With warmer weather now holding steady throughout the area, that means ticks are starting to rear their heads in search of blood.
Officials say Ohio's tick season is expected to be pretty bad this year due to a warmer winter which allowed more ticks to survive. Chris Bruynis with the OSU Extension in Ross County says they wait in tall grass and weeds to hitchhike onto you.
With the increased tick population comes the risk of contracting tickborne illnesses. Bruynis says one deer can carry up to 200,000 ticks, and those can carry Lyme disease.
The Ohio Department of Health says Lyme disease specifically is on the rise here in Ohio with more than 270 reported cases in 2017 alone.
You can protect yourself by wearing light-colored clothing while outdoors, applying tick repellent, and checking yourself frequently.