The Incredible Black Goo
My own experience of the Black Goo from a kind of hell!
I used to live in a very isolated deep Appalachian valley. There were no TV signals here, in 1982. Maybe three radio stations. The only way in was over a 3500-foot-high mountain gap/pass. There was a 800-foot-deep canyon at the valley end. They only put curve signs on the roads if the curves were 180 degrees or more!
I would walk on down to the country store several times a week. I am speaking here of a cinder block small building with a dirt parking area. Nothing fancy mind you. People came to buy and to talk with each other.
[I hope they still have these stores around, these days!]
One day I walked up to next to the store and as I walked along the road, I came to near the dirt parking area.
“What is *that*”, I exclaimed to myself! Next to the dirt area is a patch of grass, a patch that was solid grass maybe two to four inches high. This grass was in a sort of rectangle, four feet wide at one end near the store and maybe three inches wide at the other end. Most of this patch was maybe three feet wide. There is so much grass that no dirt can be seen down under the blades.
*Today*, though, I saw something real weird. The *entire* patch was covered by a black goo of some sort. Like tar was poured, and spilled, by a passing truck. Every blade is covered. Black as sin, black as the inside of a box that sits deep in a lightless cave.
Black. I could not see any trace of stems or green blades. I sensed that this Goo sat *on* the grass and the few tiny dirt areas had no black on them.
I walked closer. The blackness began to sparkle and scintillate. Like as if it were ALIVE! As if there was a mind, a self-awareness, there.
I stepped closer, now my hand was about three inches from the edge of the Goo. What?! The goo began to sparkle even more and now the Goo began to reach out like it wanted to rise up and meet my finger!
Discombobulating!
I could even see tendrils reaching for my fingertip!
I backed up real quick!!
*now* I knew what this goo was!
TICKS.
Rocky mountain ticks are very common hereabouts.
They all needed blood from a warm mammal, blood needed to bear their young. No blood, no birthing.
*each* one needed blood. Mine would do very well thank you.
Later, I tried to imagine the number of ticks here present. This patch of ticks covered the grass and the grass was two to four inches high. I could not tell if the ticks only covered the surface or were there ticks all the way down.
I estimated, on the surface, maybe 150,000 ticks! Perhaps the entire grass patch might could have held from 200,000 to 350,000 ticks.
A *lot* of ticks!
I pity the poor dog that wandered across this black goo patch!
Out of all of this number, maybe only 100 would get to reproduce.
Suck you dry, if you fell into this goo!
[posted also to my Facebook page]
