Recently the ticks have been swarming all over the place. I end up pulling several of them off each of the dogs as we go out for morning walks. Major Tom and Magdalena go under bushes or in the tall grass so end up getting more of them. Sirocco usually steers clear of those things so he doesn’t collect as many.
I’ve been getting a number of them on me as well. One morning when Major Tom went into the grass, dragging me behind him, I pulled two of the little buggers crawling in his fur off him when we emerged. I looked down and three of them were crawling up my legs. I dispatched all of them with great vehemence.
I’ve been finding them all over me for the last several weeks. Most of the time I get them before they can attach to me. Although last night just as I was getting into bed I found one on the back of my right thigh that was just trying to attach itself to me. I grabbed it and dispatched it.
What we need is more possums in the area.
While I was living in Texas, there was one that made its home in my neighbor’s tree. The tree was right next to the fence the neighbors and I shared. It would leave each night around 1:00 AM to make its nightly rounds. Then it would return home around 5:00 AM. How do I know this? Because my dogs would get up and bark at it each time. That did not make me popular with the neighbors. I ended up having to block the doggy door so they couldn’t go out at night to bark. This was after I found chicken bones and chocolate in my backyard the neighbors had thrown over the fence. I didn’t get any sleep but the neighbors stopped complaining.
I’m not sure if the possum living in the tree was the same one Roscoe had carried around in his mouth. It might very well have been as it was a few years after that incident the possum made its home in the tree. I don’t know.
Since possums eat ticks, we could use a few up in or new aera. I don’t think they’d starve. They do eat other things so even if they ate all the ticks in the area they’d still have venomous snakes as a food source. They also eat fruits, nuts and vegetables.
They are supposed to be indigenous to our local area, though I haven’t seen any. I just need a way to tell them there is a tasty tick buffet on our hill waiting for them. I’m sure that’d get their attention.
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