Yellow jackets. This has got to be the worst year ever. The tractors are full of them. I swear we are going to buy Hand's right out of wasp spray. The men have been finding nests the size of dinner platters everywhere.
Yesterday I found my share. It was only one, but it came boiling out of the barnyard gate and dug into the upper curl of my poor ear, buzzing ferociously.
And stinging too. It hurt so bad I could barely stand up. The kids sent me to the house with ice cubes and pain reliever and milked without me. I couldn't believe how pale it made me...white as the proverbial ghost. Nasty darned things!
We have been opening and closing that gate a dozen times a day all summer....even earlier in the day....without a sight or sound of the vicious things. Suddenly in one day there are three nests in it, with hundreds of the buzzing abominations.
Alan got them gone, but somebody is going to have to get some cans of Great Stuff and seal up all the holes on tractors and gates. I don't care to have that experience again any time soon.
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- threecollie
- Embracing agricultural diversity, one species at a time. All rights reserved
Dang! Hope your poor ear feels better this morning.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a kid, we didn't have 'em around. All we had were the black and yellow mud daubers.
ReplyDeleteWell, things have changed, and not for the better.
Hope you feel better!
They are nasty....I took one in the foot a couple of weeks ago.
ReplyDeleteSorry you got stung..esp in such a tender spot! (I once at a wasp fly down the back and of my gapping jeans and sting my bottom.) ..needless to say.. they can be nasty little buggers. Hope you are feeling better soon.
ReplyDeleteouch! hope you're feeling better.
ReplyDeletei had more ants than i'd ever seen before in my kitchen this summer. it's the summer of BUGS, apparently.
Thank you all....amazingly by morning it was nearly gone and only itches like crazy now. I have never had such a terrible sting resolve itself so quickly....and I am very, very grateful!
ReplyDeleteOuch! One of my least favorite things: bee stings. Wicked.
ReplyDeleteScott, they are awful aren't they? I dread going anywhere near that get now!
ReplyDeleteI hope you are better. Those things send me to the hospital.
ReplyDeleteLinda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
LInda, oh, my, be careful!!! Liz is allergic and even after having the series of allergy shots for them they are so scary! I am fine except for a persistent itch where the stings are. thanks
ReplyDeleteGeeze. I don't like the fact that you turned white. Maybe you were a little shocky from the pain.
ReplyDeleteYou didn't get wheezy or anything - I mean you'd know if you were having a serious reaction and get yourself treatment . . .
Those dang, dang critters. Dang.
Cathy, no wheezing although I was pretty scared. Liz is allergic as are my mother and one uncle so I am afraid of stings. It was insanely painful, perhaps because of the location. Such a bad year for them!
ReplyDelete