The Wasp Debacle

I was standing in the creek, a few feet from a spring we had dammed up to supply the cabin at Snowbird with water, when I felt a pain in my leg, like I’d been stuck by a thorn. I knew exactly what had caused the pain and it wasn’t a thorn.  It was a wasp. I had run into those guys before in the mountains, several times, and I knew I was about to be swarmed.

I turned and began running down the middle fork of the Juanite. They hit me two more times in the neck. I tripped over rhododendron limbs hanging over the creek and fell headfirst in the mud and water, and then I was back up again, running. Breathing hard now, I scrambled up the bank on the left, where the rhododendron was thickest, trying to shake them.

I escaped but I had lost my glasses, knocked off by a limb, maybe.   Brother Pop and I would have to wait until tomorrow to get water to the cabin because it was almost dark and I would need his help finding my glasses.  First, though, before I could clean out the pipe from the spring and get the water running, I had to do something about those wasps.

* * *

I guess you could say that, together, Pop and I equaled a whole man: He could see but he had a hard time walking; I could walk but, without my glasses, I had a hard time seeing.

Next morning we went back to spring together and he found my glasses.  And then I spotted the hole to the wasps’ nest, in the bank above the spring.  It was a big one, about the size of a man’s thumb.  Wasps were flying in and out three or four at a time.

 It would have been smarter to go after them at night or early in the morning, but I had missed those windows.   If we wanted water at the cabin now, I had to pour gas down that hole now.

I walked back to the cabin and got a jacket, a hat, and an extra pair or blue jeans to protect me from their stings. I also got a gallon jug with a pint or so of gas — and a cup. My plan was to pour some of the gas into the cup and then cut a small hole in the bottom of the jug.  I would creep up close, throw gas at wasps going in or out of the hole — which would kill them dead — and then set the jug of gasoline on top the hole so gas could leak into the nest.  I didn’t like using gasoline that close to the spring but what choice did I have?

* * *

When it was time I unbuckled my belt and unzip my second pair of jeans to reach my knife, in the pocket of my other jeans, turned the jug upside down, and cut a small hole in the bottom.

Then I eased toward the nest, slowly, quietly, so as not to disturb the wasps. Everything was going just dandy until I put my left foot on the wooden cover over the spring, to get close enough place the jug, and a rotten board gave way. My boot crashed though and my leg went into the hole, up to my knee. I was caught.

At that moment a column of wasps, a thick, solid, yellow, column of wasps, rose out of the nest.  I was petrified. They were at eye level and in a moment they would be all over me.

But in that moment, I threw the cup of gas on them,  the only thing  I did right.

In a panic I set the jug of gas on the hole  upside down when I should have set it on the nest right side up —  I had cut the hole in the bottom of the jug.

I pulled my leg free, scrambled up the far bank on all fours, and stood up to run. I couldn’t. I had unbuckled and unzipped my second pair of jeans to get to my knife and but I had not zipped up my pants or rebuckled my belt.  The jeans fell to my ankles, shortening my stride to about six inches.

Did I get stung?  Yes, but not swarmed because of the one thing I did right — that cup of gas right in their face.

Postscript:  After I  calmed down and regained my nerve I crept back, turned the jug right side up, and that was that.

NOTE: This is where I learned how to nuke wasps.

Coming Monday: Not A Smart Thing To Say

 

2 thoughts on “The Wasp Debacle”

  1. I loved this story, I cracked up laughing visualizing this happening as I read it. Where was Pop when you went back to cover the wasp hole?

    1. Pop wasn’t there. He went back to the cabin and left me there to deal with those yellow and black devils. He must have figured there was no sense both of us getting stung.

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