All winter long, chiggers aren’t a problem. I can walk anywhere I want and not get any painful itchy bites. When it’s chigger season though, thick brush and tall grass should be avoided. Chiggers lurk there and are essentially microscopic. The nymphs, which are the life-cycle stage that feeds on skin, are less than a quarter of a millimeter in size, small enough to be invisible, even when they’re right on a person. There is no early detection system either. The itch doesn’t start until hours after exposure, so if a person is in chigger territory, they don’t even know to stop exposing themselves until it is way too late. The burning and itching lasts a week to ten days for each bite.
Chiggers aren’t a problem during any other part of their annual life-cycle. It’s easy to forget about them, without paying attention to when it’s time to watch out for them again each year. Sometime in late spring/early summer, the chigger-risk suddenly goes from zero to “Oh Shit!” I, of course, have a method. Every late spring/early summer I employ my foolproof method of determining when exactly I need to start being careful of chiggers.
Oh Shit!
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