around the house
I took the trusty Nikon onto the back deck the other evening for some playing. I wanted to get a picture of our backyard at night.
That bright light in the neighbor's yard will be of particular concern if we ever build a small patio and grill down there.
I also set the camera down for a self-portrait.
One neighbor was having concrete poured. Another neighbor was having his roof redone. K was painting. I pulled apart that awful squirrel cage in the back yard and (not shown) moved more leaves and branches for curbside service.
The downside of having a big yard is having a ton -- almost literally -- of leaves to rake. And when the back yard has 25+ trees and hasn't been raked in probably years, it makes a mess.
This represents probably 20% of the leaves in the back yard.
We were going to fix an outside spigot
Then we decided it was too much work with too little time, so we had a cookout instead.
I recently reclaimed our backyard from a group of yellow jackets. In reality, they really had only taken over a small portion -- they were in the corner of the yard, and we have a big backyard:
We have big plans for the backyard, but there's so much work to do in the house that I seldom get outside to do it -- and "it" is truly overwhelming.
The backyard has been terribly neglected: the leaves probably haven't been raked in years. Trying to remedy that is how I initially discovered the yellow jackets' nest.
But I can't get outside because of all the problems inside. This week, the guest bathroom sink decided to develop a leak. Rather, three leaks. I fixed two of them, but in the process of fixing them, created the third.
The whole problem (taking all three as one larger Problem) is that whoever did the plumbing the first time had never heard of Teflon tape, hence everything was simply screwed in place and waiting for a leak.
It's indicative of this house -- most things seem to be done backwards. For instance, the insulation throughout the house is put in backwards, with the vapor barrier facing the crawl space instead of the floorboards. I can't figure out how they did that one, since the vapor barrier has "This side to living area" printed in bold every six inches or so.
But it gives me plenty of little projects...
On May 7 and 8, 1945, the Allies celebrated their victory over the Third Reich. In London, millions gathered in a near-carnival atmosphere to mark the end of a long nightmare.
While our celebrations were nearly so huge, K and I did exchange a laugh over the end of the Yellow Jacket War this weekend, after the last pockets of resistance were flushed out and destroyed.
I went down Saturday morning about nine, just before mowing, to see if I could root around with a shovel and find the nest. I'd been making daily observations at dusk the whole week and had not seen a single infantryman (infantry-wasp?) in that period. Just to be sure, I'd doused the area liberally with more wasp killer.
In short order, the tip of my shovel turned up the yellow jackets' lair...
And it was absolutely covered with yellow jackets.
The shovel fell with a thud as I sprinted for my life. Not literally, for I'm not allergic to them, but their stings do indeed burn. I soon realized that none were following. "Perhaps these are specialized workers who aren't as aggressive as those who hunt and gather -- and defend," I thought. Deciding to take a chance, I crept back down the hill in the early evening and found the nest still covered. I gave them a shot of bad medicine (you had to know that was coming at some point), ready to run. Yet none attacked.
Their mistake.
There's something perversely satisfying about holding a significant portion of your enemy's entire base in your hand...
("That looks burned," some might think. Indeed. When I brought the nest in, I noticed that there were a couple of larvae still wriggling about. "Immolation is the only sure method," I muttered -- rather, "I guess I'll have to burn these suckers" -- so I took the nest out, put it on several layers of aluminum foil in the driveway, sprinkled a few drops of gas on them...)
Of course I videoed some of the battle. Let’s hope the music is synched…
I just love that six, eight weeks after we bought our house, the Fed lowered interest rates by half a percent…
Yellowjackets like to build nests where they won't be disturbed, I read somewhere on the internet. That's a perfect description of our backyard -- a place a yellow jacket wouldn't be disturbed. Until the new owner goes out with a $40 monster rake he bought for the express purpose of dealing with the four to six inches of leaves in the backyard.
Last weekend, I was raking leaves in our backyard, a sizable space that hasn't been properly maintained for years. It's a wilderness -- in more ways than one, I found out. While raking, I felt a sudden burning sensation on my left wrist. I looked down to find a yellow jacket squirming around, getting ready to hit a second time. Of course, at the moment I didn't realize it was a yellow jacket. I stood there looking at it, thinking, "How odd. And how painful." Suddenly, in my left shoulder I felt another, then another sting. The fascination quickly subsided and I began walking away, then running when a swarm began forming around me.
Fortunately, I only got hit four times. One almost got me above the eye, but somehow I managed to evade him.
Yesterday, I decided to seek revenge. But first some precautions:
Armed with Ortho Hornet and Wasp Killer (because yellow jackets are really just wasps, and so are hornets for that matter), I approached the nest carefully, fired a test shot to the side, then attacked.
Then they attacked.
"This stuff is supposed to kill them on contact," I thought, running up the hill toward the house.
Coffee on the deck.
After such a hectic week, one of the most calming experiences of my life thus far was finally to be able to sit with wife and child on our own deck, with a forested background we own, sipping coffee.
