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ctw1949
Certified organic poultry farmer in SE Mass

Another tick bite!
I went out to my client's in Rochester on Tuesday afternoon to plant some Jack-in-the-Pulpits that another gardening friend had dug out of her garden. I picked some lilacs and came home. I was there for about 45 minutes. I did a tick check...and found nothing. The rest of the day was as usual.

I woke up at 1 AM in a sweat. I got up and sat in the living room. I became aware of an itch on my back...and found a tick getting itself buried in my skin. Almost out of reach! After a struggle, I removed the tick. The next morning, I had a friend come, scrub the bite with soap, dry and put Manuka honey and a band aid on the bite.

I called the clinic where I have my doctor. I left a message, a nurse called me back, took information and said someone would call me before the end of the day. No call...9 AM this morning I got a return call...and the outcome is that my practitioner has no openings till next week. Could I arrange a photo video visit to see the bite? No matter what I told them, they were NOT LISTENING! The bite is on my back, I can't reach it! How can I hold a phone for a video of this bite? Besides, I don't have any of that video crap set up on my iPhone!

Or I could come into urgent care.  I opted for urgent care...for cripe's sake! Who knew it would be so difficult to get the proper treatment for an infected tick bite???

So, ater today, I will head to urgent care. By then, the tick bite will be almost 48 hours old! The Lyme virus will have been running around my system for two days. Long enough for it to infect my system!

There is no need for such uneducated personnel to be taking such a caviler attitude about something as serious as an infected tick bite! No wonder our society is so unprepared for a pandemic! Lyme disease is a pandemic and no one knows about it!

Life in COVID-19
Massachusetts is opening the door just a crack..Phase I is now being implemented. The numbers of sick in this state is still high. Masks are required to enter any business. People are going back to work but no students will attend classes. Beaches and campgrounds are opening with restrictions. Hopefully, people will be careful and we may have some semblance of normalcy. But I fear we will have this virus around for a long time.

My garden is finally waking up! Sugar snap peas are blooming now. I bought and applied some organic fertilizer mix and hope it will green up the spinach since two side dressings of blood meal didn't do the trick. We had some rain, not enough, so I watered well after fertilizing. A few days ago, there was a huge swarming of flying ants coming out of the wood sides of the raised beds...mine and the one next to me. I filmed it, it was incredible! I bought some organic treatment for termites & ants, I hope to apply it soon, but it's toxic to bees, so I will apply after sunset. Not that there are any bees here in the city anymore. When walking in the park when the trees were blooming (apple, cherry), I saw NO BEES of any kind on the blooms. Sad.

It has been in my mind to create a business card to use for my organic knowledge. I will have to design a new business card. That means I will have to re-learn how to use that program! Trial and error till I get it right. Ideas are needed...and suggestions welcome.

As of yesterday, this building is virus free. I'm glad for that, but with all the kids out of school and so many coming in and out of this building, I am wondering how long that will last. Once the virus has come to us, we will be shut down to any visitors except for essential workers and health aids.

After a very wet start to the growing season, we are now in a period of less rain and the heat has started to ramp up. I put off flaming at my client's for several days due to high winds. I loose a lot of flame heat in the wind. I went on Saturday and flamed a large area of weeds that have invaded the lawn. Two weeks ago, Sam helped to re-seed the front yard but the seed is slow germinating. The client is watering regularly, the second area we seeded is showing germination...so I'm wondering what is going on.

I have suggested to my client that her lawn needs aeration, lime and over seeding. We will wait till fall to do this and hope for a better lawn next season.

It seems that the Tick Tubes we have put out in her yard are working. I have had no ticks on me the last two times I have worked in her yard. Before the tubes were put out, starting last spring, I would find many ticks on my clothes and body. If the tubes are the answer, that would be wonderful!!!

I'm off to start this day. I hope everyone had a good weekend.
Life in general
Here I am...well and not having any issues with the shelter at home...I'm a loner anyway. As of yesterday, there is no virus in our apartment complex. Everyone is careful, wearing masks, gloves and keeping the "social distances". But the kids are going stir crazy without school to take up their time. Many kids will admit they hate school...but they can't wait to go back!

My tiny garden, planted in early March, has started to grow. I have discovered termites eating the radishes! I hope to control these little buggers with an organic soil drench. This drench may help with the ants that live in the wood sides of the raised bed. The ants herd aphids, in this case, root aphids. I can't get rid of the root aphids unless I eliminate the ants! Ants will take aphid eggs back to their home, winter them and then take the eggs to the plant roots where they hatch and suck the life out of the plant. Gross!

The Sugar Ann peas are a 60+ day till fruit seed. However, it has been long past 60+ days and no blooms. It was a cool March, April & May, at least so far. The spinach is still yellowish, even tho' I have added two doses of blood meal. So, something is going on under the soil..and it has been cool.

Dill reseeded itself and I have a lot of new dill plants. The radishes are toast since the termites are eating all of them under ground. the Borage is doing nicely, self sowing in the garden. Last year, the Painted Lady butterflies laid eggs and I had their caterpillars in the Borage. I can only hope for the same this season. Seems the lavender didn't make it and neither did the parsley. The horseradish is going to bloom soon, it should be lovely. Johny-Jump-Ups are thriving and in full bloom.

I wish I could say I am making progress with posting things on eBay to sell, but I can't! The volume of stuff is overwhelming. I consider calling an auction company to take it off my hands, but don't seem to be able to do that, either! Stuck with this project.

BB the dog is well, but seemingly has not been doing so well since he was attacked in the park in April, 2019. He lost some weight and all of his top teeth. I believe they were fractured when he was attacked. He lost one upper canine tooth right away, then the second one came off about two months later. When he visited the vet in March, she told me he has no more top teeth. Poor boy! He got a clip job yesterday and will get a bath later today or tomorrow.

I hope to get out to Rochester today and flame weed at my client's. Weeds have overtaken some of her lawn...mostly annual weeds. I flamed an area 10 days ago to see how the weeds reacted. My client says they are all gone...but there is more to flame. And then seed with grass to fill in. It will be interesting to see how things grow back.

Time to walk BB the dog, who is snug in his bed right now.

As we are in this first spring/summer holiday, I think of our soldiers who gave all...and thank them.