I recently returned from a three-week hiking trip in the Ozarks, in time for a second springtime here on-Island. Spring here seems to be about a month behind where it was in Arkansas: leaf-out just beginning, poison ivy red and crinkly and pert, puddles announcing their presence with shrill frog choruses. (At least I assume they’re frogs: has anyone ever actually seen a pinkletink in the act of chirping? Maybe they’re really grasshoppers, or unusually talented fish or little elves with snare drums.) But the weird thing was, it seemed like a lot of species picked one day to make their debut. After 10 days without box turtles, I saw 10 in the last week; hummingbirds went from unknown to common in the last couple of days. So if we assume the Vineyard’s following the Ozark schedule, but a month delayed, it is time for the ticks to take off.

Groan. Moan. Complain. Just as we bare our moon-white legs for the first time since October, it’s back to Carhartts. If you follow the Center for Disease Control’s recommendations for preventing Lyme disease, you’ll spend the summer with socks pulled up over your pant cuffs, ideally in light colors. And keep trails mowed to six feet wide, so there’s no brush to brush against. And keep yourself drenched in bug repellent, thus ensuring you’ll get cancer and die before the Lyme becomes a problem. And to be really thorough, you should conduct tick checks: examine every square inch of your body for passengers, and have your partner check the spots you can’t see. (Including your scalp, the inside of your navel, between every digit, and ear canals.) I wonder if the IRS would let me write off my yoga classes as a medical expense: how else can you see the outside of your own elbow or reach the spot between your shoulder blades? If your blind fumbling fingers do find something, how on earth is one supposed to “grip the tick firmly with tweezers just below the head, and then gently but firmly unscrew it” when you can’t tell a tick from a zit? Or a scab: since the poison ivy came out about two weeks before the ticks did, I had just enough time to get covered with it, then scratch it into archipelagoes of scabs that are distinguished from ticks only by ease of removal. Mother Nature has a vicious sense of humor.

But look on the bright side. Tick season lets me roll out my favorite duck-billed platitude: “Life wants to be, very much. But often it doesn’t want to be very much.” All that a tick wants from life is the chance to siphon a drop of blood from an unattended patch of warm skin. And in order to get that, she’ll lie dormant for up to 10 years, survive all but the most direct crushing with pliers, crawl patiently back out of the toilet, and ride out all but the most eco-unfriendly of washing machines. There have been things like ticks since long before the dinosaurs, and they’ll probably stick around as long as there’s anything for them to feed on. You’ve got to admire that kind of idiot tenacity.

One final great story. Last July, I stopped at the Chilmark Store and got into a conversation with a woman tourist. I mentioned that I go blueberry picking on a bicycle. Her response was one of shock: “How can you take such risks with your health? You could get run over, or poison yourself [though I know of no poisonous berry with a crown] or get bitten by a tick and die of Lyme disease. I could never do something so dangerous.” And then, clearly stressed, she took a nice refreshing drag on her cigarette.

Maia Smith is a freelance writer who lives in Vineyard Haven. She writes a blog at travelingmaia.blogspot.com.