File this under gross.

[Skinny rooster]

Last night I got home late and it was still raining heavily. I ran to the barn to check on everyone and went to go back inside. When I was in the bathroom I felt something crawling on the back of my head, I thought black fly or something like that. I checked in the mirror and yuck yuck yuck! It was a tick! I am really surprised that happened. I keep the grass cut etc. The only thing I can see is one of my cats came out of the barn when I was checking the animals. I just had her fixed so I didn't want her in the rain and picked her up to put her back in the barn. Still she didn't have time to get into long grass or the bush and it would have to move fast to go from her to me in seconds. Now I'm totally creeped out, at least I got it before it bit me. I crushed it into the stone age, ugh. I heard they are bad this year, careful everyone.

[poultry_admin]

Yup, we had the first one in February this year.
Haven't had one in a month or so now. Keep the fingers crossed that they don't like the heat....

[tcamp]

My son used to do arborist work and I have found many ticks in my shower. I worried about him so much back then.
This summer I have figured out there are sooooo many things to worry about it could drive us crazy if we knew half of them. I had a lady come to buy chicks this spring...she was telling me about how she lost her breast...and it wasn't from cancer. She was digging in her garden and had her garden gloves on when a mosquito bit her just above the breast. With her dirty garden glove she scratched the spot and the very next day she got so seriously ill that she needed up in hospital. Within three days her organs were starting to shut down and her husband was told there wasn't much chance. She had picked up a bacteria from the soil like a staph of some kind. They operated, took her breast and a large chunk of her upper torso around to the back, and she did live to tell about it. It scared me just to listen to it. My gardens have been sorely neglected this year.
But then, this one hit really close to home...my daughter had an emergency appendix removal June 20. Two weeks to the day later her three year old ended up in the hospital with appendix symptoms but they didn't think that was it so they kept him there for 6 days on simple IV fluids and morphine for the pain. It was horrific pain. Finally transferred him to children hospital and he ended up in surgery within n hour of arriving off the chopper. It was his appendix and he had been septic for six days. He was almost dead. Anyway they started asking questions, because two appendix in the same house within two weeks doesn't happen. They found a rare bacteria in him...It boiled down to their cat. Yup, cats can make us very very sick. Cat scratch disease is just the beginning...they can actually give kids meningitis. Grandson has been in hospital for three weeks now over this, teetering on the edge of life. He got a blood transfusion today in hopes that it will help fight infection because his blood was so low after the two surgeries and other trauma this past three weeks. He is doing much better and we hope he will be able to be home soon. But that was a long and scary and very heart breaking experience for all of us.
So ya...soil
And cats...google them, you will never want a cat in your home again
And ticks...
I am running paranoid at the moment

[WLLady]

and i just heard that the lone star tick has been found in the sarnia and windsor areas.....that one is an ugly beast.....it injects alpha gal in the saliva when it bites you and your body elicits a huge immune reaction against the alpha gal to fight it, and then when you eat beef, pork or wild game like venison or sheep etc you end up going into anaphylactic shock because those meats also contain alpha gal. awesome.
i HATE ticks. i've been bitten at least 4 times....twice positive for lymes....antibiotics yadda yadda yadda. just gross.
i do not understand why these things even exist.

yes, cats can be nasty....carry lots of bugs, parasites etc etc. my cats do end up with ticks, but having claws they can remove the ticks very effectively, and leave them perched on the couch for me to find. lovely. seems we are in a constant battle with tapeworms from them bringing back and eating mice, which obviously are getting tapes from somewhere, just gross.

tcamp, i hope your grandson comes through really well.....! i had a friend too that got multiple resistant staph aureus in her garden in a cut on her finger. she ended up having all the connective tissue removed from her arm to her shoulder.....and months on various antibiotics. scary. very very scary.

[Ontario Chick]

tcamp Thanks for posting, we all need a reminder that all those wonderful natural things around us can be dangerous to our health.

[tcamp]

I must have been behind the times and just caught up this summer...I honestly never knew any of this...it has been one heck of an experience.

[WLLady]

sometimes ignorance is bliss.....and after the last few years my hubby and i have been through i solemnly promise to never take the bliss for granted anymore....i will enjoy the bliss of not knowing, until such time as i know, and then i will deal.

[Silverlacedmom]

=shiver=

Yea we are suppose to live above the "tick line" where ticks dont come up this far north, that ends down in the Dryden area, we are 3 hours north of there.

We had friends that got ticks on their dogs this year...I always keep my furkids on frontlined in the summer months just because they run through the bush sometimes when we are heading out camping.

Glad you got the creepy crawly when you did!

[kenya]

Yeah a couple times this year I had a tick on my head, I figured it was off some bushes all along the side of the house. I pulled all those bushes up and put hosta's there instead. Haven't found one since.

[Shnookie]

The last time I saw a tick here was in early June. It has been so hot and dry I think they are all dead.

Do you know what in the soil causes that awful infection?