Yellow Jackets

Before we left for the southland, I cut the lawn around the cabin up in the Adirondacks. During that process, I discovered two yellow jacket nests. I have found and destroyed two others in the lawn over the past. The presence of apple trees in the area provide lots of food from rotting apples this time of year.

Yellow jackets are small hornets, not really bees, but they can sting and often do. I hate the little B#ST@&DS.; They also scare me.

When I was a toddler, I stepped on a honey bee in the yard and got stung. No surprise there, I supose. Nothing happened. A year or so later I did it again. This time I nearly died. Mom called the doctor who came running to the house. I lapsed into anaphylactic shock. No sooner did the doctor clear the front door than he had a needle in me. THEN he checked me over. He told my mom that I had been less than a minute from dying. From then on I gave all kinds of bees and wasps a lot of space.

I managed to stay away from them and they from me until one day when I was around 12. Some friends and I were throwing rocks at an old wooden fence. We didn't know there was a nest on the other side, we just liked the "thunk" it made when we struck it. We were some 20 feet from the fence and were suddenly under attack...or at least I was. I don't remember if the other two guys got stung but I got it five or six times. We all ran. Mom again hustled me off to the doctor who, after giving me a shot to stop the anaphylactic shock that was fast approaching, recommended I get a series of shots to desensitize me to the bee venom. I started gettin one shot a week of very diluted venom. Each month the strength was boosted. Then I got one shot every two weeks of much stronger stuff, then one shot a month. It took three years but the doctor said I was now save around bees, "but don't get careless!"

Many years later, in the late '70s, I opted to get shots for other allergies; pollen, insect bites, etc. I got six series of shots in much the same way as I had gotten the shots for bee stings. (I would have gotten ones for dog and cat, too, but they were not available at the time.)

I now breath much more easily and my eyes aren't bloodshot and itchy from March to November. I also don't swell up like the Pillsbury Dough Boy after being in the woods or out in a marshy area and eaten upon by mosquitoes. And over the counter drugs stay on the shelf. In general, I get to enjoy the outdoors a great deal more than I would have.

After staying away from bees for many years, I managed to step in a yellow jackets nest. (That's one of the problems with the little buggers. They build their hives in the ground and stepping on one, or even near one, can be like stepping on an anti-personnel mine.) I was doing some trapping of white-footed deer mice in the strip of woods along the median of I-78 for the research portion of my Masters degree. I had just finished picking up the last trap when I felt a sting above my socks and beneath my pant legs, then another and another. (It was early in the day, okay, and I wasn't fully alert to what was happening.) Then I dropped the traps and hauled a@@ out of the woods. When I cleared the woods, I saw a State Trooper's car parked behind mine. I walked over and introduced myself. I explained that I had just been stung 10 or 15 times, that it was the first time I had been stung since completing my shots many years ago, and asked if he would mind if we jsut sat and talked for awhile. I asked that he stay "just in case" and that if there was a problem he take me to Lyons or Morristown hospital if I needed medical help. He agreed to sit with me and we chatted about my research project for a quarter of an hour or so. When nothing seemed to be happening, we parted ways. I drove to a friends house (in which I now live--but that's another story) near Morristown hospital and we shared some ice tea and chatted for an hour. I had no reaction to the stings. Even the small bumps that appeared right after they happened disappeared while we sat and talked. Desentitization shots work and are well worth the time, money and shots.

Back to the nests in NY. I managed to damage them and burn the little buggers out. I thought I had gotten them all but when we got back I learned one nest had simply moved. I'll have to take care of them when I go back up in October. The other nest must have had some activity but a critter dug them out and ate them up. Good. Whish I knew what had done it. I have a fox in the area, but I don't know if they would dig up a nest. Skinks are another matter but I haven't seen (or scented) any. Bears too would dig up the next but this was too neatly done.

Happy Birthday To Me

Today is my birthday and, while I don't particularly get hung up on age, let's just leave it at that.

I was just going to spend the day around the house doing nothing special but ended up sweeping acorns off the deck, the driveway and the front walk.

I walked out to the garden and found the tomatoes gone. At least one set of deer tracks led up the side of the yard to the garden and meandered through the tomato plants. Jess said there were lots of small grape tomatoes out there but I found only one red one and one partially red one. All the others were...phhytt...gone.

Practice, Practice , Practice

While I was up north, I got some of my "tools" out and practiced with them. Deer season is here (at least in NJ and soon in NY) and i wanted to be sure I could hit what I aim at. Here's how things went (as I wrote to my friend and fishing/hunting buddy, Joe):

I took my bow out this morning and was happy at 15 and 25 yards but not at 35. A little wild at the longer distance but that might be partly the breeze that was blowing. It got pretty stiff at times and even when I tried to guess when it would be in a lull, the arrow clearly sailed in the breeze coming from about 10 o'clock.

I also tried out my new 50-cal. flintlock. (Terry says I've gone passed my 60th birthday and Christmas of 2010.) Not happy with the smokepole at all. The damn thing wouldn't fire more than half the time. And I'm not counting the flash-in-the-pan type of misfire. I was using FFFg black powder in the pan and an 80 gr load behind a 245 gr Powerbelt hollow point. Think it might be the fault of the flint. I used the same load in my in-line Knight and it fired every time I pulled the trigger. Very happy with that. Definitely switching back to powder instead of pellets. The pellets misfired 1 out of 5 times last fall. (Funny thing is, after cleaning all the weapons, I cocked and pulled the trigger on the flintlock half a dozen times. I got lots of spark each time. Definitely will have to practice some more with this one just to see if I can get competent with it.)

Then it was time for the shotgun,a new Remington 870 Express with a rifled barrel I bought last week. Nice black nonreflective composite stock, too. Joe, you SOB! Why didn't you warn me about the kick these Lightfield Hybrid EXP have? I just got off the line after shooting ten rounds and will probably have a huge black and blue patch on my shoulder. If they hit the deer that hard, no wonder they drop where they're standing! I would have shot fewer but I forgot the basics for lining up the reticule of the scope when I want to center it. Right now it's 2" high at 50 yards. In other words perfect.

As usual, cleaning the three long guns took almost as long as shooting them did. It's one of those chores that has to be done correctly and thoroughly, however.

We’re Back

Well, almost. Terry's in NJ and I'm in NY with the trailer.

We spent four lovely days in Sumter, SC visiting Terry's aunt, uncle and cousins Jim and Lorraine and their spouses. I had made a short stop there back in 2001 when Rick graduated from Parris Island but otherwise hadn't seen these folks in 13 years. Terry had been down for a wedding or two and Cousin Lorraine and her husband, Joe, operate a small B & B in Sumter and put us up for our visit.

Besides just hanging around and catching up on news, Terry, Lorraine, Joe and I drive down to Charleston where we did a walking tour of some of the old parts of the city (one block south of Calhoun Street and several blocks down by Battery Park). Battery Park was one of the sites of the cannon that fired upon Fort Sumter, waaaay out in the harbor, to start the Civil War. In retaliation, much of the town was bombarded into rubble when the North got the upper hand years later. A few old homes remain standing and some of those that were damaged were restored. It's a beautiful place to stroll.

After lunch, we drove across the new suspension bridge to Patriots Point where the USS Yorktown is docked and took two walking tours of the ship. One led us through the main working quarters below decks and included the medical facilities, the machine shops and the main mess with its galley and bakery. The bakery had a display of the crew's favorite snack--chocolate chip cookies--and what it would take to bake 10,000 of them. That was what was needed for one day for the crew of 3,500. The other tour was to the flight deck and the bridge. Looks just like the one in the movie Midway.

Next it was dinner at a very nice restaurant on Shem Creek called Vickery's. Some great crawdads, shrimp and crab with two fried oysters served over hot grits. Never thought I liked grits until I ate those.

Joe took me about 20 miles out of town where they own 150 acres of "the farm". Actually, it is a tree farm right now, the pasture having grown wild while they were in England for eight years. (He was a civilian contractor working for the military.)

After our visit we drove north on I-95 then switched to I-81 just south of DC to avoid the beltway. One stop just before the switch and another near I-78 and Route 61 in PA to visit Cabelas in Hamburg Then I dropped Terry off in NJ and drove to NY with the trailer.

All in all it was a very nice three week excursion to the south. We lucked out in the weather department missing Katrina on our way down and having no rain during the entire time. Ophelia held off (and is still rambling around) so we didn't run into any harsh weather at all.

Now I have to clean and winterize the trailer, cut the grass for the last time this year (I hope) and see about replacing the chimney in the kitchen.