Create an Environmentally-Friendly Yard that Discourages Ticks
As someone who was diagnosed with Lyme Disease three times between September 2010 and January 2017, I've become very interested in learning how to avoid contact with ticks without the use of toxic chemicals. I love the outdoors, we have four dogs, and Tom's work in lawn care and landscape maintenance makes us all an easy target for the nasty little bugs. Pennsylvania has a large tick population and is one of the states with the highest incidence of ticks and tick-borne illnesses. There were just under 13,000 reported cases of Lyme disease in Pennsylvania during 2016, and 2017 was expected to be the worst year ever for deer ticks in Pennsylvania. The report isn't in yet. The increase in ticks is due to several factors. There was a bumper crop of red oak acorns during the fall of 2016, and the winter of 2016/2017 was warmer-than-usual overall, resulting in a population explosion of white-footed mice, which typically provide deer tick larvae with their first blood meal