I\u2019m not talking about a dance. \u00a0You\u2019re thinking of the jig \u2013 that popular Irish dance where you skip, leap, and kick. \u00a0Well, it turns out you might look like you\u2019re doing the jig during that time of the year when chiggers are here. \u00a0You see, April showers don\u2019t just bring May flowers in Texas. \u00a0Every spring, even though we\u2019ve now lived where chiggers live for many years, we somehow forget.\u00a0\u00a0The chigger is the larval stage of a mite that bites from late spring to fall in humid areas with thick vegetation. \u00a0And, it\u2019s easy to forget about them. \u00a0They\u2019re not visible to the naked eye. \u00a0In fact, they\u2019re smaller than the period at the end of this sentence. \u00a0Chiggers infest your skin when you come in contact with them waiting for you in grassy fields. \u00a0The creepiest thing about them is that\u00a0they crawl under your garments in search of the best place to do what chiggers do. \u00a0You can’t feel them so you don’t know they’re exploring your body. \u00a0You are left with intensely itchy red blister-like sores that take up to two weeks to heal. \u00a0One evening a few years ago, I gasped, \u201cChiggers!\u201d when I was helping my youngest daughter, who was four years old at the time, change into her pajamas. \u00a0There were red bumps all along her underwear line! \u00a0I\u2019ll never forget my daughter\u2019s response, especially because of her age at the time, \u201cThose bugs like my private parts, mommy! It\u2019s very inappropriate of them!\u201d \u00a0There\u2019s actually a reason \u2013 chiggers have delicate feeding structures so they like areas of thinner skin and will seek them out once on you. \u00a0So, you often find bites in unmentionable places around the crotch and groin area. \u00a0Even though that makes sense, it certainly doesn\u2019t make it okay. \u00a0Early in our years in Texas, when we didn\u2019t know we needed to be on the lookout for things we couldn\u2019t see, my husband went on a wilderness medicine overnight exercise and decided to sleep out under a stunning starry sky. \u00a0The next day, his heads, shoulders, knees and toes, and more,\u00a0were covered in chigger bites. \u00a0For weeks later, people stared, refusing to shake his extended hand, questioning, \u201cIs that contagious?\u201d \u00a0Somehow, even the memory of that fades, and for two weeks in early spring of every year, our family looks like we’re practicing the jig as we itch and try not to itch. \u00a0We tally our sores and compare the score to see who will have the most sleepless nights. \u00a0For some reason, chigger\u00a0sores seem itchiest\u00a0at night. \u00a0And so, from that day on, we spray our muck boots and overalls with bug repellent whenever we head out to the garden or pastures. \u00a0Even though they’re out of sight, chiggers are again on our mind…for a time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019m not talking about a dance. \u00a0You\u2019re thinking of the jig \u2013 that popular Irish dance where you skip, leap, and kick. \u00a0Well, it turns out you might look like you\u2019re doing the jig during that time of the year when chiggers are here. \u00a0You see, April showers don\u2019t just bring May flowers in Texas. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1000"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1024,"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1000\/revisions\/1024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}