Posts Tagged ‘wood tick’
Budding Signs
We are beginning to see hints of color on the tops of certain trees on the horizon. Many shrubs and bushes at eye level are sprouting tiny new leaves. Looking straight up, signs of life appear at the ends of high branches of tall trees. It won’t be long before we have trees with leaves again.
It’s been a while since we’ve experienced any high-heat days. Recently, our mornings have hovered around the freezing point but I don’t think it has been harsh enough to kill new sprouts. Grasses are going gangbusters and will require mowing soon or some areas will get out of hand.
In yesterday’s glorious sunshine, Asher stopped in the middle of a walk to lie down in the shade and watch the natural world unfolding before us. I decided to sit down with him.
In less than 30 seconds, I spotted a wood tick walking across the front of my shirt. Despite that unwelcome reality, we enjoyed the spectacle of a bird in a tree over our heads that seemed to be practicing every call or song he had ever heard. I never once noticed a repeated sound. Up and down; high and low; trills, chirps, whistles, yodels, slides, chatters, singsong melodies… it seemed to have it all. The “Rich Little” of bird calls.
I guess the budding sights of spring were inspiring that bird to sing in the extreme.
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Impressive Sky
There was no missing the approach of a significant change in the weather yesterday afternoon. It didn’t come as a surprise after a dramatic jump in temperature and humidity that was combined with a strong, gusty wind. All the ingredients were there for a bumpy end of the day.
I was moving the horses back into the paddock from the back pasture when the leading edge of a line of thunderstorms arrived overhead. A short while later, our cell phones announced our county was included in a tornado warning.
This was the second such warning to occur in this county during the past three weeks. Something tells me it’s going to be a long year for severe weather. It would be just fine with me to be wrong and have these two close calls be nature’s way of using up the threatening storms right away in early spring so the rest of the warm months will be safe and calm.
In addition to the weather drama, I got a little shock when an itch on my side turned out to be a small wood tick latched onto my flesh. Makes me miss our chickens free-ranging all over the place and controlling insects like nothing else I’ve ever seen. Sure wish the rest of the busy wildlife around here would pick up the slack and eat more flies and ticks.
The horses are also going to miss the fly-control the chickens were providing. All the wet weather of the previous weeks is harbinger of a high fly population this year. Flies have shown up early and are already making pests of themselves around the horses’ eyes.
As the sky began to look gloomier and doom-ier, we checked weather radar maps and watched as the worst looking blobs on the screen approached. Fear not, this wasn’t to be our day for damage. Just like the storms a couple of weeks ago, our location was spared as the worst-looking masses passed on either side of our property.
At one point, it began to rain in the backyard while the other side of our house remained dry.
That’s what I call really riding the edge.
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Relative Something 