[Leica] Lyme disease - formerly deer in winter

[images at comporium.net (Tina Manley)]

We see deer in our pastures every night.  There is a hunt club adjacent to
our farm and I think most of the deer have figured out where the fence is.
 Our carpenters are bow hunters and provide us with more deer meat than we
could ever use.  It is delicious..  I wouldn't want to kill Bambi's mother
myself but I don't mind eating the meat!  When we raised hundreds of
chickens in Kentucky, I used to wring chickens' necks but now my chickens
all have names and personalities ;-)  We eat about 75% vegetarian.

Tina

On Wed, Feb 23, 2011 at 5:23 PM, Lawrence Zeitlin <lrzeitlin at 
gmail.com>wrote:

> Steve Barbour writes:
>
> "Watch out for Lyme disease."
>
> - - - - - -
>
> Steve,
>
> Thanks for the warning about Lyme disease but it comes nearly 20 years too
> late. I was unfortunate enough to be the first in the neighborhood to
> contract Lyme disease. I felt aches, chills and exhibited the symptoms of a
> bad case of flu. At that time Lyme disease was a rarity in our area and
> most
> physicians were treating it as early onset arthritis. Fortunately my wife
> saw an article in a scientific journal that discussed the disease and had
> illustrations of the bulls eye rings often found around the tick bite. I
> had
> a full blown target on my back. Article in hand, I convinced my physician
> that I indeed had Lyme disease and received the usual therapy of a week's
> dose of antibiotics. It appeared to do the trick. A couple of years later
> my
> wife and I participated in the test phase of a Lyme disease vaccine study
> by
> GlaxoSmithKline. Apparently the vaccine worked well enough to be marketed
> but it was later withdrawn because of side effects.
>
>
> By this time most of the people in the neighborhood had also been infected
> and the local physicians were old hands at treating the illness. Some had
> very severe cases and could barely walk. Others had CNS infections,
> requiring IV drips of antibiotics.
>
>
> The basic problem seems to be the large increase in the deer population in
> the Northeast. With no natural  predators, little game hunting, and
> friendly
> butcher shops which sell highly processed cow meat, there are more deer in
> the Northeast than there were before the white men came. Far too many. The
> deer have left the deep woods and are now roaming suburbia in search of
> nicely planted shrubbery. Hungry deer will eat anything green except
> daffodils and andromeda. I have seen them munch on plastic flowers that my
> wife stuck into her garden after the real ones were devoured.
>
>
> We live in a narrow developed zone between two large "forever wild" state
> parks. The deer use our area as a corridor between feeding grounds. It is
> strange to contemplate such a primeval environment within a one hour
> commuter trip to New York City but that's the way it is. Travel 50 miles
> north or west of Gotham and you have traveled a century back in time. Given
> the high price of groceries, I would like to shoot one of Bambi's offspring
> to stock the freezer but there are laws against hunting out of season. One
> of my less particular neighbors cleans and dresses recent roadkill for the
> table. He claims that it is fresher than the meat sold in the supermarket.
> So all I do now is "shoot " the deer with my camera. And check myself
> regularly for ticks.
>
>
> Larry Z
>
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>
>


-- 
Tina Manley, ASMP
www.tinamanley.com