Tick season is already in full swing and it’s going to be one of the worst years for ticks and lyme disease. Make sure your pets are on flea/tick/heartworm prevention and get your dogs vaccinated against lyme!
The sun is shining and the grass is green in minnesota today, what a lovely beginning to the impending TICKPOCALYPSE
Remember to cover yourselves appropriately if you’re going places with lots of wildlife! Ticks are dangerous for people as well as pets!
I’ve always heard to avoid long pants because ticks are easier to notice and remove when they try to climb a bare leg, but I think it’s a matter of preference tbh.
What you really need is to use a good repellant made for use in tick heavy areas. I’m not talking citronella essential oils, I mean a real repellant like Deep woods OFF that uses DDT. Spray it on your shoes and inside your shoes. You would be surprised how many ticks start in your socks and work their way up. I have had waaaaaay fewer guests on me after spraying my shoes as well as my legs.
If you want to get REALLY serious you can treat your hiking gear in permethrin, or get permethrin treated exercise gear. It’s a very potent, effective substance that kills ticks and other parasites on contact. It’s present in some flea and tick treatments for dogs. But the kicker is, permethrin is also VERY toxic to cats, so if you have a cat and you feel like you need permethrin treated gear, you MUST keep the gear where kitty can’t get it.
Friendly reminder to stock up on tick meds for your pets, and repellent for yourself! This year is going to be a BAD one.
ALWAYS check yourself after a hike, or any trip outside. Wear bright clothes so it’s easier to see ticks on you, and make sure to do a full-body check when you’re done. This includes checking your hair line and under waistbands or underwear (last tick I found on me was on my butt, and I had been hiking with pants and a long shirt on…trust me, check under your underwear).
Remove ticks as soon as you find them, and keep them in a small container or bag (heads completely squished) for identification purposes just in case your bite looks iffy later on. Clean the bite site thoroughly. Be on the look out for any flu-like symptoms, rashes, or red rings around the bite site like a bulls-eye (note: a slight red ring right afterward is normal, see below for what “bad” looks like). Usually if you get a tick off in the first 24 hours you’ll be ok, so long as you didn’t agitate the tick, but if you notice anything abnormal go to the doctor ASAP. If your tick was engorged when removed, be especially on the lookout. It’s always better to be safe than sorry when it comes to the nasty diseases ticks can carry.
Remember: if you’re buying tick preventatives for your pets, make sure you get one that’s meant for them. Don’t use dog-specific medicine on cats, or vice-versa, and make sure you get the correct weight range for your pet. Failure to do so can lead to serious complications for your pets. If you’re not sure what you should use or what’s safe for pets, contact your local veterinarian and ask. If your pet is bitten by a tick and displays any abnormal behaviors or symptoms of sickness get them to your vet as soon as you can and bring the tick with you.
This has been your tick safety reminder post for the season.
Reblogging for both human tick safety and the note that permethrin is really deadly to cats.
fun fact: lyme disease is treated like a joke illness that doctors don’t take seriously at all
but surprise
it will completely ruin your entire life like it has ruined mine
stay out of the fucking forest and mow your fucking tall grass
Many people never get a rash at all, and this is a very difficult disease to diagnose (which is often not taken seriously by medical professionals, as @brokenlevel says).
So knowing that Lyme is a possibility is important knowledge to arm yourself with. If you have lingering illness after a summer cold/flu, get to a doctor and see if you have Lyme antibodies,
Got outside today and worked on the mulberry trees that popped up behind my back door.
By “popped up” I mean “grew during the two years in which I did next to no yardwork”.
Used my machete, saw, and Fiskars pruners for about an hour, got maybe a third of the way done. That machete is about the most useful darn thing. Used it to cut down a trunk (keep your eye on the notch!) and then pruned smaller twigs off so I could more easily stack the garbage.
But using the machete is hard on my hands. I have one injured hand already right now, so I used my left today. Came inside and held my arms above my head to let fluid drain out. Stayed like that for about half an episode of Rick & Morty. Dunked both hands in ice for a minute. Re-dosed Ibuprofen.
I saved a stack of long straight sticks because they seem useful. I throw away so much useful stuff doing yard work.
According to a recent study
published in the journal Bioscience, people who live in areas with more
birds and green plants are less likely to experience depression, stress
and anxiety.
Researchers at the University of Exeter, the British Trust
for Ornithology and the University of Queensland distributed an online lifestyle survey to close to 300 people of different ethnicity,
household incomes and ages.
They found that participants who experienced
daily doses of nature — “vegetation cover” and “afternoon bird
abundances,” in particular — showed higher rates of well-being. Read more (3/1/17 11:16 AM)
Adult beavers tear under the bark to get to the rich tree cambium just under the surface. This baby is still too small to dig his teeth into wood and can instead be found eating soft grass and leafy greens at the edge of this stream.
But scientists and environmentalists have been warning about the potential negative environmental effects, like restricted animal movement and plant pollination, of a border wall for over a decade, since President George W. Bush signed the Secure Fence Act of 2006. When Donald Trump started discussing the construction of a full-scale border wall during his presidential campaign, those concerns resurfaced.
In September 2016, Sergio Avila-Villegas, a conservation scientist at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, told BBC’s Science in Action team that “Border infrastructure not only blocks the movement of wildlife, but… destroys the habitats, fragments the habitats and the connectivity that these animals use to move from one place to another.”
George Frisvold, a professor at the University of Arizona who specializes in environmental policy, said that politically speaking, a border wall “gives this false impression that you’re actually doing something, but it has this political attraction because it’s completely ineffective” in preventing problems associated with immigration. Environmentally, he said, “Any time you’re going to put big structures along the border, and usually it isn’t just the structure out there by itself — you have to have some sort of access road for people to go get to it, so you’re going to be tearing up natural habitat with structures and roads, and that’s going to be disruptive.”
Mark Magana, the president of GreenLatinos, said he sees Latinos, especially millennials, becoming more involved in the environmental rights movement. He said many Latinos were raised to be cultural conservationists. “[We] grew up respecting, conserving, reusing, re-purposing, being very respectful for what we have,” he said. “And that is not because I read about it or…I claim to be an environmentalist. It’s because that’s what our grandmother taught us…You know, ‘Don’t turn on the air conditioning. Reuse that piece of aluminum foil…Eat every part of the animal…Find a way to fix that.’
“Uprisings and revolutions are often considered to be spontaneous, but less visible long-term organizing and groundwork - or underground work - often laid the foundation.”
My twin got me a signed copy of Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit for our birthday, and it’s been a comforting read this winter break.
My two favorite subjects, mycology and revolution.
An archaeological dig on the Menemonee Reservation in Wisconsin yielded a clay pot. The pot was dated to 800 years ago and contained seeds. Some of the seeds were planted to see if 800 year old seeds were viable. An ancient squash was the result.
This is the coolest fucking thing, and don’t try and tell me otherwise.
reblog this post with a cool animal species lets make a wholesome thread
ok ill give a headstart:
i really like leopard seals
axolotls are p rad
I LOVE THOSE
potoos look like muppets and i ove tem
here’s a quokka it’s like someone decided to splice together a wallaby and a teddy bear they literally always look like a benevolent cartoon
i don’t think you can get more wholesome than that adorable lil seed-eating smiley face. they’re not even like dolphins, cute on the outside and evil on the inside. they’re herbivores about the size of a cat. there is nothing wrong with them.
The Springhaas, or “irl pikachu” as it is sometimes known, is basically a rat shaped like a bunny abruptly caught in the middle of trying to evolve into a kangaroo. This is why they tend to look startled.
This is a dik dik. They are tiny antelopes from southern and eastern Africa–seriously so smol. With teeny hooves and teeny horns and big soulful eyes. And the name is fun to say. It comes from the alarm call that the females make. They live together in monogamous pairs.
Long Eared Jerboa
The adorable mash-up of a hamster, bunny, and kangaroo. Whiskers with no end, ears that put a fennec to shame, and adorability beyond measure!
bringing this back on your dashes
This is the paradise tree snake of southeast Asia:
Pretty, right?
But that’s not even the best part…
These guys can actually flatten out their bodies and…
FUCKING GLIDE FROM TREE TO TREE HOLY FUCK IS THAT AWESOME OR WHAT
Ratufa indica. Look at this awesome purpley squirrel.
Also they apparently get along with just about everyone and everything. They’re just friendly giant rats that are adorable and they deserve more love.
The honduran white bat is tiny and fluffy.
Platypus!
One of only two mammals that lay eggs, has a venomous spur, can detect electricity, and so fuckin’ weird people thought they were a hoax at first.
Botos - pink river dolphins - are amazing.
When the Amazon rises, they swin amongst the trees and eat fruit.
Also, in local legends, they transform into pretty young men who seduce girls.
the vaquita!!! they’re the smallest and most endangered porpoises on the planet
this is a picture of a calf but they usually grow to 140.6 cm (4.6 ft)
leopard geckos absolutely have to be on this list!! i love them, they are my children
This guy is a hoatzin, also known as a stinkbird. Because it stinks. Like really really bad. ‘Cause it solely subsides on plant matter, which it ferments in its giant crop that, combined with its short wings, make it too awkward to fly properly. It’s a stinky, useless bird that is actually doing pretty okay despite being clumsy and having a specialized diet ‘cause it smells so bad that most things don’t want to eat it. Supposedly it tastes as nasty as it smells.
Also, the babies have little claws on their wings that help them grip on branches and stuff. They fall off when they get older, but still. LOOK AT IT. LOOK AT THEM. LITTLE DINOSAURS.
I love hoatzins. I love these smelly horrible babies.
What a good post! Here’s
Elaphodus cephalophus, aka, a Tufted Deer! Like other, boring-er deer, but with FANGS and a cool hairdo!
They’re a scottish breed of cattle that come in quite the range of colors, have long wavy coats and long horns.
Also their calves look like literal stuffed animals.
Highland coos! So cute.
This here is a coquí (co-KEE) - it is a teensy eensy tree frog whose name comes from the incredibly loud (considering their size) sound they make. They chill out in Puerto Rico and at night they sound like a chorus of fairy car alarms going off.
This is a marine iguana. They only live on the Galapagos and Charles Darwin called them “Imps of Darkness” because he really didn’t like them.
They spend large amounts of their time in water and can dive deeper than any other lizard causing them to be considered the only “marine lizards.” They have lots of super sharp teeth incredibly sharp claws and they move super slick and wriggly-like in water so they look sooo fucking scary, but they only eat algae and are pretty much perfectly harmless. You could go take a swim with them and be in less danger than swimming with dolphins or seals. They’re just chill small vegetarian dinosaurs.
Wildlife, food, poetry, gardens, houses, forests, mending, making, occasional recipes and rants. I am an artist who works from home. I paint, I DIY, I fixit, I cook, and clean. Let's talk...
Wildlife, food, poetry, gardens, houses, forests, mending, making, occasional recipes and rants. I am an artist who works from home. I paint, I DIY, I fixit, I cook, and clean. Let's talk...
