Jon took Eli backpacking up on the North Shore this past weekend for their annual father/son Superior Hiking Trail outing. They experienced some fine weather, few bugs, and fewer people. Had a delightful time. The one drawback was that the tick population seemed to be at an all time high. I think they said they pulled 36 off of themselves- only a few embedded, the rest free ranging over their clothes and bodies. They came in the house after the drive home chuckling about the tick Eli had found on the way home and had flung in a panic. They warned that it was somewhere in the car. But then we found one on Eli's abdomen and called off the car warning. The next day Jon proved that theory wrong when he plucked tick 37 from the ceiling of the car. Tick 38 turned up (dead) in the dryer after a load of backpacking clothes came out. That's too many for me.
What I find interesting about all this tick experience is that my gentle-souled Eli, who adheres to a strict catch and release policy when it comes to flies or spiders that venture into his domain, takes keen pleasure in taking a match to a tick. Nothing he likes more than knowing that a tick is dead and gone, and fire is his assassination method of choice. Not sure if I should be concerned about his or not....
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