The second nest was a bit more problematic.<\/p>\n
I staggered out of bed after night shift to find Pretty and her friend rushing inside, slamming cabinet doors, and babbling excitedly.\u00a0 I wasn’t going to ask what happened before I had a cup of tea, but they quickly told me that they had run into a bunch of yellow jackets and been stung multiple times.<\/p>\n
“How many times?”\u00a0 I asked.<\/p>\n
“Oh, like 10, no 13, maybe more!”<\/p>\n
Now I was awake.<\/p>\n
“What?\u00a0 Where?”\u00a0 Then, “Oh, jeez, you’re not allergic to bee stings, right?”\u00a0 I asked Pretty’s friend.<\/p>\n
She assured me that she wasn’t and the girls went on to tell me that they had been up on the barn roof.\u00a0 They started kicking off the piles of leaf debris from last fall.\u00a0 Of course, they hit a yellow jacket nest and were swarmed by the bees.\u00a0 Pretty managed to climb back down the ladder off the roof and fled into the woods.\u00a0 Her friend just jumped off the roof and ran through the back yard.\u00a0 Apparently they spent some time tearing off pieces of clothing and shaking out their hair to free trapped bees before stumbling into the house looking for anti-itch cream.\u00a0 Sure enough, their hands and arms, legs and knees, necks and faces were covered with angry red blotches.<\/p>\n
There was so much wrong with this news that it was staggering.\u00a0 First of all, there’s no reason to climb onto the barn roof for fun.\u00a0 To check and see if downed limbs tore a hole in the tin roof, of course.\u00a0 To retrieve baseballs and frisbees, sure.\u00a0 To knock down roosting guineas<\/a> that get picked off each night by owls, fine.\u00a0 To get the best close up pictures of the fall leaf color, yes.\u00a0 But to play on the barn roof with a friend<\/em><\/strong>, while the adult in charge is sleeping<\/em><\/strong>, just to kick off leaves<\/em><\/strong> was alarming.\u00a0 Pretty would later point out that she’s never been told not to play on the barn roof with a friend while the parent in charge is sleeping just to kick off leaves.\u00a0 Ignorance was not <\/strong><\/em>a defense in that situation.<\/p>\n In any case, the girls were fine and that left me with the difficult job of explaining to the parent of Pretty’s friend why her child was returning home covered in yellow jacket stings.\u00a0 I tried to role play the conversation in my head.\u00a0 But it seemed more like those annoying eye exams at the optometrist’s office where you can’t really tell the difference between the clear choice and the blurry one.<\/p>\n Is this better?<\/p>\n “Well, I was home but I had no idea they were playing on the barn roof because I wasn’t supervising….”<\/p>\n Or worse?<\/p>\n “I didn’t know they were on the barn roof because I was sleeping.\u00a0 In the middle of the day….”<\/p>\n Better?<\/p>\n “She doesn’t appear to be having any reaction but she did get stung, um,\u00a0 maybe,…like\u00a0 15 times”<\/p>\n Or worse?<\/p>\n “She got stung but she managed to get away by, um,\u00a0 uh….jumping off the roof.”<\/p>\n Just like in the eye exam, it’s unclear which is option is best.\u00a0 So I tried to feel out exactly how uncomfortable the conversation was going to be.<\/p>\n “Have you ever been stung a bunch of times before?”\u00a0 I asked her.<\/p>\n “Oh, sure,”\u00a0 she replied.\u00a0 And went on to explain how they had a yellow jacket nest under their deck.\u00a0 They were considering pouring gasoline on it and lighting it on fire, but were worried it was too close to the house for that.\u00a0 Also she was pretty sure there was a remedy in her family for bee stings that involved putting a lit cigarette on the sting.<\/p>\n Thank God.\u00a0 Country people.<\/p>\n Country people don’t get worked up over yellow jacket stings.\u00a0 Even 15 of them.\u00a0 And being country people ourselves, I’d heard that bit about the cigarettes.\u00a0 Although I thought it was light a cigarette, put it out, then try to squeeze some of the tobacco juice out of the cigarette onto the sting.\u00a0 Since we didn’t have any cigarettes, we settled on using Benadryl itch stopping cream instead.\u00a0 Which seemed like the better choice, clear as day.<\/p>\n Once Pretty’s friend was safely home, that left The Other Half with an even more difficult job.\u00a0 He was in charge of killing those yellow jackets.\u00a0 Oh, it’s true the nest would have died back this winter.\u00a0 But when I went out to the barn to milk the next morning, I got stung 3 times by yellow jackets that came through the hardware cloth section of the roof into the barn.\u00a0 When I recovered and sneaked out 15 minutes later (because someone had to free Vanessa from the milk stand where I had abandoned her and there was no one else home to do it), I could see a part of the hive sitting on the hardware cloth, right next to the tin roof, while yellow jackets buzzed around angrily, repairing the damage. Either the girls had kicked part of the nest to a new location, closer to barn access and the milk stand, or the bees were so pissed that they were willing to attack us now just for entering their territory.\u00a0 Either way, they had to go.<\/p>\n I bought cans of wasp spray for The Other Half (because no one should have to fight yellow jackets without any assistance at all) and suggested he start by spraying the exposed nest from underneath the hardware cloth after dark.\u00a0 It was risky because the bees were sure to come out once they were sprayed.\u00a0 And the only exit involved getting through the milk gate and then the barn yard gate to safety.\u00a0 Both of those gates were tricky to manage at a yellow-jacket-avoiding speed.\u00a0 But it seemed obvious that managing gates was a lot less tricky than trying to get off the barn roof while being attacked.<\/p>\n The Other Half promptly formulated a plan to climb onto the roof, rake off the leaves to expose the nest in its entirety, and then spray it.<\/p>\n Huh.<\/p>\n At no time would raking the nest<\/em><\/strong> have figured into my plans.<\/p>\n But the boys diligently helped The Other Half suit up for the task.\u00a0 He put on several layers of clothing, tucked shirt sleeves into gloves and pant legs into socks and then into boots.\u00a0 He had goggles, a ski mask, and a scarf.\u00a0 And, of course, a rake and some wasp spray.<\/p>\n I found his bee suit a bit alarming.\u00a0 Particularly where the boys had duct taped the ski mask to the goggles around his nose.<\/p>\n “Um, it’s 100 degrees outside.\u00a0 And you’re wearing 3 layers of clothing.\u00a0 You’re going to overheat.\u00a0 Are you sure you can breathe OK through the duct tape?” I asked.<\/p>\n He said he was sure he’d be fine but if he passed out, I’d just have to come get him and drag him to safety.<\/p>\n Wha?<\/p>\n I pondered this for a moment.<\/p>\n “How about I just throw you a rope instead?” I suggested.<\/p>\n “Yes!”\u00a0 exclaimed Big. “Throw, don’t go!”<\/p>\n “Throw, don’t go” is slang around here for water rescue.\u00a0 If a person is in trouble in the the water, rescuers should attempt to reach for him from a safe position with their hand or a piece of equipment, throw him a flotation device or item to pull himself to safety, or row in a boat to his location.\u00a0 Never go into the water to assist the person or the rescuer risks drowning as well.<\/p>\n But here we refer to any emergency when we’d prefer to assist from a\u00a0 safe distance as a “Throw, don’t go” situation.\u00a0 Slide down a muddy creek bed while we’re on a hike and you’re likely to get the end of a belt thrust your way.\u00a0 Get attacked by a rooster in the chicken pen and we’d be happy to throw some rocks at that sucker for you while you make an escape.\u00a0 Stinky bucks trying to push out while you’re rolling hay into their barn?\u00a0 Quick! Someone throw down a handful of grain into the pasture to distract them.\u00a0 But rush into the danger zone to join the melee, um,….not so much.<\/p>\n I wasn’t sure “Throw, don’t go” was going to work in this scenario.\u00a0 First of all, if The Other Half fainted from the heat, how was he going to grab the rope?\u00a0 Also, was I going to use a rope to pull him off the roof onto the ground, a good 7 foot drop?\u00a0 Finally, pulling a man covered in angry yellow jackets directly to my location seemed to violate all the rules of rescuer safety.<\/p>\n Spraying the nest from underneath was looking better and better.<\/p>\n But I shrugged.\u00a0 We all agreed a rope would be our back up plan and he headed out to the barn.<\/p>\n The boys watched anxiously from inside the house as he ascended the ladder and began raking.<\/p>\n They moved around to the front door as The Other Half climbed off the roof and walked around the house, out of the backyard, and down the driveway, trying to stay calm and get far enough away that the bees would finally give up their pursuit of him.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/IMG_0757-e1410374604686-225x300.jpg\" "\\"IMG_0757\\"")
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