Don't Get Tick-eled This Spring

With the onset of spring and especially the outburst of warm weather we had about two weeks ago, ticks are on my mind. We have two great dogs in our household, Ray and Zed. And we love to take them with us either on a hike or brook fishing but they are tick magnets. We've already been finding them on our short haired, yellow pups but it doesn't take much hair for the little buggers to disappear into their undercoats. And even though we religiously apply Frontline to them, we are always on high alert.

One of my prior posts entitled

"Doesn't It Just Tick You Off?"

http://maine-matters.blogspot.com/2012/02/doesnt-it-just-tick-you-off.html

displays a map of tick prone states in the eastern half of the U.S. and there's a lot of red in New England. 

I've just found another tick map but this time of our state showing the occurrences of Lyme Disease per county and it's very alarming.

Living in Waldo County I'm afraid we are on the doorstep of being the next hotbed of Lyme Disease. And it's interesting that the cases seem to be moving up the coast. 

I know 

"the woods are lovely, dark and deep" 

but BE CAREFUL when you are enjoying our wonderful  (I was going to say marvelous but I guess that word  isn't used much anymore according to someone higher up than me) Maine outdoors. No more red counties..sorry Governor LePage..

Tick ID Game;

http://www.maine.gov/dhhs/mecdc/infectious-disease/epi/vector-borne/lyme/game/index.shtml