Want to avoid ticks? Avoid sitting on logs. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, used themselves as bait to see where the greatest risk of picking up a tick was, and found logs were the worst places to sit. They were looking for ticks carrying Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacteria that cause Lyme disease to develop effective strategies of prevention. Sitting on a log for only five minutes resulted in exposure to ticks 30 percent of the time. After logs, the next riskiest behavior was gathering wood, followed by sitting against trees. This is definitely something to keep in mind the next time you're out in the woods. If you spend time in the woods often, you may be interested to know that eating garlic also keeps ticks away.
Reuters April 8, 2004