I Hate Chiggers

[Taceas]

I HATE them. The past few years we've been berry picking and not gotten a single one...this year, we haven't even been berry picking and I'm covered with the little suckers. The only thing I have been doing is tending to my vegetable garden. Coincidentally, my mother was also complaining of them and all she's been doing is tending to her flower gardens. I guess it's just a bad year for chiggers.

So far we counted 47 welts on me, my husband had to help for the ones I can't see, and the daily application of Benedryl cream sure is a task. For being 27 years old and having the good sense to know not to scratch, it sure is hard not to!

For those of you who don't know what a chigger is, they're a little plant parasite that feeds off of other animals as larvae; they attach, chew around a bit and secrete irritants that raise up a huge red and very itchy welt before detaching to continue their life cycle on plants.

For those of you who know what chiggers are, you know all too well the places they looooove to frequent for their attacks. Mainly the sweaty areas where its most indecent to scratch in public: groin, underarms, under the breasts, behind the knees, inside the elbows, between the toes and then some.

Harvest mite - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia