Ed Mitchell Outdoors

Removing Ticks

Ticks are a growing medical danger in the Northeast. And don’t think for a minute that ticks are only in Southern New England. Years ago, that seemed the case, but times have changed. Today New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine all have tick problems. And remember as well, ticks are not just in the woods. They are on lawns, bushes and often on beach grass.

The two big offenders are – the black-legged tick, better known as the deer tick. It may carry Lyme Disease. And increasingly we’re seeing a new guy in town – The Lone Star, with its distinctive white spot on the back. It is not thought to transmit Lyme disease, but it can transmit “alpha-gal syndrome,” which leaves you allergic to red meat. Yikes.

Get smart. Have a tick removal tool handy. With steady fingers, a pair of fine tweezers does the trick. Yet I prefer to have a tick removal tool right on my key chain, its always ready. My choice is the Pro-Tick Remedy. See it above, pointing to the upper right corner of the photo. But they are plenty others to pick from. Find what you like. Their cheap, get a couple. One for each car, one for your vest, one for your tacklebox. Forget lighting a match or coating the tick with Vaseline. Useless. And never squeeze a tick or twist it. Worse thing you can do. Grab it as close to the skin as you can and pull straight out.

Edward Abbey, aka Cactus Ed

Back in 2018, I did a post on Edward Abbey’s funeral, if you want to call it that. No hearse, no flowers, no singing. Four friends threw his body in a pickup and drove off into the remotest parts of New Mexico, to bury him in an unmarked, secret grave. It was the way Abbey’s wanted it to be.

Photo credit: Kirk McKay LA Times

That post has never been popular, and yet I firmly believe Ed Abbey, aka Cactus Ed, richly deserves a follow-up. He may well be the most important environmentalist of the last century. During his life he was called a great many things – an anarchist, arrogant, an iconoclast, confrontational, controversial, shy, a racist, a misogynist, misanthropic, a loner, a drunk, a desert rat, a gifted writer, a visionary, profoundly insightful, bitingly sarcastic, incendiary, awe-inspiring, fearless, untamable, forever ready to fire a salvo across your bow, and forever devoted to our planet.

Desert Solitaire ( A Season in the Wilderness) is his most widely loved book. Published in 1968 by McGraw Hill, it chronicles Cactus Ed’s time as park ranger in Utah’s Arch National Monument. Living in a trailer with frying pan, bacon, eggs, mice, a British Webley 45 revolver, and a rattlesnake under the front steps, Abbey reveals the beauty and spirit of the desert. Brilliantly done, the New Yorker called it “An American Master Piece, A Forceful Encounter with a man of Character and Courage”. The New York Times reviewer called it “Like a ride on a bucking bronco….deeply poetic… set in lean racing prose…of power and beauty”

Is your interest perked? You can find a paperback at a reasonable price – ten bucks? On the other hand, a first edition, hardbound with dust jacket, could go anywhere from $500 to $800, depending on condition and whether it’s a first or later printing. I have never seen a signed first edition. Does it exist? Yup, signed first edition goes for around $3000