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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> >What is your best move on the ticks and chiggers? Does your elevation  
> lessen their numbers?

Alas, no.  They will eat you alive here in the summers.  Chiggers don't 
inhabit cool woods where most of the firewood is, but the ticks abound.

On about half of my own acreage the chickens decimate the ticks.  Better than 
that, they turn them into eggs.  But off in the Mirkwood and Mount Doom 
(National Forest, where we can gather dead wood by permit) there is on such 
check 
on their populations.

When we go fishing at the pond a mile away in the forest, a pond surrounded 
on two sides by grass, the chiggers are deadly.

First, eat a lot of garlic.  Neither ticks nor chiggers are fond of garlic 
flavored people.

Next, ticks almost always attach to your clothes first then creep their way 
to choicer spots.  When you've been in the woods, brush yourself down or 
shake 
your clothes out and it will eliminate most ticks.

Chiggers coincide with peppermint (which we have in weed-like over 
abundance).  When we are going to be in the grass or weeds, we grab a 
handfull of 
peppermint and rub our legs with it.

All of those help.  But one still gets some ticks and chiggers. Weighed 
against staying out of the woods and fields in warm, bright weather, it's a 
small 
price.


James