Stop by the Alford Town Offices (at the School House) weekdays between 8:00am and 12:00pm to pick up your new dump sticker, see Transfer Station for more info.

Tick Talk

Written By: Marie C. Erwin, Library Media Specialist, Mt. Everett Regional School, Sheffield, MA

Ah, spring! Backyard cookouts, vacations, camping, walks in the woods. and ticks. Lots and lots of ticks, those tiny parasitic marvels, just waiting for an unsuspecting victim to brush past. Ticks need blood to live and breed, and any blood will do: bird, deer, dog, human. They’re not fussy. Contrary to popular belief, ticks don’t cause disease, they transmit disease, and very effectively, too! Ticks transmit a number of bacterial diseases but the most common and most serious one in the northeast is Lyme disease. The majority of cases occur in June, July, and August, the three months in which ticks actively seek hosts and human outdoor activity is greatest.

In the recent “Health of Massachusetts Report”, the Mass DPH finds that changes in the way we live, where we live, and population density are responsible for the more than 10-fold increase in reported Lyme disease over the past 15 years. Even with these dramatic increases, many cases are not diagnosed and most cases are not reported; and thousands of people suffer with illness and complications, which can include joint, nerve, and heart problems. Most cases of Lyme disease can be successfully treated with antibiotics. The key is early diagnosis. Typical symptoms of Lyme disease include fever, headache, fatigue, and a skin rash that looks like a bull’s eye. For some pictures of that characteristic rash, check out the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Lyme disease website http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/lyme/. And for information on symptoms and precautions to take, visit the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) site http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm049298.htm

There’s only one way to get Lyme disease. You must be bitten by an infected deer tick (sounds like the plot of a horror movie). Dog ticks don’t transmit Lyme disease (though they can transmit the rare Rocky Mountain Fever), but how can you tell the difference between ticks? Print your tick identification card from the Mass DPH http://www.mass.gov/Eeohhs2/images/dph/cdc/tick_id_card.jpg. Dog ticks are those giant ticks that you can spot a mile away (they are about the size of a watermelon seed). A nymph deer tick, on the other hand, is the size of the period at the end of this sentence. It takes about 24- hours for a tick to fully attach to the host (that’s you) and start feeding. So, a tick that has been attached for less than a day probably hasn’t had enough time to transmit the disease. The longer the tick is attached the greater the risk of disease.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) offers some helpful recommendations for outdoor workers to prevent tick bites that are also useful for any of us that spend time outdoors http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/lyme/ . If you are in an area likely to have ticks, the most important thing you can do is to check yourself for ticks once a day. If you find an attached tick, remove it by following these instructions http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/rmsf/Prevention.htm (and check out some old wives’ tales that don’t work!). Once the tick is removed, put it in a zip lock bag and freeze it. You may need it for identification if you develop symptoms later on.

As with most diseases, prevention is key. The Mass DPH has a no-nonsense 4-page brochure on Preventing Disease Spread by Ticks. It covers landscaping tips to reduce ticks on your property, how to dress in high-tick areas, and tick repellents http://www.mass.gov/Eeohhs2/docs/dph/cdc/lyme/prevent_disease.pdf . The DPH also offers a tick maze to amuse your kids (and give you the creeps) http://www.mass.gov/Eeohhs2/docs/dph/cdc/lyme/lyme_maze.pdf.

If you want more information on Lyme disease, the National Library of Medicine has an in-depth video tutorial http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/tutorials/lymedisease/htm/index.htm Ticks are around whether we like it or not so arm yourself with information and don’t let ticks put the bite on you!

Don’t forget: Town voting is today, Tuesday, May 18,2010 from 8:00am to 8:00pm!

Here’s the latest news about the features and information at the Town Of Alford web site at http://townofalford.org

About Our Town

This tab is not only the entry page to the site, mousing over it reveals sub-pages containing history and information about many different things concerning our town.

Contacts

Clicking on the Contacts tab will bring you to the town’s contact phone directory and office hours. Mousing over this tab will reveal a few other important sub-pages.

The E-Mail page presents you with a form to contact some of our town officials by e-mail via the web site.

The Emergency Notifications page allows you to sign up for important e-mail and phone messages from our Highway, Fire, and Police departments concerning public safety issues. If you haven’t signed up for this service yet we highly recommend it.

The Newsletter page allows you to subscribe or unsubscribe to e-mailed versions of news postings on the web site (like this one).

Downloads

This tab brings you to all of the files that are available for download, everything from bylaws and forms to digital forms of the annual reports and the town’s postal newsletters.

Government

This tab provides information on meeting schedules, as well as state and national governance information.

Latest News

This is where all of the latest news postings are listed on the site, ordered newest-first.

The Side-Bar

On the right-hand side of every page on the site is our all-important side-bar, loaded with links to the above-noted tabs and pages, but also to many other key sites, services and media around our area. It also allows you to view news postings in specific categories. At the top of this bar is of course contact information for the town offices, as well as a search function for keyword searches within our site.

We Need Your Help!

If you look at the bottom of the right side-bar, you’ll see the subscriber count. As of now, we have a mere 37 out of about 500 residents subscribed to our town site!

Please forward this article to your Alford neighbors, so they can subscribe to our site’s news e-mails, and so that they can see what the town’s site has to offer. New folks who wish to subscribe to the site’s newsletter can do so here:
http://townofalford.org/contacts/newsletter/

Do You Have Town News?

If you have town-related news that you’d like to have posted on the town’s web site, you can submit your news directly to Debbie Blackwell via the site’s e-mail form for review:
http://townofalford.org/contacts/e-mail/

Thank You!

We want to make this site a valuable resource to all residents. All questions, comments and suggestions about the town site are welcome and will be taken under consideration. Submit your comments via the contact form, you can direct comments to Debbie Blackwell or to me (Arthur Dellea):
http://townofalford.org/contacts/e-mail/

Don’t Forget!

ALFORD TOWN MEETING WILL BE HELD TUESDAY, MAY 11, 2010 @ 7:P.M.- TOWN HALL

ALFORD TOWN ELECTIONS WILL BE HELD TUESDAY, MAY 18, 2010 FROM 12 NOON TO 8:00 P.M. – TOWN HALL

We thank you for supporting the town’s web site!
Sincerely,
Arthur Dellea
Webmaster

The town newsletter is available on the Downloads page on the town site. Soon you will also receive the town newsletter by postal mail. If you have any questions about the printed town newsletter, you can contact Roberta Haas via the E-Mail page.

The former Alford web site had a corrupted database and no longer functioned properly. I’m in the process of setting up this new web site, I plan to make this a feature-rich site about our town, including plenty of information, helpful links, photos of the town, as well as a section for downloadable forms. Please be patient, as I need to continue to collect and compile information from town officials.