the garden with 4 or 5 ticks on me. It abates somewhat as the summer progresses, but I'll often come in carrying a tick somewhere.
The worse is, having found a tick on oneself, the rest of the day is spent feeling them all over one's body when in fact, they aren't there.
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The antibiotics worked for me, too. I guess others aren't so lucky. I read Russ Douthat's book about his case of Lyme. OMG, what a horror story.
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/01/ross-douthats-wrenching-lyme-disease-battle/
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More bad news re ticks.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/29/lone-star-ticks-increase-climate-crisis
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That is terrifying. We found a bug in our entryway a week or so ago, it was big enough to be visible so I thought it was a spider, but looking at the photo of the lone star tick, I'm now sure it was a tick. It didn't have the marking so I assume it wasn't a lone star tick, but nevertheless.
Ugh. Very disconcerting!
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Free tick identification
https://www.ticklab.org/identify-my-tick
Not sure your photo is of sufficiently good quality, but you could give it a try.
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Free tick identification
https://www.ticklab.org/identify-my-tick
Not sure your photo is of sufficiently good quality, but you could give it a try.
Free tick identification
Thanks!!
Not sure your photo is of sufficiently good quality,
It may not be, I think I took four photos and all of them are a bit on the blurry side. It was small enough that it was very hard to get a good photo and we didn’t want to let it get away, so I eventually gave up!
I will try sending it in though!
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They identified the tick we found on the floor in the dining room in 2022 (I just looked it up!). As I recall they got back to me pretty quickly. It was a fully engorged American dog tick and it probably had latched onto Raffi when he was outside; there's no way it could have been on us without us noticing it. It was huge!
I didn't pay to have the tick tested (that lab offers the service) but we did take Raffi in and had a blood test done on him. He had no tick-borne diseases.
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Well it means you have ticks in your yard. It might just be a stray, or it could be that this is a bad year for ticks in your area. Dog ticks prefer dogs but can latch on to humans. I think repellents work. In the woods I used to pull my socks over my pant legs.
https://momgoescamping.com/tick-types-pictures/
The university might have more info on how tick season is progressing in your area.
When the world wearies and society ceases to satisfy, there is always the garden - Minnie Aumônier
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Things you can do, from WebMD:
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Keeping the grass short helps keep tick populations down. They cannot complete the life cycle with frequent mowing.
"The man that hath no music in himself, nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils;” - Shakespeare
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Well it means you have ticks in your yard. It might just be a stray, or it could be that this is a bad year for ticks in your area. Dog ticks prefer dogs but can latch on to humans. I think repellents work. In the woods I used to pull my socks over my pant legs.
https://momgoescamping.com/tick-types-pictures/
The university might have more info on how tick season is progressing in your area.
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Keeping the grass short helps keep tick populations down. They cannot complete the life cycle with frequent mowing.
Keeping the grass short helps keep tick populations down.
I wonder if our grass is short enough. We mow once a week and keep it just a touch long — I mean, it doesn’t look long but the deck isn’t on the shortest setting, doing it this way is supposed to help prevent non-grass weeds…
