Things are buzzing...

There have been far too many columns written about husbands attempting, in humourous fashion, to get rid of wasp nests.

Let me add a little more to that existing body of work...

There I was, crouched in the grass, slowly stalking my prey. It (the prey) was in the kids playhouse, long abandoned and now used for seasonal storage. Which means it's where we throw all the junk and toys from around the yard.

Anyway - reports indicated a wasp nest was also resident in the playhouse (which I built by the way)(I'll tell you all about THAT episode in my life in a future posting).

I was heavily armed. My can of RAID was the giant version. Lethal. Now with a fresh, spring scent.

I slowly did a close target reccy - I leaned my head in the side window and peered into the gloom - looking for the nest. I finally succeeded in this task by rotating my head like Linda Blair in The Exorcist - and there it was at the very peak of the roof. Target sighted!

About 2 inches across, only 2 or 3 wasps sitting on it, tending their buggy little offspring things. Pupils or levees or something.

This was going to be a piece of cake, I thought. No exerting myself by running away screaming this time, I told myself.

So I just sauntered (well, ducked) my way into the main room, looked up, aimed my weapon, and fired. The 2 or 3 wasps that were there, which I thought were dead, suddenly sprang to, er, death, actually.

And that was that. So I left the main portion of the little house and stood outside, chest puffed, feeling proud and masculine. I'm the man around THIS place my body language said with authority.

Then, doing my usual thorough job (I'm lying again), I took a quick glance under the roof on the front porch portion of the playhouse. My bowels immediately turned to water as I viewed a moving mass of wasps, 8 inches across, staring benevolently back at me. The nest was HUGE! Crawling with the beastly little critters. I shuddered as I remembered myself nonchalantly stooping under this one, on my way inside to the little one.

It was just as I was spraying the wasps covering the nest, killing them on contact just like the label said, that I realized the old saying that the best time to destroy a wasp nest is at night - since that is when they are all in the nest you see.

The current time now was just after supper - around 7pm.

The Raid did indeed kill on contact, but it did not kill the many, many wasps just arriving from their days foraging.

Note to self: Raid kills on contact but just really upsets the ones returning to the nest.

I ran screaming like a little girl up the path and into the house.

Got some exercise after all. I hope the manly neighbours didn't see me run like that. Or shriek like that either.