When out searching, I am always on the lookout for all the big beasties that can harm me and my canine partners. Lions, tigers and bears, oh my! Cora has the habit of finding bear dens, and once found one that was occupied! My teammates won’t let me live down what I looked like running away from the den. And all the occupant was doing was snoozing peacefully, its humungous head resting on its crossed paws.
We’ve run into a few snakes, and saw a few bobcats on the way to tasks.
But, it’s the wee beasties that drive me insane, especially in the summer time. There’s gnats, yellow jackets, black flies, deer flies, big black horse flies, little green horse flies, spiders, centipedes, millipedes just to name a few. All laughing at my attempts to prevent them from invading my eyes, my nose, biting my flesh, and drinking my blood. Over the weekend, as I was hiding for a team mate, I put my hand down as I was sitting next to a tree. And immediately felt like I’d stuck my hand in a flame. Pulled my hand back and it was already starting to swell. Fortunately, it didn’t go much beyond my thumb and now I have a pretty rash! My team mate and I think it was this that got me:
I’ve had one search where I couldn’t search a major portion of my sector because we kept running into yellow jacket nests. On that same search, one of the walkers had to be transported to the hospital after getting into a nest of them. Just last week, I moved my portable mounting block to get on my horse and started running as fast as my fat little legs would carry me down the driveway. It appears that a nest had taken up residence under the block and didn’t appreciate the move to a new locale. The whole nest seemed to come boiling out in a black cloud of anger, just looking for a victim. All of us were fortunate and didn’t get stung, much.
Right now though, my least favorite wee beastie is the gnat. I could be swimming in a vat of 100 proof insect repellant, and they’d still figure out a way to get in my eyes, up my nose or inhaled. They are just wretched. The only thing that works for me is a branch snapped off of the nearest tree that I can wave around like a mad woman. I’ve often wondered what my dogs are thinking when they are coming back to me to indicate and find me furiously waving round this leafy frond over my head.
Then my least favorite wee beastie of them all, the tick. There are so many different kinds, the dog tick, the lone star tick, the deer tick and on and on. I hate them for a myriad of reasons. They are useless blood sucking disease carrying parasites that serve no useful purpose in the grand scheme of things. I might be a little biased in my thinking after having to deal with many a dog dying of Lyme induced kidney failure or the fact that my Finn almost died from Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.
But, still is there really any use for a tick?
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