Its not the wood ticks that carry the lyme's disease, its the deer ticks. The deer ticks are smaller than the wood ticks that mjs1973 has the posted pictures of, they are close to the size or the lead on the tip of a pencil sometimes a little smaller too.

Since they are so small its sometimes hard to see them so its a good idea to check your self over after being out in a woods/fields or yard depending on where you live. Its easy to check when you shower since you can feel them as a small bump on you when you run your hand along your skin and they can't hide under clothing (unless for some reason you shower clothed). They like hair lines or other semi hidden areas (arm/elbow/knee pits).

If you find one its easy to pull it off if its not already burrowed under your skin, if it has burrowed it head under pull it off with a tweezers by the head not the body so that the body doesn't rip off leaving the head in your skin. Also try not to squeeze the body as that can cause them to discharge fluids into you. When pulling use a small counter clockwise twist motion, as twist clockwise slightly when they go in.

If they don't want to come out too easily, or to make it easier, try putting a blob of vasaline over their head, this suffocates them and after a little while they will back out of you and you can pull them off easier.

After you get the tick off of you if its a wood tick, go ahead and kill/dispose of it how ever you feel led, they are pretty tough and just trying to squish them with you fingers won't work. Between two rocks, knife, or down the drain all work well. If it was a deer tick you may want to save it in a sealed plastic bag and bring it into your family doctor for testing of lymes disease, so that you can be treated if need be.

If you are bitten by a deer tick that is a carrier of lymes disease and you don't notice it before it fills with blood and drops off, and you contracted the disease from it, you may notice a small target looking mark on you at the location of the bite. Its a white circle with a red ring around it, a little larger than the size of a quarter. Along with this you may or may not experience some of the other symptoms, some similar to arthritis, aching in joints stiffness, fever/sickness, headache. If you have any of these go into your doc, he can test you and give you some nice drugs to take everyday for a month or two, and they you won't die, or end up having to live with aches and pains for the rest of your life.

Hopefully my ramblings make a little bit of sense to someone, there really isn't much to be worried about with wood ticks, its the smaller hard to find deer ticks that can give you lymes disease which when treated isn't that big of a deal, I and several other people I know have lived through it. If you have any of the symptoms or the "target" marking go in and get checked, its better to stop in for a quick check then end up living with chronic aches and pains, or end up not living any more.