Ahhh! I'm going crazy, I have a sweet back yard that I've worked hard to make really homey. Now, especially, that the weather's getting nice and everything... I want nothing more than to be able to romp and play in the grass and dirt with my dogs, dance and spin and enjoy myself barefoot in my yard. My problem: every time I'm bf out there for more than 2 minutes, I get ticks on my feet. Is there anything I can do to stop this? Anything to even make them think twice about digging in while I move on to another spot? I don't think I can live without being barefoot in my own yard! :&
You can put powdered sulfur on your feet and ankles but I’m not sure if you can still buy it at a drug store. Maybe not, it’s used in the synthesis of crystal meth. You can always spray your yard with a pesticide. Maybe Deep Woods OFF would keep them off. Good luck
im sure theres plenty of simple, natural things you could put on your feet. try doing a web search. for mosquitos you can use lemon balm, just smear some leaves on yourself, might work for ticks. thats the only one i can think of right now.
Check with your local extension service (or the state health department) about safe ways to cut down on this pest. I can't imagine ticks in the yard. I always thought they hung out in thicket brush or tall grass. We're lucky not to have them so bad here, tho' we do have some, but colder climates are better for this, sorry! I'd have to know your yard, but it's possible some judicious vegetation management would help (weed wacker, not herbicides.) Then, knowing what to mow down as opposed to what to keep, (wild flowers and ferns,) is critical here.
If you're getting that many ticks on your feet, check your dogs too. (You probably guessed that already.) I wonder if there's a similar tick repellent for people compared to what's out there for dogs.
How tall is your grass ? keeping it very low can help keeping those pests away. If this doesnt work, resort to pesticides. ticks are nasty disease carriers and they suck too. Dont scruple and wreak havoc on those shitty animals. Make'em sorry to be born :reddevil: !
If there are that many, you may want to see about some pest control. Just wearing shoes does not make you safe. It could even make it worse; they'll get in your socks, in your clothes, you could carry them in that way and they can hide underneath your clothes so you don't see them until they've had longer to attach themselves. Only if you go completely covered head to toe, long pants, socks *over* the pants, long sleeves, and don't forget a hat because ticks also sit in trees sometimes and can drop down on to you... and then whenever you go inside take off those clothes and shake them out... that's the only thing that really helps to prevent tick bites using clothing. If you wear shoes the normal way they only crawl up the side of your shoe and into your pants there. If it's warm enough, wear shorts and top only (or less )! Then regularly check your skin (and have friends/partner check your back), you can wipe them off usually before they even attach or pick them off very shortly after they do. Nudists have the least problems with ticks, ticks love to hide places, they like to crawl underneath your clothes and they also go undetected there so they're often attached for longer than when you're bare-skinned.
Thanks for the ideas, everybody! myranya, it hadn't occurred to me, but totally makes sense, that clothing and such would just provide more hiding places for the buggers. I'm planning on keeping the grass trimmed pretty well, especially since I'll be veg gardening all year. But on the day that I realized how bad it was it had gotten a bit shaggy, so that might partially explain it. I'll look more into herbal treatments like lemon balm, since I'm doing perennials in pots as well. Off is a good idea, and one I hadn't really even thought of, so maybe I'll fall back on that in case of emergency. Definitely not using pesticides on the yard though, cuz of the garden! The dogs are thoroughly checked for ticks, and often. I wish I could hang out in my yard totally nekkid, but alas we only have privacy fencing on one side. On the other side, our yard is clearly visible from the street. Sometimes I'll still water the garden or hang clothes that way, since either chore only takes a few minutes and I can keep an eye in that direction. (It's not my own modesty that concerns me here, but the possibility of offending neighbors with young'uns.)
i hear you! i wish i could be nekkid in my garden. its visible from the highway though, and my brother would be very offended, im sure lol! hope you can figure something out with the ticks.
You could always, you know, wear shoes in places where it would prevent ticks. I know, I know "BUT I AM BAREFOOT AND PROUD AND.." so on, but I'd rather set aside my foot-related moral bias for a few minutes or hours than catch lymes disease.
Great point. As usual, I'm thinking of things from a vegetaton management viewpoint. But it's true with crawling things like that---we're better off bare and free. I prove this time and again where the pavement ants plague certain coastal properties (these are like a far northern fire ant) and people never can understand how I can work in a place that has them, or treat their nests, bare footed and in shorts. I always ask them how much protection their damn shoes, sox, and long pants help them! Not very much.
Oooooooh, yeah, ants are better dealt with barefoot too! I think I've posted about my ant encounters here before; shod I stood near an ant hill, was wearing boots with the jeans over them, so they crawled all the way up my boots, under my jeans and were calf-high by the time they reached skin and I felt them... had to take off my jeans, shake them out, shake the boots out, and missed a few to find over the course of the next couple hours. On the other hand, barefoot I feel them right away on my foot, simply take a few steps aside and wipe those one or two who got on my off -then I warn my shod friends who didn't yet notice a thing and are still standing around with ants crawling all into their shoes/socks/pants
Try reading the other posts too before you add yours instead of just the first? Shoes only don't help, may even make the problem worse since they end up on your shoes, crawling up into your socks, underneath your pants, all excellent places to hide... A tick bite does not generally cause lyme disease instantly; it has to be attached for a while exchanging enough of its body fluids before it reaches the thresshold where it can harm you. The sooner you spot & remove a tick, the better. Bare legs underneath shorts will allow you to do that; socks & shoes give them a place to hide. The most protective manner of dress is probably the long pants stuffed inside shoes (or jeans stuffed into boots), long sleeves and hat I mentioned before but apart from any comfort considerations, this isn't very practical either when it's 100F... sorta gives you the choice what you prefer, lyme or heat stroke Second point, this thread is about someone's *yard*, which is *the* place most people want to be comfortable, and where most people wear *less* clothing than elsewhere; many, many people who'd never consider going barefoot in public go without shoes and/or with a whole lot less clothing than elsewhere in the yard. Surely you wouldn't advise Hummblebee to wear shoes to sunbathe?
Whereas I will grant you that spotting a tick immediately is better than giving it a place to hide, unless one goes naked that becomes a moot point...and even then you aren't guaranteed to notice one between toes, behind a knee, in some other...erm...crevice. However it's absurd to say that a tick has to be attached for any special amount of time to transfer a communicable disease. Whereas not all ticks carry them, those that do can transfer it the instant fluids are exchanged. A tick bite hardly guarantees a disease, even from a disease-bearing tick, but you cannot simply say "it only drank a -little- blood so I'm fine." As far as it being her yard, she made a post out on the big ol' internet and I made a response. She's free to ignore it and find alternative means.
blah blah goobledeegook. good idea. it's useless to give advices to those who arent likely to accept them in the first place. go tell the moslems how good pork chops and bordeaux are .
Sorry, but this is not 'absurd' at all. I would never post such medical info without being absolutely sure of my facts. There's very little risk when you remove the tick promptly even if it does carry the disease. Here are just a few quotes from a huge list that comes up easily at a simple Google search: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/jake/mosaic/lyme.html "Prompt removal of ticks decreases the chances of getting Lyme disease." http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/lyme/Prevention/ld_Prevention_Avoid.htm "If a tick is attached to your skin for less than 24 hours, your chance of getting Lyme disease is extremely small. But just to be safe, monitor your health closely after a tick bite and be alert for any signs and symptoms of tick-borne illness." http://www.dhpe.org/infect/Lyme.html Remove attached ticks promptly. Removing a tick before it has been attached for more than 24 hours greatly reduces the risk of infection. Use tweezers, and grab as closely to the skin as possible. Do not try to remove ticks by squeezing them, coating them with petroleum jelly, or burning them with a match. The American Lyme Disease Foundation gives even a longer time period: http://www.aldf.com/lyme.shtml "Studies have shown that an infected tick normally cannot begin transmitting the spirochete until it has been attached to its host about 36-48 hours; the best line of defense against LD, therefore, is to examine yourself at least once daily and remove any ticks before they become engorged (swollen) with blood." Also from the ALDF site: "If you tuck long pants into socks and shirts into pants, be aware that ticks that contact your clothes will climb upward in search of exposed skin." While they don't say anything about going nude or barefoot, of course many people wouldn't even think of going barefoot in public as an option (let alone nude). It should be clear from all the advice they give in addition to wearing clothes (checking, shaking out clothes, showering, putting clothes in the dryer to kill ticks you carried inside) that they certainly wouldn't agree with the advise to just wear shoes.
I've been going on barefoot hikes for 20 years and frequently in places having ticks. I find that going barefoot, wearing shorts, short sleeves, and generally having less clothing is really essential because ticks tend to attach themselves easily to clothing, and less easily to smooth skin. You end up getting more ticks on you the more clothes you wear. The danger of coming home with ticks trapped in clothing should be obvious. In all the hiking I've done the only times I got bit by a tick was when a tick got on my shirt sleeve and bit me through my shirt. This happened twice, while wearing long sleeves.
