Tag Archives: chiggers
Chigger season
If my phone calls are any indication, this appears to be a whopping chigger season. Don’t know what I’m talking about? You should count your blessings. Chiggers are my personal worst nightmare. They are tiny mites, barely visible to the eye, that live on the soil surface and, in their larval stage, are parasites on humans and other vertebrate animals. Chigger bites itch terribly for 1-2 days, then slowly shrink to mildly itchy red marks that take 1 or 2 weeks to disappear. The only good thing I… Read More →
Time for repellents
Yesterday the Texas Department of State Health Services announced the first 2015 case of West Nile virus in Texas. Coincidentally, Dallas County Health and Human Services issued a health advisory reported the first positive mosquito pool of the year was collected Wednesday. And to add insult to injury, this week my wife and I both got our first chigger bites of the year. All of this is a good reminder that summer is around the corner, and that insect repellent is our best defense against the less savory… Read More →
Late chigger season
It’s October, I’m still scratching chigger bites. Two weeks ago I gave a talk for Master Naturalists at the Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge headquarters, and we took a 15 minute “field trip” to the flower garden around the building. The next day I counted 30 plus bites. Last weekend I swear I never left a sidewalk, and still felt the tell-tale itch of chigger bites. It could be just me but I’ve been getting calls from others, too, about chiggers over the past month. Chiggers are my personal least… Read More →