First Tick

Remember when getting naked with your partner and checking each other out used to be fun?

My wife and I were out on one of our Moose Hill natural movement adventures this morning. We even sprayed some insect repellent before we left home. But as we were doing a bear crawl up Pettee's Hill, I looked down between my arms to see a deer tick crawling up my shin.

I found my last tick of last year buried in my bicep in mid-November. My best guess is that it started crawling up my arm when I was pulling firewood from the woodshed. I discovered it about a day and a half later and a small bullseye was already starting. Three weeks of Doxycycline followed. We like to blame deer for spreading Lyme disease, but mice are also a vector.

So, it looks like deer tick season in eastern Massachusetts is at least seven months long.