If you’ve been following my normally quiet little life since mid-August you know I’ve been dancing happily around the yard picking crabapples and grapes and pears and apples and peaches and tomatoes and the rest of that vegie garden stuff, and transforming their physical form into something more long-lasting. For this, I’ve nearly been crucified, fallen off a ladder, gotten hit in the head by falling pears gathered together in defending their tree, been tatooed with an ankle bracelet by the killer raspberry vines, nearly blown up by an explosive fermention, and now, gotten stung by those yellowjackets that nest in the ground. Too late I spotted their hole, as one of the little beestards stung me, instantly finding the vein on my hand that the nurse at the blood drawing station apparently couldn’t.
Oh woeful Mother Nature am I! My sunny yellow chiffon gown in tatters, floral wreath askew, bruised and bleeding, licking my wounds, dragging bags of tomatoes, hot cherry peppers for salsa, and hard-fought-for peaches to the screeching of protesting birds, I bring home the bounty, filling my kitchen with pungent sweet scents and ripe bright primary colors.
I take a deep breath, look around at the disarray, and to the gurgle of bubbling wine, sparkle of cut glassed sealed purple jelly, I sigh. Inside my home, all outside is forgiven.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
Yellow jackets are wasps not bees. Wasps are thinner, can be aggressive, and interested in food and garbage. Bees are generally plumper, mild mannered and interested in flowers and not you.
You’re most definitely correct, and I didn’t take the time to think clearly since I do know that it’s the wasps and hornets that have the hanging nests or make them underground in abandoned rodent nests, which is what this hole was.
Thanks for bringing this up and defending the bees, who often get a bum wrap.
I know it was not funny, but you’ve certainly made me laugh!
Remember: You can’t fool Mother Nature!
Glad to be fodder for your amusement, Loretta. After a heavy spraying of the hole, I think the little suckers are still alive, plotting how to get me.
Hi Susan,
I love reading about your preservation adventures. This, and when you wrote about your father’s shirts are, oddly enough, some of my favorite things of yours to read. There is an aliveness here and a fun– which is so obviously in you, is you–that, as a reader, I am immediately drawn in and want to know what else is going on.
Best
Hey, Owen, nice to hear from you. I guess nature and family are where I am most myself. You’ve not been posting–get back to writing since I’ve always enjoyed reading you.