As I may have mentioned before, the wasps and yellow jackets are really bad this year. After LK got 3 stings within a month, my desire to take the kids outside went down considerably. The Dearliest brought home 5 traps one evening and hung them around the house and out buildings, and they were all full or nearly full by the end of the next day. Yes, this disgusts me (but in a good way).
We have a small pond, and even with the traps around there were clouds and clouds of wasps getting water. The Dearliest read online that adding a few tablespoons of dish liquid would turn the pond into a trap, so he tried it. The soap breaks the surface tension of the water, so when the wasps land on it they bog down instead of floating. Yes, this disgusts me too (but in a good way).
I took a video right after taking this picture, and over a course of 1 minute I counted an average of 3 kills every 10 seconds. This lasted pretty much all day, so if the Dearliest or I needed a break from working on the house (we shampooed the area rugs and all the carpets over the weekend, so lots of furniture moving, etc.), we’d take a few minutes and go watch the pond. It’s an interesting kind of entertainment.
It’s been two days since we “treated” the pond, and I’m amazed at the difference! I actually feel like I can walk around outside without fear of something flying up my skirt or pants. On top of that, we’ve started seeing more honeybees in the flowers. I wonder if the wasps and yellow jackets kept them away, or perhaps it’s just easier to see them now that the pests are diminished.
In more heartwarming news, the Dearliest and LK came home one evening with a hummingbird feeder for me! It hadn’t been up an hour before we saw our first bird, and I’m hoping that within a week we’ll have lots of regular visitors.
In less heartwarming news, I have to take the edging out of my star blanket AGAIN. I tried something new and different, but it didn’t work. So I tried something else. I thought it was working, but apparently not. I’m kinda mad at myself over it, personally, because the math added up in my head and came out very different than I was expecting. Oh well. Live and learn. At this point I’ll use the method that I know works with hexagons and figure out the problems of the other method later.
In writing news, I finished polishing my pirates short story! It’ll be released in 5 installments over at Pen Wending, and I confess I’m kinda excited that I’m already 4 weeks out in my queue because that gives me a good chunk of the margin I wanted before starting work on one of the novels. I might finish up one more short story first, though. I think I’d feel better with a 6 week margin.
Stories up for finishing:
– Fairytale-esque involving a missing princess and a Bible smuggling operation.
– Modern adventure involving a 4 year old shape-shifter and government conspiracy.
– Historical fiction about early fire-fighters in America.
– I’m still reading through my myriad of notebooks and selecting the more promising-sounding titles. A lot of this stuff I don’t even remember writing!
Creative Wending 