We've had a lot of ticks lately. Just last week, Emmett and I were playing catch for a half hour or so. When we finished, Emmett noticed a tick on his leg, which he brushed off. A few minutes later, however, he spotted another. We caught that one before it had bitten him and looked him over for more. In the next 15 minutes, we found another two on various parts of his body, and luckily, each of them was easily removed. In the car on the way to the mall, Emmett found the fifth tick on his leg. We stopped the car and got it off him in time. I decided to check one last place as a joke, and sure enough, there was one under the fold of his shirt collar.
The next day, we were brazen enough to play catch again before heading into Manhattan for a bat mitzvah party. En route to the City, Emmett needed me to pull over once again; there was a tick just under his ear, and this one was burrowing into his skin. I managed to get it just in time.
With this in mind, Shirra was able to convince me that we needed more pets: Chickens. Apparently, they devour ticks aplenty. Even if they don't deliver, at least we'll get some eggs in the bargain.
Right now, they're just a few weeks old and living in a storage container under a heat lamp in our bathroom. In a month or so, they'll be clucking around the back yard, cleaning up our tick problem, or so Shirra says.
