Ticks and Leeches

Supposedly all of god's creatures have a purpose but really, do we need the Tick? And what about those leeches, I would like to know what their intrinsic value is. Yesterday I was climbing in the Bow Valley with Tom. We had an awesome day out, we caught up on our lives while we were approaching our climb. No one else was at the Crag and we had great fun taking turns leading sport climbs. We were back at his place and I was showing him photos of Bhutan. I started to scratch the back of my neck and felt something...... my heart sank because I knew what I was grabbing, a god damn TICK. They are really vile little insects that, given enough time will start to burrow into your skin and have a feast on you and maybe infect you with Lyme desease. They are very difficult to remove once they have imbedded into your skin. This little bastard was still crawling around but it gave me the heebeejeebees thinking about how long it had been crawling on my body.  I let Tom know right away "Jesus, I have a TICK on me!!" In a blink of an eye he was peeling his shirt and pants off! I was annoyed with myself that I have forgotten to do a Tick check once we got back to the car, tis the season for them.

I stayed over at his place and the next morning he says to me, "You'll never guess what I found this morning". Immediately I said "not a god damn Tick" it's really hard to even say the word Tick with using some sort of expletive. Sure enough in the morning he said he felt something behind his knee and there was a tick crawling around. He had already checked himself, had a shower in the evening when we got back to his place so we weren't sure where the tick came from. He wonders if the Tick was on his clothes and managed to crawl on the bed.... eeeeetbbblbllliiick!! Who knows, but it makes my skin crawl if I think about it too much.

So the other creature I will happily kill is the leech. My last night of camping on my Bhutan trek we were at a much lower elevation and it started to rain. My guide Sonam mentioned leeches which again, got the skin crawling. Namgay the cook was sprinkling salt around my tent but I was still weirded out as I knew at some point in the night I was going to have to leave the tent to pee. (I was completely done with peeing in a Nalgene bottle in the night)  It rained all night so I knew my ring of salt would be gone.

In the morning I was reading in my tent with most of the flaps open since it was warm and humid. (I kept the mesh portions zipped) when I noticed the leech attached to the inside of my vestibule. Leeches are connected to my childhood. I was terrified to stay in shallow water when we spent time at our cabin at the lake. I knew there were leeches in the water so I would usually run out into the lake and head for deeper water as fast as I could. Needless to say I was not happy when I saw the leech perched inside my vestibule. Like the Tick they are damn hard to kill but for different reasons. Ticks have an indestructable outer shell, yet leeches are all soft and squishy. How do you crush something that has no skeleton?

As much as I love the outdoors there are some of natures creatures I actively dislike. It wouldn't be so bad if they left me alone. Take spiders for instance. Many people don't like spiders but I'm fairly neutral to them. As long as they're not jumping on me I reckon, live and let live. And snakes, snakes rarely hurt people unless accidentally stepped on. Ticks and Leeches are both parasitic and will seek you out to have a lunch. yuk!