Tick Tock

So it turns out one of the things Tart was not used to when I brought him up to the Bay Area was ticks.

Ticks are pretty much a fact of life in more humid parts of the U.S., but apparently the Los Angeles region either does not support a tick population or doesn't support enough of one for them to be a common warning to hikers and campers. At any rate Tart wasn't previously aware that ticks were a common problem after spending time out in the hills, and was rather freaked out when I told him that as we spent more time out in the open space areas for the Archaeological Survey class we're in, we'd have to start looking for ticks - although as I attempted to reassure him, in all my years living here I'd never actually gotten any ticks.

Nothing much came of it for the first few areas we visited, or the parks we went to, since generally we stayed on the trails. This changed when we spent time at Hidden Villa, a combination open space park/CSA farm/summer camp in Los Altos Hills. After our original survey hike into the hills with a guide, Tart was sitting on the open back of the car (we drive a hatchback - a Toyota Yaris) and called me over to look at a cute spider.

I look at the ground near his foot, expecting a wolf spider or a jumping spider or something. Nope, it's on his arm. It also has a flattened, un-spiderlike shaped and red marks on his abdomen.

That's not a spider.

After freaking a bit and knocking the first tick off his arm, I make him stand up and scan him all over. Another tick comes off his pants, but that's all I can see for now. Hours later at home a smaller, all-black one appears on his arm and was probably hiding under his shirt; this one is accidentally knocked off - oh God now it's loose in the room - and because we can't find the goddamned thing, a paranoiac vacuum of the room follows in an attempt to kill it. This seems to work, because neither we nor the dog suddenly develop a case of HOLYCRAPIHAVEATICKitis.

Then we go back to Hidden Villa again the next week to do a more in-depth surface survey, including mapping and ground-penetrating radar. We come back to the car, I check Tart down for ticks, he checks me, neither of us see anything, so we both go home. This is on Friday.

Two days later I'm rubbing his back and notice that what I'd taken to be a tiny cut or scab on his side has little legs.

OMFG.

This thing is tiny. It's the size of a millet grain. After a failed attempt to get it to disengage with a hot matchtip - and later looking that up on the internet and realizing that you're not supposed to do that - we have him lie down shirtless in a sunbeam so I can slowly pull the tick out with tweezers. The original set we used were too blunt, so the head came off, but after prodding with a much sharper pair we get any remaining tickbits removed and the wound cleaned and bandaged.

While Tart goes to take a shower, he calls back for my Mom to check me for ticks. After all, these things are so small, they could easily be on one of us unnoticed, right? Well, as soon as I take off my shirt I realize something I had thought was a cut on my chest also had itty-bitty legs poking out the sides. . .

God dammit.