Bedford Township sits north of Battle Creek where subdivisions and older homes meet farmland, woodlots, and open field. That boundary is the whole story. Field mice and deer mice live in the grass and leaf litter all summer and move into the nearest heated structure when Michigan nights turn cold, and a house on a field edge is the nearest heated structure.
The same edge holds blacklegged ticks, which quest on low vegetation along wooded borders and in leaf litter. They have expanded steadily across southwestern Michigan, and they carry Lyme disease. Tick work here is edge work: clear the leaf litter, cut the brush back, treat the transition zone rather than the open lawn.
Add carpenter ants nesting in stumps and firewood and moving into damp sills, wasps in the eaves by August, and the annual October pileup of boxelder bugs and Asian lady beetles off the surrounding trees and fields, and a recurring plan earns its keep. Call to reach a local pro who covers Bedford.
Around Bedford
- Bedford Road
- Woodlots and field edges
- M-37 corridor
- Bedford Township Hall
- Wabascon Creek