Say hello to my litle friends

The canoe ride was part of a larger look at water issues in the state. The sustained 30 mph winds made the going tough, but not unbearable (this is, after all, South Dakota). On the opposite shore, we beached and got ready to hike the ridgeline.
“You know what poison ivy looks like,” the guide said. “Because this is all poison ivy.”
We're ass-deep in the stuff all the way up a 60-foot ridge.
But topping out, the view…
The wind blew the prairie grass like waves on an ocean; I thought about the settlers to this place, how they fell in love with the wide open grasslands, and how tough it was on them.
A few hours later, we’re sitting in a cabin that’s worth an ungodly sum. The place was built in 1948, out of glaciated stone from the fields surrounding the lake. That original cabin is now the “den.” It’s a resort house (and was featured in this month’s Cabin Life magazine).
We’re in the great room, a wall of windows opened to a lake view.
I’m sitting in a wingback chair (I wanted the folding chair, thinking of the oils from the poison oak, but the host insisted) when I felt it.
A pinch on my beltline.
A wood tick.
“Excuse me, I have a tick,” I said, putting down toe notebook and pulling it off.
“Go ahead and just drop it outside,” the host said.
We settle into the conversation when a tick crawls out of my shirt and across my left hand.
Another crosses my right thumb.
“You want a cup or something?” the host asked.
Two more ticks crawl from my shirt, across my neck.
I’m creeping these old people out.
“That doesn’t bother you?” one said.
“Goes with the territory,” I said.
"Well, it would bother me."
I excuse myself, went to the porch and tried – in a professional manner – to shake anything else loose from my two shirts. Then go back in to continue the interview.
The host, a woman in her 70s, laughs and grabs my arm.
“If you want, I can give you a strip-search, just to be sure,” she said, winking.
I, of course, passed on the opportunity.