By mid-May, Bootypants had already jumped out to an early lead. She never looked back, pushing her lead to 15 by mid-June. We were still finding ticks in late October and November. With snow in the forecast tonight, I think it is safe to say that the tick ticker of 2009 is complete.
Here is the final tally...
Bootypants: 100
Scott: 80
Lindsay: 9
None of the ticks that Lindsay found on her were attached. I had a few that were attached for short periods of time, but most were found crawling on me. I don't like to use bug spray, and I've found that wearing a short-sleeved t-shirt tucked in with a thin long-sleeved t-shirt over it seems to keep most of the ticks off of my skin; I find a lot in between the two shirts. Many of the ticks we found on Bootypants were attached, with several engorged. The tick shown in the two photos above was the milestone tick, #100, found on November 12, 2009.
4 comments:
Wow, poor Bootypants, although you weren't all that far behind. They really didn't seem too bad at our place this year; past years have been much worse.
That is an amazing amount of little blood suckers. Of course, the places you hike, guess that is very understandable.
Beetles are cool, but those things are just gross :)
Beth... believe it or not, they didn't seem that bad at our place this year, either. Last year, when I wasn't counting, we couldn't walk our trails without finding ticks.
Ken... I really didn't think we would find this many. If you go a little ways south of here in the spring, the Lonestar Ticks are very abundant, and it's easy to pick up 20 or so in a day.
Ted... it must be the two extra legs that freak you out.
Thanks for the comments!
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