Insect food

We have a long history of close contact with all sorts of insects. In Los Angeles I had ants moving into my flower pot on the counter and showing up for dinner any time I opened a fridge. We also had termites destroy our couch and love seat. They ate it up; there was not much left.
In New York we had roaches problems and some huge Australian roaches even showed up in the dining area once. I screamed for life and found myself on the kitchen table in a split of a moment.Today we encountered first signs of insects that inhabit Virginia... ticks. I found two ticks making a meal in Mischa's ears. And Jeremy made himself available not only to mosquitoes and wasps but also a nice tick got into his pants. I found a tick on myself today too; it was crawling on my arm. If you lived in the area with ticks, please let me know if there is anything else better than checking everyone every two hours.
On the more positive note, we have seen beautiful deer right outside our french doors, gigantic frogs jumping into a stream right next to our home and people say there are red foxes the size of Mischa and coyotes in the woods next to us ;-)