It was so cold you had to open the fridge to let warmer air in the house.
Now that the big chill of earlier in the week has passed, it’s time to look at the bright side of the memorable weather event.
Guys with snowplows on their pickups made some extra cash, and who couldn’t use the money these days? The snow on Sunday was perfect for watching the football playoffs. Cold this deep means we’ll have fewer ticks come spring, right?
That’s doubtful, says Don Steinkraus, professor of entomology at the University of Arkansas.
“I wouldn’t bet there will be any less ticks,” he said Wednesday. “Ticks hide out in the leaf litter.
Snow protects them.
They survive freezing temperatures well.”
We’d have to have a stretch with temperatures of minus 20 degrees and no snow to have any reduction in the tick population, Steinkraus said. Even then it wouldn’t be much.” They’re one of the toughest little animals in the world.”
He’s pulled ticks off his dog in December, so ticks aren’t your ordinary summertime arachnid.
Zero degrees doesn’t mean fewer ticks, but more rodents and deer, especially deer, cause an uptick in tick numbers.
Deer are the ideal hosts for ticks, Steinkraus explained.
He’s seen deer covered with them. Deer now roam where they haven’t in the past, like in urban yards and city parks.
Ticks and the diseases they may carry are nothing to mess around with.
Steinkraus knows. He’s had the tick-born-diseaseehrlichiosis twice. He didn’t realize how sick a person can get from a tick bite until he was infected.
Antibiotics got him back on his feet.
Steinkraus likes working in the woods on a piece of rural property he owns.
He’s still cleaning up after the 2009 ice storm.
The exercise is healthy, and he enjoys turning the ice-storm debris into firewood. He could do without the ticks, but it sounds like the bugs will be with him as usual come spring.
Tim Scott, assistant superintendent at Devil’s Den State Park, has worked outdoors at the park for no telling how many years.
“It’s too bad the cold doesn’t have the eff ect on ticks that we wish it would,” Scott said Wednesday. “It might delay them some, but no matter how cold it gets, we’re always going to have ticks.”
OK, so the cold won’t kill the ticks. Here’s a bright spot to consider.
Next week is the middle of January. That means only a month until mid-February when a slow shift toward spring begins.
It’s still cold, but we usually get a few 60 degree days. Some folks in our little corner of the Ozarks consider March 1 the fi rst day of spring, or the day we get our biggest snow.
Even that won’t kill a tick.
FLIP PUTTHOFF IS OUTDOORS EDITOR FOR NWA MEDIA.
Outdoor, Pages 6 on 01/09/2014