The Nest

We have been suffering from a bug here at Girly Ranch. For the last week or so, we've been terribly sick with something of a stomach flu, caught on the heels of eating some KFC out of sheer desperation (we were starving, and we were going to be getting home late). Well, let me tell you -- we are more than ready to get out of this house and do something fun!!! It isn't that we don't like spending time together, but we'd rather be spending time doing something other than lying in the fetal position wondering when the next wave will hit.

Yesterday, Thelma did a little housekeeping, including putting a shine on the wood floors. When she went outside to hang out the mop and dump the bucket, she got swarmed by flying insects. Coming back inside, she said, "I think we have some bees under the deck or something. Could you check it out when you get a minute?" She, you see, is highly allergic to bee venom. That scares the heck out of me, because if something happened to her ... well...

So I did the good girlfriend thing and went out to check it out, though I'm terrified of flying things, myself. I crept outside onto the deck and turned toward the stairs leading down to the carport. The flying things would have come up from that area. We have a lot of lawn equipment down there and were up and down those stairs quite a bit during and since we moved in.

Down the stairs I went, slowly, barely stirring the air. I tried to stay calm. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I went a few feet into the carport and turned to look up at the underside of the deck.

There hung an inverted teardrop shaped nest, busy with flying insects - hornets, to be exact, though I wasn't sure until I looked up nest styles on the 'net. I slowly went back up the stairs, my heart pounding in a way I hoped they wouldn't notice. I've only been stung a couple of times in my life, but I've heard the tales about hornets and how they attack. I don't know if it's true or not, but I didn't want to find out firsthand!

Thelma, being the cowgirl she is, immediately went into action. She got the wasp & hornet spray that shoots a 30-ft stream and went out the basement door after the nest. I tried to stop her, but when she sets her mind to something, stand by! I kept the door open and an eye on her. She got just close enough to fire that stream, and she doused them good, running back into the basement afterwards.

The hornets swarmed madly about the nest, trying to figure out what had just happened. They got slower and slower and eventually some of them dropped to the concrete below. She sprayed them later on, just before dark, with the remainder of the can. We're hoping they're all gone today so that we can remove the nest. But it was an adventure. I'm glad the adventure didn't result in a trip to the ER or even a single sting.

Now...on to my next cup of coffee....

Love, L