It may be small in size, but it is mighty.

This little red bug we call the chigger has my attention every time I go to the farm now. If I ignore it, it makes me pay. If I prepare for it, it still makes me pay.

One chigger bite will not hurt you, but what about more than 200?

That’s what happened to me recently when I decided to walk the field in short pants and with no bug spray protection.

I never knew I had them until three days later. Then these little red bumps started appearing all over my body and the more I scratched them, the worst they got.

My ankles were covered with chigger bites and I couldn’t get to the drug store fast enough.

I bought some “chigger salve,” and it was supposed to stop the itch and get rid of them.

Guess what? It didn’t do the job as advertised. And after an all night scratch, I was headed back to the drug store the following morning.

This time I bought another chigger healer, one in a bottle with red liquid. It burned like heck when I put it on, but it did ease the itching some.

But still that wasn’t enough. So back to the drug store for a third time I went.

This time I purchased the most expensive chigger salve they had on the shelves. It was $9.99 and all but guaranteed relief. I couldn’t wait to rub it on.

A friend told me that the chigger goes beneath the skin and if you put finger nail polish on his bite, it will smother him.

Wrong. That doesn’t work at all.

I looked this little red creature up on the Internet to read about it and they said when the chigger bites, he doesn’t burrow himself under the skin as many believe, but bites you and eventually falls off. That is when all the itching from his bite starts.

It usually takes five to seven days for this to run its course, the Internet says.

But I’ll tell you, with more than 200 bites on the body that five days seems like an eternity.

You won’t catch me back in that field with short pants again. And you won’t catch me in that field period without some bug spray on.

Then, they’ll still bite some, but not 200 of them.