Ticks Are Showing Up Everywhere Again. Did They Ever Really Leave?

There's really only one reason to actually look forward to winter.

As a Mainer, I'm genetically programmed to complain about the weather year round. Actually, I think we just complain about everything year round. Summer's too hot, spring's too muddy, fall's too cold, and winter just plain sucks. But there's one thing we usually don't complain about in winter, that we complain about the rest of the year... Ticks.

In a typical Maine winter, the likes of which I don't think we've seen since we were all kids, ticks would be buried under the snow and frozen to death, making the whole cycle start anew in the spring. But we can't even really count on that anymore. Ticks just do whatever they want now and don't care whether we like it or not.

I've started seeing the annual spring tick posts starting up again...

Just this morning, my wife sent me a photo of a tick she pulled off herself after walking our sweet little fuzzball. But I can honestly say that the first tick I found on my dog was in January of this year. Remember we were getting those crazy warm days around the beginning of the year? I pulled three in one walk off my dog. In January.

I'm not sure they ever really go away anymore. I think they just lie dormant now, waiting for the snow to melt just a smidge, and then they come out ready to wreak havoc on the world. I know that lots of folks have been seeing them, but that means our time without them was a mere 60 days? It's crazy.

Look, I know I'm not the only one, and that they come around every year, but just once it would be nice to be able to get away from them for just a minute. But no... But rest assured, if you haven't seen any yet, it's only a matter of time. And even if you have some snow on the ground, the parts that aren't covered are fair game. Ugh. Thanks Mother Nature...

Can we at least laught at the little jerks?