Tick.... Tick.... Tick...

Naw, this isn’t about time, or a bomb! This is about those flat insects that suck blood--I've even seen them hanging off of birds--and swell up like a grey grape, and occasionally pass on awful diseases while they’re doing it. Then they drop off and lay eggs and more baby ticks are born. Seed tick story: I took a friend birdwatching in an old cemetery out in the woods early one morning. We are having a grand time, and then suddenly I felt this creepy crawly feeling on my legs. I looked town, and I was covered with hundreds of ticks the size of a pinhead who were all marching northward with purpose. We rushed back to her house and I leaped in the shower and scrubbed them off before they could attach. I am not a cruel person. I don’t kill things just for the heck of it. In fact, I go out of my way to save life. I rescue turtles; I pick up the pill bugs that find their way into the office and let them go outside, I fished a writhing earthworm out of a puddle yesterday and put it back on the grass. But there is something immensely satisfying about placing an engorged tick in a pair of pliers and squeezing. It makes a very satisfying pop.