The temperature has crept up a little. Spring is here. The daffodils are flying a lot of cheerful yellow and optimistic shrubs are sprouting unaware that a frost is bound to get them in the night if they stick their stubby green fingers out too soon.
And Porridge has her first tick of the season sprouting just behind her ear. The warmer weather brings them out as well. What loathsome things they are! I have given it a good soak in tick poison, which, judging from the instructions is not exactly good for people or dogs either, but is the lesser of two evils since:
It is bad enough trying to get a dead tick out without leaving the head behind, and impossible when it is alive.
If you don’t get the head out it can cause an infection, and if you don’t remove the tick it can be a carrier of many nasty viruses, some of which can kill your dog very quickly, or so my vet doggie friend says.
I was just about to launch into a rant about ticks and tapeworms being sound evidence of, if not necessarily the absence of a deity, at least the absence of a benevolent deity…more like a stroppy bad tempered sort of deity with a rather twisted sense of humour, if you must have one at all…when I had a phone call from England that put my trivial examples back into perspective. It is not my story so I cannot tell it to you, but the title of my post is sitting up there as if it knew beforehand. It was some bad news, but not as bad as it could have been…my title is wrong…it was the cloud that had a silver lining.
And if you must have a deity, well it’s alright with me. Whatever gets you through the night in this hard world…
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4 days ago
8 comments:
The Indians use a natural oil for ticks, lice etc on humans and people. It comes from the Neem tree and the leaves are also eaten by humans and cattle to evict parasites from the intestines. When I visited an organic Amla farm in Jaipur the owner had 4 bags of neem leaves to keep his swimming pool clean! That it is known as the village doctor tree.
ticks: ick ick ick ick ick ick
We have those awful field ticks around here and just one walk through the fields will leave them clinging to every part of your body. They are awful.
Deities are just another reason for us to feel guilty about something. As if we really needed another reason.
*shudder!* Ticks. Bleh!
My cats come in with them all the time. We've gotten pretty ruthless about yanking the bastards out - I don't seem to have a problem getting the whole beastie in one shot.
I like it here - I'm going to be back...
No God, but plenty of ticks. The ticks in the Urals forests drop from trees. When we went into the woods searching for kindling we had to wear anoraks with draw strings on the front of the hoods. And then, because they're such committed and single-minded little fuckers, there had to be a thorough mutual grooming session afterwards.
What about buying a bottle of ether at the 'pharmacie'?
Not sure whether they still sell the stuff but a few years back it was an easy way to get ticks off a dog.
Soak a piece of cotton wool and press on the tick until it loosens its jaws and falls off. Then murder ruthlessly.
It's true that I am not normally a woman of murderous tendencies but ticks would challenge the most committed of Jains.
I hope you are bringing back some Neem leaves, my little fish.
Thank you everyone for your various remedies. I expect to be launching a business selling natural Indian tick repellant very soon...
We used to burn the ticks out with a match. We had lots of them on Vancouver Island. Nasty little creatures, and yes they can cause a lot of disease.
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