Farm Episode # Umpteen: Bees, Hornets, Wasps. It seems whenever I mow the overgrown pasture or the lawn, nearly 20 acres in all, I find wildlife to relocate. So it is that over the past few days Ive found and moved a box turtle, an enormous bullfrog and three black snakes. I discovered bedding locations for deer and uncovered an old fox den. Inevitably however I have encounters with ground-nesting, irritable, aggressive, and well-armed yellow jackets. Too small to see beforehand, I discover them only when swarming about my head and running kamikaze missions within my shirt and hair. My immediate reaction is to swipe them away from my face thereby sending my glasses flying in some direction. Then I jump off the tractor and run as fast and as far as I can, all the while being stung by those that managed to infiltrate the oppressors clothing before he noticed. Ten or twenty stings, whos counting, I hurt all over. An elderly local farmer told me the old-timey solution to neutralizing yellow jacket stings is to keep a towel on the tractor. Immediately after the attack, Im supposed to strip naked and pee on the towel wiping myself all over with urine. Seriously. I never think of that until much later which may have helped to preserve my reputation in the immediate neighborhood. By the time I make it back to the house, Im in pain and realize it will be many hours before the discomfort subsides. And I can t see well because my glasses are somewhere near the bees nest and temporarily irretrievable. Beisdes, its awfully difficult to find your glasses if you dont see well without your glasses. That was yesterday. This morning, I got up very early when the temperature was still in the 60s. With a scratched old pair of specs, I located my lost glasses. My strategy was to get the tractor moved while the bees/wasps were sluggish from the cold. But first Id have to crank up the tractor and creep forward directly over the nest to create enough slack to unhook a chain I was using to yank a dead tree to the woodpile. No such luck. The bees held vigil over the tractor throughout the night anticipating the return of the enemy and several nailed me as soon as I arrived at the battlefield. Needless to say, the tractor is still there and I am trying to mount an alternate tractor rescue mission. My relative success or failure will be chronicled in comments to follow. Im considering an air assault using napalm because I think it unlikely that Ill be able to negotiate a cease-fire agreement.
Posted on: Tue, 09 Sep 2014 16:46:28 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015