Saturday, July 19, 2008

Battle with the Yellow Jackets


Ok, so a few days ago I was sitting here at the computer while Bo was outside working in the yard. All of a sudden, I see Bo running past the window without his shirt on, flailing about. I wondered what the heck was going on. Then he runs in the house bringing with him a swarm of Yellow Jackets (a kind of wasp that is known for it's aggressiveness, as we found out that night). Why did he think it was a good idea to bring them all IN the house? I don't know. Anyway, he runs back out of the house, leaving 3 of them inside to attack me. I got stung on the top of the head (they have the ability to sting over and over and bite at the same time) before they flew back outside. Finally, Bo had gotten them off of him and came back inside in time to kill one that was still inside. I asked him what happened and he said he was just raking leaves and accidentally raked over their hive in the ground. They all attacked him and he had them all over his shirt, which was why he was now shirtless. He ran away at full speed and they stayed right with him. He said he thought about jumping in our neighbor's pond for a second--I asked him why he didn't just jump in our pond in the back yard and he said it was too nasty. Go figure. So instead, he just panicked and ran inside the house. Later, he decided to go back out to get his shirt. Turns out it still had 3 yellow jackets on it. So again, he ran back inside the house bringing with him 1 yellow jacket. As I ran in the bedroom to get away, I saw Bo grab Melia's bib as his weapon of choice to fight off the yellow jacket. When it was all clear, we looked up how to treat the stings and ended up sitting on the couch in pain for hours with a paste of baking soda and water smeared all over our heads. We looked pretty pathetic. This is what we get for moving up here to the wild! Yesterday, Bo bought some stuff at home depot to kill them and went out last night to do it--thus the outfit in the picture. Well, today he checked the hive and he said they were all still alive and well as if nothing had happened. At that point, I told him we'd better call in someone to take care of it, but of course, he doesn't want to do that. Why? He said it's a pride thing--he wants to be the one to finish his battle with the yellow jackets. He was already concocting in his head what hoses, tubes, pulley systems, etc. he'll need for Plan B, so this may be an on going project for a while. So far it's Yellow Jackets: 2, Bo: 0.

5 comments:

Caleb said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Palmyra said...

lol that is so funny, I had to read it to Caleb, we were laughing so hard! Good luck to Bo...say are there bets going on yet?

california smiths said...

hehehe, Nice picture. Looks like you guys are really having an adventure since you moved. Fires, hornets, what's next? Good luck killing those suckers! I bet the final score is Hornets one more before Bo wins :)

JonandLo said...

I am laughing my head off...how totally funny (except for the pain..sorry about that part) Hopefully Bo is sucessful in destroying them. We got the movie you sent..thanks! I forgot you had it.

JonandLo said...

Oh, to put music on your blog click on my music link- it will take you to that website and you can sign up for free and create your own playlist. It's pretty easy. Let me know if you get stuck.