I didn’t even turn 10 until the 80s so I wouldn’t know!! I take it you have some experience in that area My experience; my nephew got one on his testicles at 5 years of age and . Well that situation wasn’t covered in single guy raising 2 hellions hand book.
I've been soaked in DEET and the skeeters have tried to get in my mouth and up my nose. Even riding my mower. They used to be real bad, but they haven't been quite so bad since the drought of 2016, and the gypsy moth defoliations.
If you dry distill or destructive distill the bark from paper birch you gett the oil. What I do is strip the bark off in sections just about as wide as a paintcan is tall, than roll them as tight as possible and put in the paintcan. You want to fit as much as possible and leave the least amount of air as you can. Put a small hole in the lid, and a hole in the bottom about the size of a quarter. Dig a hole deep enough to bury a tall can and bury the bottom 1-2 inch of the paint can, put in the tall can, set the paint can on top and bury. Build a fire around the paint can, keep a couple inch gap. You don't want to get it to hot or you will start burning off the good stuff, if you see the smoke coming out of the top hole is igniting you are too hot. The heat will force the oils out of the bark and when it is all done you will just be left with a can of char. It takes 1-2 hours usually to complete. The raw oil will have some water in it, you can let it heat over low heat to evaporate off the water and a bit of the wood alchohol. It takes a lot of bark to make a bit of oil, but it is incredibly versatile, liquid gold. If you look up Russia leather it was the ingredient that made that leather famous for its smell, toughness, and resistance against water and salt. I have been making it for years and use it for leather conditioner and wax, and in the tanning of salmon leather to oil the leather after tanning. It has a pretty deep history in skin care as well and this is something I use it for as well. I make skin balm with birch tar oil, coconut oil, and beeswax. It has antifungal, anti bacterial, anti viral properties and speeds healing by increasing bllod flow to the surface of the skin. It works very well, in some cases better than prescription cortisol creams for skin issues. You can also refine it down and make a pitch / glue which works really well and surpasses the popular pine pitch in performance, especially in cold weather conditions. Fun fact Otzi the iceman hafted his axe with birch pitch. He also had a chunk in his pouch with teeth marks in it, they think he used it as a type of gum, I really don't reccomend this! Here is a stick of pitch I made for a guy that knaps stone and makes knives and arrows in much the same way the caveman / neanderthals did, usually used for hafting, the stick is wrapped in salmon leather.
Speaking from experience: You visit the doctor’s office and they dig the rest out. Happened to me a few years back. They don’t bother testing from Lyme here any more. They tell you to watch the area, and if anything developers, call them.
Thank you for the detailed explanation. By paper birch do you mean black, yellow, or white birch, or could it be the bark of any of the three. Thanks again!!
Not sure what you mean by watching it for something bad. If you mean a ring that might dictate Lyme be aware just slightly higher than 50% of Lyme cases showed the tell tale ring.
Ivv had tick bites do some strange stuff. Once I had one under the belt line and it abscessed and made a lump the size of an orange. I had to wear sweatpants for a few days cause I couldn't fasten my pants. The doc injected me with antibiotics and put me on a 14 day course of antibiotics and steroids. He said that if it didn't show improvement in 2 days he would have to drain it by incision. Thankfully the antibiotics worked and cutting wasn't necessary. Blood work said no Lyme that time. Then another time the bite area never show much of anything but I tested positive for Lyme after 3 differ blood tests. Ya just never know what kind of bug the bug will share with you. Prevention, vigilance once bitten, followed by treatment as needed is the best line of defense.
They certainly do. Even the average everyday tick bite will tend to not heal fast, become inflamed and itch like crazy. The Lyme test is not very accurate either. Dates back to the 80’s or thereabouts. Was never intended to thoroughly test for Lyme, it was designed to track the disease as it moved across the country. Didn’t need to be perfect. As such it’s not conclusive as a lot of positive cases are missed. Some say it’s about 50/50 also. There is a lab in California that has a better test but the feds will not sanction it. If you look at the CDC Lyme cases by year it’s fairly low but there’s an asterisk there (footnote). Read the footnote and you’ll find they miss about 80% of cases in a year. People can have it for years and not know plus bad testing or no testing at all. I got the latter, no test even though I requested one. Didn’t find out till five years later when my system gave up.
Ms. buZZsaw had one attached to her. Discovered it while showering Friday and I took it off later as she sleeves doing it herself. She was outside briefly on Wednesday. I have yet to see one this season.
