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Yeah, I’ve tried spraying my clothes with permethrin but the chiggers and even seed ticks don’t seem bothered by it and I couldn’t stand the socks. They just felt saturated without being wet or just didn’t feel like the same material or something.

Most of the itch relief stuff is based on one of 2-3 common active ingredients. What I used this morning was something the ex bought for back when there was poison ivy here. Goats took care of the poison ivy. It’s called Ivarest. Main active ingredient — overpriced calamine. It helps a little.

My defense is to generally stay out of the woods for ticks and tall grass for chiggers but I let my guard down on this one. I do also burn the place but not grass. That stuff moves to fast and this place isn’t a big open field. That and run a band of Sevin granules around the driveway plus a path from house to shop which makes a circle I call my Tick Moat. Funny how I instinctively felt the need to do a bunch of mowing yesterday before I knew I had chigger bites. Thanks God.

The chigger bites end up ozzing for me at some point which is why I said thank God none between the toes. Nothing like seeing wet spots in your socks from oozing or taking your socks off at the end of the day and they stick where it oozed and then dried. Never mind the icky stick between the toes.

Then on the ankles, I tend to scratch in my sleep and may end up with little bloody spots on the sheets.

I have colloquially named them little bastards.

Then of course Lone Star ticks can kick off my Alpha-Gal mammailian meat allergy so yeah - generally just stay away. Jump off the tractor and jump back on in no less than 5-10 seconds.
Sucks to not be able to walk on most of the property for most of the year. There’s a reason rich people have a huge yard with a house in the middle of nothing but short grass. NO BUGS

I need more yard, less forest and better mower(s).

First sign of chigger itch, take off socks and pants outside and leave them outside and come in and rub down with rubbing alcohol. I thought it was a few seed ticks until this morning which I did get but those aren’t bad.

That rubbing alcohol thing is good to do 1-2 times a day after the fact but it will sting. Dries things up quicker though.

I see farmer type guys and gals wearing rubber boots but not pure black rubber, the nice ones, and they have their pant legs tucked down in them and the boots aren’t nasty from mud/manure so I think those boots are dowsed with some serious chemical to keep chiggers from making it to the top of them.

This morning's project, after more mowing, -- fix rust hole on bottom of the old air compressor.

Pulled the compressor head off before flipping the compressor over, otherwise the oil would end up on top of the pistons where it doesn't belong. Same reason they say transport a fridge upright. It has a compressor.

The hole was right underneath the flat bar that's part of the wheel assembly. That center hole is factory, probably for alignment when welding the wheel support flat bar to the tank. Air was coming out that plus right behind the flat bar where that tack weld is.

Cut the tack weld and jammed a screw driver under it and found the hole which was smaller than I imagined.

Cut and bent up the flat bar to give me room to grind and weld a patch over the hole.

Found a piece of wider flat bar that happened to have a curve on the end that matched to round tank.

Thought I took more pics and know I did of the other little hole I found further forward on the tank but I don't see them on the phone. That other hole, I just welded a 3/4" circle around and then filled circle with weld. I'm guessing there's a rusty stripe down the middle from end to end on the bottom of the tank and more holes will blow out at some point. It's from people not draining the water out as often as they should. It was far from new when I got it but I'm guilty of the same.

Put it back together and fired it up. No leaks out the bottom. Slight leak at the pressure switch which has been there for years. I also took the compressor head cap off and cleaned up the reed valves. It could use a new pair if I can find some but for now, it's a decent little compressor again.

When I started it with zero pressure, it climbed 1 psi per second until it got to around 60 psi and then took a little longer than 1 psi/sec. It reached it's shut off point of 125 psi in 2-1/2 minutes.

I left it on and in about 20 minutes that pressure switch leak made it lose enough pressure to kick on and then it ran for 20 seconds, made it to full pressure again and shut off. Once upon a time, I could turn this thing off at full pressure, turn it back on in a few days and it wouldn't run because it still had full pressure. It was a tight little thing. I'll have to look into getting a pressure switch or the one little part of it that leaks.

So I've got the nice old little chugger for up at the house and the new high rpm screamer for down at the shop. I think it was the movie Dumb and Dumber which had the line; "Want to hear the most aggravating sound in the world?" and then Jim Carey makes an aggravating sound. That's this new compressor. Kick myself in the butt for not having looked at the rpm or looked up a video, with sound, of one running. It's gonna have to have it's own little shed and maybe with the inside lined with that acoustic foam with the egg carton shaped surface for soundproofing.

I'll be keeping my eye out for another old chugger but bigger than what I have. Then I can pawn off the noisemaker to some deaf person.

And Diana, you'll be happy to hear that I completely cleaned up from this project and even went a little further to move something I was tripping over to the travel trailer, as excruciating as that all was, like a bad dream to me now;)

Then I went food and hardware shopping. Grabbed another 10x25 sheet of black poly and a cheapo gate latch for the newly opened back door of the shed and a 50' air hose. I forgot ends for it so I'll grab them tomorrow. Gonna go put the latch on lay one sheet of poly down but I'm about whooped once the sun's down far enough. Next T, W, T, I'll get more stuff done around here.

A good coverage with 40% DEET repellent on the lower 2/3 of my body / clothing usually does a pretty good job of repelling ticks for me. Mosquitos, too. Repeat after 3-4 hours. Some of the places I hike in to for fishing involve lots of tall grass and / or weeds / brush. Especially if it’s a trail, chiggers and ticks get attracted by the scent left behind by previous trail travelers, human or otherwise.

I used to have some permethrin infused socks that works well for me, but, it washes out. I’ve tried spraying socks with permethrin well ahead of needing to use them (ie., days of drying.) Those worked too, and I didn’t notice any unusual feel to any of these. It’s just problematic if I forget and think the socks were treated, and I got them mixed up with socks not treated. It’s easier for me to just have a can of 40% DEET on the shelf on the back porch. Or a small one in my backpack.

Most DEET based repellents have the very bad attribute of dissolving some plastics. I killed a $35 Casio watch that way. (The control / adjustment buttons welded to the watch body!)

I don’t really “like” DEET, but I’ve gotten to where I tolerate it... In fact, I use so much DEET, I need to remember to do a web search for the stuff in bulk. It will keep for a very long time in a well sealed glass / metal container. And I must have at least half a dozen emptied pump spray repellent bottles in a little box in my shop.