Wasp Attack!

   After yet another sleepless night, my morning was spent cutting out most of the summer garden.  The rains have done it no favors as the plants are huge but not bearing fruit.  Tomato plants are not supposed to be ten feet tall!  All was going well with wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow full of debris being hauled to the compost.  Finally, all that was left was to do a bit of weeding.  Mind you, I had been twisting and turning every plant in the garden up until this time.  The weeding should have been a breeze.  Right.

  Five minutes into weeding, I grabbed a handful of errant chives and felt the telltale zap of a wasp sting.  Thinking I had inadvertently grabbed a ground wasp, I actually apologized "I am sorry little lady!  I did not mean to grab you."  But it was not a solitary ground wasp.  Time and time again, I was zapped!  Oh, my.  Stepping back, I tried to find the nest.  There had to be either a yellow jacket nest (in ground) or a paper wasp nest somewhere nearby.

  Five stings later and I found the home of my attackers!  In a non-used birdfeeder, a red wasp nest was highly concealed.  Around it were dozens of wasps just waiting to protect their nest.  Ok, so now that I knew where it was, it was time to go dunk that welt covered hand in some vinegar.  About a half hour later, the wasps were all dead thanks to some well aimed bug spray.  The garden is a safe place once again and I am happy to say that the vinegar worked quite well at soothing the stings and relieving the swelling.