Wow! There seems to be a lot of people out there worried about woodticks. My son is included in the crowd. The majority of hits on my blog lately have been about woodticks. (Helpful suggestions can be found in my blog of June 4th of this year.) I haven't had so many hits on Pogo lately because I haven't mentioned it in passing. (Pogo has a couple of new fun games...check it out.) My son yelled up from the basement the very night that HTP and #1 son installed our official mailbox up at the road. He wanted to know where there was a tweezers. OK. Why do you need a tweezers? He had a woodtick. I inquired whether he wanted me to help him remove it...I thought it had embedded itself somewhere on his body. I don't recommend the use of a tweezers. Nothing really works better the use of a person's thumb and forefinger when it comes to extraction. Anyway,I was wrong. #1 son didn't have a woodtick embedded in his body. It was crawling on his jeans. The outside of his jeans. He wanted the tweezers to remove the crawling tick from his jeans! I picked my jaw off the floor and proceeded to roll my eyes. Obviously my son needs to toughen up a bit. This is rural Wisconsin. Just grab the thing between your forefinger and thumb and toss it in the toilet...don't forget to flush. Note...I don't recommend tearing it in two thus ending it's life nor do I recommend trying to crush it with the heal of your shoe (this doesn't work), nor, apologies to PETA, do I recommend releasing to poor little creature back into the wild thus allowing it to return another day. In our case, I recommend either entombing the evil reality of life in the bowels of our septic system or take it outside and smash it into oblivion with the nearest rock. I do not have warm fuzzy feelings toward woodticks. I have yet to find any woodticks crawling or otherwise this year but I've been kind of busy getting the house in order. I have not been walking around in the tall grass. I have been pulling copious amounts of weeds from my garden but...no woodticks...yet. I'm a realist. I will find at least one woodtick this summer somewhere on my body.

Murphyism of the Day

Benedict's Principle (Formerly Murphy's Ninth Corollary)

Nature alway sides with the hidden flaw.

Law of Revelation

The hidden flaw never remains hidden.