Okay...after coming home after work and having to brush 3 ticks off of me, he's looking for a sprayer for the tractor to spray the whole place this year. Last year he used just a hand sprayer over about 1/2 acre around the house itself, and the dog's fenced area--only after ticks dropped off the dogs in the kitchen right after coming inside.
I don't like having to do that on such a large scale, but I hate ticks on me worse!!! He's had ticks on him before from working up on the hill, but I don't like walking through there with so many stickers, so I don't go. We weren't anywhere near the hill, weren't anywhere near the back at all. Weren't around the trees, not around the old, above-ground swimming pool site where there's still a lot of cedar mulch. The dogs and I were in the wide open out front between house and creek. Last year at this time Vlad was still really young so they were mostly off-leash in fenced area & we didn't walk around everywhere. I never got any on me last year.
One of these today was different from the others, though otherwise they looked the same, and I looked it up. It was a female "Lone Star" tick. Seems the females of this kind will have a prominent white spot on their back.
I keep on getting conflicting information on this type of tick. Some say Lyme Disease carriers, some say no. All say possible Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. Some talk about something called STARI.
I'm confused now. I didn't ever have to worry about all of this in town, and I've never gotten any on me when we've been at campsites. I wish these sites didn't have conflicting information!!! Where's the official "THE TRUTH ABOUT TICKS" (fictional name) site?