On Saturday I was doing some cleanup in the garden and went to clip this dead branch out of the giant rosemary in the front garden.

As I was reaching toward the bush my spidey sense twinged, and in that instant I caught sight of a quarter inch of shiny black skin wound up around the plant.

And this guy came out to say hi. He (or she) is just a little black snake, probably one of the 16  born under the front sidewalk, yech. I know they’re good to have around, but I don’t want to reach into a plant and grab a snake instead of a stem. Needless to say I gave the rosemary a wide berth as I finished cleaning up the garden.

Then later that night I called Tuck in from his before-bed rounds. I had his topical tick medication all lined up to apply, and as I squirted it on the back of his neck I noticed he had what looked like cinnamon powder all over his head around his eyes. I brushed at it and instantly dozens of teeny tiny ticks started marching up my arm. Oh, the irony! There are few things I find grosser than seed ticks, so I ran for the office to grab my packing tape.

I deticked myself with the sticky side of the tape, and then set about pressing strips of tape to my poor dog’s eyeballs, trying to get the ticks out of his fur. He was a patient champ, but it was not a brilliant way to wind down before bed as I found my skin crawling all night with (hopefully) psychosomatic bloodsuckers.

It was one of those nights (which happen pretty often here, actually) when I felt like I’d had quite enough of country living, thank you very much.

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