3:25 p.m. - 2004-07-19
Yellow Jackets part 2
Wow. I'm in such a nasty, cranky mood today I'm surprising even myself!
I have good reasons. The first is the fire ant bites I got on my calves this weekend. I have terrible reactions to fire ant bites - they swell up and the whole area gets itchy and painful.
The second is the yellow jacket sting on my stomach I got last night. Damn! Damn these damn nasty critters!
The yellow jackets we had last summer were like Girl Scouts compared to the batch we're infested with now. They are smaller, and constantly wired up. After our series of stings a couple of weeks ago, Bruce and I decided that they needed to go.
So we went out last night at dusk to move the log covering their nest. All the information on yellow jackets says they are back in the nest after dark, dreaming happy dreams about stinging innocent small creatures (like me).
It's b*llsh*t.
The minute we rolled the log over, about 50 kazillion of them swarmed out. It was like watching the bats fly out of Carlsbad Caverns - solid yellow jackets spiraling up. We took off at a run, but since I was holding a flashlight I was easy for them to track. I wound up in the house with two of them on my shirt, and before I could get them off, one of them stung me.
I went into total little kid mode. I screamed. i cried. Bruce had to pry my shirt off me and kill the sucker while I wailed like a banshee and wacked at my hair.
You know how he killed it? He wacked it with the television's remote control.
It's war, folks. I ordered a bee suit this morning.
The plan is, once I get the bee suit, I'm going out there with a pot of boiling, soapy water and a bag of diatomaceous earth. First the water, then a cap of the diatomaceous earth, then a big rock on top.
I know this sounds cruel and horrible, but I can't be in the garden, we can't mow the lawn, I worry they will get into the house (a realistic fear since they've gotten into the garage) and I'm tired of getting stung, and worrying that the animals will get stung. I can't use pesticides because....I just can't. It's our garden - I don't want to dump a bunch of poisons into it. I'm hoping the boiling water will be pretty instantaneous death.
Sigh. (whiney voice) My stomach hurts!! Wahh!!
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