Those Vicious Ones

  The other evening, Mark and I toppled a bottle filled with gasoline into the hole that led to a yellow jackets' nest.  This was to kill the entire hive while we remained in a relative safe zone.  The method is a tried and true one that has been passed down from generation to generation.  Waiting until after dark assures that most of the wasps will be inside the hive and the danger is almost nil.  The idea is to shove a bottle filled with gasoline into the mouth of the hole in one clean, swift move.  The yellow jackets are trapped inside and the fumes can do their thing.  We felt confidant that the entire colony had perished.

  This morning, Mark checked the nest and nary a yellow jacket was to be found.  Curiosity got the best of us so he grabbed a shovel and started to dig.  Years ago, he did the same thing and dug up a rather large nest.  It was interesting to see and taught the kids a lesson about being careful when playing outdoors.  They were amazed at the number of wasps that were inside the hive.  This morning's dig proved to be even more impressive as this nest was far larger.  The nest had five tiers with many of the cells filled with eggs or larvae.  Over 500 adult yellow jackets had also perished.  

  While I am all for the mantra of "Live and let live" when it comes to something potentially dangerous, I have no qualms about eradicating the problem.  The wasps in this hive alone could cause great injury or even death to a person or animal.  Right after we had placed the bottle in the nest, we got word that a local lady died of a single wasp sting.  It was heartbreaking to hear the news and made us even more thankful that we found this nest before anyone got stung.  Yellow jackets are not something to mess with.  Their nests are underground and are often unseen until it is too late.  It is best to be wary of where you step!

The "Hole" Thing

  During our evening walk, the old dog refused to go any further.  He balked about going down the hill.  He turned this way and that instead of following the path.  Then, he sat and was not about to go any further.  One thing is certain about this fellow, when he decides to do something (or not do), there is no changing his mind.  So, I changed my course and took him back inside.  I really had no choice.  Once inside, he happily plopped on his bed and looked at me as if to say, "I won!"  Yeah, you did.

  After getting the dog settled, Mark and I continued our stroll about the hillside.  Our hikes do not go "down the hill" simply because that is the dog's designated potty spot.  We meander across the top of the hill and then down around behind the canebrake.  That path, however, could have meant trouble if we had taken the dog.  I am glad he rarely goes across the area especially after this evening. 

  As we were walking, Mark and I both noticed a rather large hole in the ground.  It was probably a good two inches in diameter and the sides were smooth.  Hmm?  My first thought was that the voles had returned but on closer inspection, I found that having voles would have been far better.  This was a yellow jacket nest entrance!!  Goodness!  That hole seemed a lot larger now!  As we stood there watching, nigh on fifty of the wasps entered the hole.  Had the old dog stumbled across the hole, he would have been covered in a matter of minutes. The poor old dog would have received many painful stings. The fact that he never goes this path and his bull-headedness saved him!

  Once again, however, I must say that these wasps were rather docile.  Mark and I both were within a foot of the hole when we were pondering the source.  Not one of the yellow jackets made an attempt to attack.  They were intent on doing whatever they do down in the hole and were oblivious to our presence.

  Mark took things in his own hands and got rid of  the yellow jackets.  He used a tried and true method of "Bottle of Gasoline in the Hole".  Find a bottle that has some sort of neck, fill it with gas, wait until dark and then turn the bottle upside down with the neck sticking down in the hole.  The gas pours into the nest below ground and kills the wasps that are inside.  Waiting until dark assures that most of the yellow jackets are inside the nest.  Every year since we have been here, we kill several nests like this.  It is the safest way of eradicating the critters.

The Grouchy Ones

  Several times, I have written about docile bees and wasps that inhabit the gardens.  Honeybees, Leafcutter Bees, Mason Bees and even the Great Golden Digger Wasp come and go as they please without any intentions of attacking.  They do their things and I do mine.  We have a mutual respect for each other and all is well.  Even Paper Wasps, as notorious as they are as stingers, tolerate my presence within a certain distance.  Those, however, are on my list of "no-likes".  Then, there are the grouches of the Bayou. The foul tempered, mean, cranky wasps known as Yellow Jackets.  Those things top the "no-like" list and are on the "destroy, annihilate, obliterate, wipe-off-the-face-of-the-earth" list.  I guess you can say that I do not care for them.  I have been stung far too many times by the nasty tempered critters to ever think they are good for anything.  They stalk our fish cleaning table, crowd the compost and hide their underground nests right where I need to mow. 

  This afternoon during my hike about the hillside, I noticed yet another golden bee type critter buzzing about the ground.  Hmmm, this called for a closer inspection. Perhaps that was a hasty decision because before I knew it, I was in "stinging range" of an underground hive. The large bee-like critter was none other than the new queen working her new hive.  After a winter of hibernation, she had created a new hive and already had her first batch of workers thriving below the soil.  Queen Yellow Jackets single-handedly raise the first generation of her hive.  After they become adult wasps, she sits back and lets them dote on her as she becomes nothing more than an egg factory.  

  I watched the queen as she busied herself around the area and noticed that she was entering a rotted log near the marsh. Aha!  I will keep watch on this lady for the next few days until I find that telltale hole which is the entrance to her hive.  Then, after the sun has slid down behind the pines, I shall apply Pop's remedy to the wasp problem.  A long necked bottle filled with gasoline will be upended in the tunnel.  By morning, nary a wasp will have lived to tell the tale of a sudden odor of gas seeping into their hive.  Pop and Mark both have killed hundreds of hives with this method without nary a sting.  Hopefully, I shall be just as successful.  I am just glad I spied her before cutting the grass this next week.  This could have been a very different story....a much more painful one.  Yellow Jackets are not a favorite by far!

Note to self...WEAR SHOES! Nah, never mind....

  I have a terrible habit of not wearing shoes.  I will wander about the hillside barefooted as if nothing will ever happen to make me regret the lack of footwear.  When I do put something on my feet, most likely it is only a pair of leather moccasins but at least those provide some bit of protection.  Even in the dead of winter, those moccasins are the shoe of choice but, as I stated, I do have a bad habit of trotting around sans shoes.  So far, I have been fortunate.  Other than a few nail punctures, some thorns and maybe a splinter or two, nothing terrible has happened. It is waiting, though, I am sure.  Perhaps now that I mentioned it, tomorrow will be the day.  It was almost "that day" earlier this week.

  The wind was blowing a gale on one particular day this past week so I decided to go to the pier and check the skiff.  The moorings would hold I am sure but it boiled down to that old "better safe than sorry" mentality. The storm system was supposed to dump a bunch of rain on us but, so far, nary a drop had hit the Bayou.  Of course, I was my usual barefooted self but was keeping a keen eye on where I placed my feet.  I make this hike dozens of times a week and could probably do it blindfolded.  Still, this is one time that I was happy to be aware of my surroundings. Trouble was hiding on one of the pier boards.

  That trouble was in the form of a wasp.  A Yellow Jacket had nestled down between the boards as an attempt to get alee of the wind.  Had I not seen this wasp, my foot would have received a nasty sting!  Instead, I was able to study said wasp without any unfortunate events.  The Yellow Jacket stayed put between the boards for quite some time.  There, it was protected from the wind but was also able to soak up the warm sunshine.  Smart critter.  I am sure that some day down the line, I may regret the fact that I bypassed the sure chance at eliminating this wasp but I figured that there was no harm done.  My feet were still sting-free as I headed back to the Little Bayou House.  Shoes...I shudder to think of how my feet would react to wearing something like that every day!  Now, where are my moccasins?

Going for the Gold!

  This was the day that I planned the garden spot for the tomatoes.  I have been informed by my kids that they are out of tomato sauce, salsa and ketchup and their shelves need to be replenished.  This means that Michael and I will be planting a lot more tomatoes this year!  Since ground space is limited due to the fact that we live on a very steep, sloping hill, my garden plots are dotted throughout the yard. This year, the tomatoes will be planted between the hedgerows of Boysenberries.  I have dead-wooded the berries and pulled out all of the weeds that managed to take over the space.  Now the ground is bare and turned.  (My poor aching back wishes I had used the tiller instead of the shovel!)  If the plants are squeezed in with the crates side by side, there is space for thirty-six tomatoes. More will be planted in another space but this will do for a start.

   Several railroad ties surround this garden spot as to act as a terrace retaining wall.  Mark and I lugged the things from down near the marsh to edge this hillside garden.  It took years to fill the area with enough dirt to make it even semi-level.  Now that the dirt has settle, the large timbers can be moved.  They will be placed in a different spot with the same terracing idea.  As I tugged on one of the huge boards, a bright bit of gold caught my eye.  Ok!  That was enough to make me stop to investigate.  Times like these are what make yard work interesting!  Wow!  What a pretty bee..err..wasp...err..bug, oh whatever!  I sat watching the critter as it tried to crawl.  I had obviously uncovered it from its overwintering spot and it was not one bit pleased. While I was admiring the brilliant yellow coloring of the wasp, Michael happened to walk behind me.  "Nice yellow jacket." he stated.  Yikes!  I was actually poking at a yellow jacket!  No wonder the thing looked so familiar and huge! This was the new queen yellow jacket!   Enough of that!  

  Each spring the queen yellow jacket will crawl out of hibernation and build a small hive.  Usually this hive is underground or in rotted wood. Already mated before her winter hibernation, she will single-handed raise the first generation of workers.  By the end of summer this hive will be home to nigh on to a thousand workers.   Under my railroad tie seemed to be her majesty's desired palace-building spot.  If I had not found her, this colony could have been quite worrisome.  Being so close to the house and garden, the yellow jackets could have been a severe danger to all of us.  Now at least this queen will not be calling our yard her realm!  I wonder how many more are lurking just beneath the ground...hmmm?

A "Date" with Yellow Jackets!

Once before, I told you about the Yellow Jackets that were terrorizing the hillside.  So far, (knock on wood) none of us have been stung but the wasps are making a terrible nuisance of themselves.  If there is any available food source, you can rest assured that these critters will be (literally) crawling all over it!  The type of food matters not..anything from dead fish to strawberry trifle is fair game with these guys!  They must have a most keen sense of smell because within a matter of seconds anything that is edible will have at least a dozen or so attacking it..within minutes, hundreds will be swarming nearby.  AND they will defend their right to this food against any who try to shoo them away!

Earlier in the spring, I had noticed that the Sawtooth Palmettos were in full bloom!  I was determined to watch the clumps of fronds during the fall so I could gather the dates.  Yesterday, Mark and I made our way down the hill to the largest clump.  The palmettos were full of plump, black dates!  They were ready to be picked and I should have been able to gather a nice mess except for one teeny-tiny problem..or rather a bunch of teeny-tiny problems!  On my nice fat dates, there were swarms of Yellow Jackets!  These wasps were eating my dates!  Shoo!  Get!  Scram!  Nope!  I was not crazy enough nor had a unquenchable desire for palmetto dates to make an attempt at scaring the wasps away.  I was in no way coming between those critters and their food!

At first, I assumed that the wasps were dining upon the old, overripe dates but after watching them for a bit, I came to realize that they were actually gnawing tiny holes in the plump dates.  The juice of the date was then sucked out of the peeling leaving an empty husk!  Ohhh....these guys were smart!  I suppose that I really need to find this Yellow Jacket nest!  Somewhere close, there is a quarter-sized hole in the ground that houses a huge hive!  It is relatively hard to find as the wasps are uniquely adept at concealing the entrance and it is well-guarded!  I most usually find them the hard way by running my lawnmower over top of the entrance.  Then the critters will come from all angles bombarding me and stinging me as I try to escape!  Not fun....not fun at all!  The only hope is to find the nest during the daylight hours and then plan a nighttime attack on the swarm!  Most of the wasps will crawl back into the tiny hole to spend the night.  It is then that a single, long-necked drink bottle filled with gasoline can be jammed into the hole.  This will block the entrance and flood the hive with gasoline killing all inside!  Yep...this trick has been passed down through generations and is the only surefire way I know of getting rid of the Yellow Jackets!  So...if weather permits, tomorrow, I shall search once again for the entrance hole to the hive.  Wish me luck!

Unwanted Visitors!

I love being on the pier!  It makes me happy to just observe the different critters that live in or around the Bayou.  I have a hard time finding reasons to dislike any of the creatures as I learn from each of them.  There is always some survival tip that I can pick up from watching the animals and I figure that if I ever need to have that knowledge I might as well learn from the best.  These critters know how to survive!  They can find food during the bleakest of times and have no problem creating a shelter when necessary.  I watch...I learn.

Lately though, I do believe I have discovered one critter that thoroughly irritates me!  For the past week or so every time I go fishing,  I am surrounded by Yellow Jackets!  Those nasty, ill-tempered, stinging wasps that come to feed upon my bait or fish, irritate me to no end!  It seems that these things can smell a fish from miles around and will hone in on it with the precision of the finest of GPS systems! They also hone in on my hands when I have been handling said fish.  I know it is not wise to flail around when in the vicinity of wasps but instinct sets in and my arms start waggling around above my head like a windmill in a hurricane!  All of this movement just riles the Yellow Jackets into a frenzy then I instantly regret my moment of panic!  Luckily, I have not been stung...yet!  The wasps dive bomb my head and will hover threateningly around me for a few minutes before settling back on some piece of fish or ick stuff left behind when hooking a bait.  I suppose they are more interested in eating than attacking a crazy lady!

Yesterday, Mark decided to clean a few of the fish while on the pier.  The Yellow Jackets were crawling about in all of the fish scraps and even getting on his knife.  He would shoo them off and just continue with his job!  Me?  I would have had to smack those critters to pieces before cleaning another fish!  I am positive that the Yellow Jackets have a nest somewhere near the end of the pier which is right where I should be cutting grass in the morning.  Knowing my luck, I will find that buried nest the hard way!  Invariably, my lawnmower will be shoved directly over the small, one-inch diameter hole which is the doorway to the nest.  Those angry flying torpedoes will most likely swarm around me in a instance causing me to abandon the mower and make a mad dash towards the Little Bayou House and safety!  This is not something that I relish so perhaps I should make a survey of the area before I start cutting the grass....or....I could just leave the grass grow taller and taller and call it a meadow!  Yeah!  A meadow full of tall grass just blowing in the wind and buzzing with honeybees....ummm....Yellow Jackets!