Ticks this year

I have an 'innie'. 
It's a lot sexier than an outie.  I've always thought it had a lot to do with the doctor's experience or expertise.  People with outties or people with odd looking belly buttons must have had a new, inexperienced doctor.  Or maybe they had a drunk doctor.  Or maybe a very old doctor.  I think my doctor was pretty good.  His name was Kenneth and I've been told that that's where my middle name came from.


This year has been especially bad for ticks.  We've got them crawling all over.  Until we spent a small fortune on that stuff you put on the dog's shoulder blades, we had ticks crawling on the furniture and on the dogs and on us.  They've subsided for now. 


The chickens normally take care of ticks before they become a problem but they haven't been able to keep up this year.  First, I keep the chickens inside their compound most of the day because a very sneaky fox has discovered our neck of the woods.  If the chickens are out long enough to decide to wander down the hill, they can vanish with the quick brown fox.  So I keep them in until a couple of hours before dark.  At that time of day the chickens don't wander far from home because they don't like being out at dark.  They're so scared of the dark that they'll just stop and roost right where they are - wherever they are when it gets dark.  So if it's near dark they'll not wander far. 


We also have a lot of ticks this year because of a mild winter.  Well, Oklahoma always has a lot of ticks but this year we have even more.  I've seen all kinds.  The ones with the spot on their backs that cause spotted fever are here.  The ones with the star on their back (or something like that) that cause Lyme disease are here.  The ones that are so tiny that they look like dirt when they land on you (and they travel in packs) are here.  They're called seed ticks.  They are really hard to get rid of.  If you attempt to brush them off they don't go.  You can't grab them because they're too small but you sure will notice them two or three days later after they've bit you.


Oklahoma has so many ticks that there's a beautiful lake down near the Red River,  the lake is very close to Texas;  If you're travelling from Texas up north to Oklahoma and to the lake there's a sign that someone painted.  The sign says "TAKE A TICK BACK TO TEXAS".  I think that's funny but Ms. Donna doesn't.  She used to think I'm funny but that was a very long time ago.


Well anyway, I found another tick on me yesterday.  I looked down and thought "What the fuck is that?"  It was something dirty looking in my innie.  I have such an innie that sometimes I have to take extra care to clean it out.  I sure don't want to carry around a lot of festering belly button lint.  I tried to wash it out but it didn't wash.  And boy did it suddenly itch.  I investigated more closely, I put the light on it.  I grabbed some excess stomach and pinched it around and took a good close look.  Well crap.  It was one of them dang damnit ticks.  In my belly button.
A tick in my belly button.
Shoot.
I wasn't about to pull it.  What if I popped something open and everything inside me came leaking out.  How do you stop a belly button leak.  I didn't want to mess with it too much because it might come apart and become infected and then I might have to go to the doctor and have them mess around down there with tools and the like.  That wouldn't be good.


I poured some peroxide on it.  And then fretted for most of the day, pouring more peroxide on it every time I thought about it.  At the end of the day I took some tweezers and pulled out a dead tick.  Now today I have a serious belly button ITCH.  Don't touch it.
Just let it go away.


But then you don't want to hear about a tick in someone's belly button do you.