Yellow Jackets and Concrete

Ever have one of those days, well I thought I would describe one of mine. It was in August 2007, I set out to do some planting on a nice Sunday afternoon with some “Lilly of the Valley” plants that my mother had given me from our last weekend visit. I started out by asking my wife where I should plant all these lilies that we had obtained. After some thought, she suggested planting along the wooded area near our driveway. Sounded like as good a spot as any to me, so I grabbed the old post-hole diggers and starting at one end of the driveway and proceeded to dig some 8 inch deep holes about two feet apart. My plan was to dig up the dirt at each spot to loosen it and then come back to remove the dirt and place in the lilies and the replace the loose dirt after I had created enough holes. I was on or about the eighth holes which happen to be near a small maple tree, when I hit a root. I determined that harder strokes on the post-hole digger would be required to cut through the small roots. I was on the third strike when I noticed a slight stinging sensation on my left leg near my knee, no mind, I am getting old er and this must be a new pain to add to my list of complaints. I continue with another strike, and then I saw a yellow flash of something land on my right check near my mouth. It then it occurred to me that this was no ordinary flash, but a flying hellcat which was determined to bring me down. This thing did not leave with the normal shoeing of my hand as most flying pest do, no no this little daemon from hell proceeded to continue its attack on my face as well as the ones attacking my left leg. At this point a few seconds has passed, seems like minutes, my brain kicked into gear, "hey dummy, run!". I dropped the post-hole diggers which give the other daemons an object to attack and I jumped back and proceeded to make my hasty escape. I was about 12 feet from the hole when my feet now having a mind of their own had determined there own path to take and my mind with rest of my body had determined another. So of course I went down, hard, on the concrete driveway. Luckily I used my bare hands to take the impact of the fall to avoid smashing my face into the driveway, the other reason to wear gloves which I totally not doing. At this point, I rolled and came to a sitting position. To my dismay that daemon spawned from who knows where was still attacking my face while his companions had seen I had indeed falling and was away from their nest had left me to attack the post-hole digger. I had to do what I had to do, only few more seconds had passed, it felt like 20 minutes, I slapped my face to stun the little guy into realizing that I was actually bigger and could indeed obliterate him. He swung around my face a second or two more and I guess he either didn’t like my little slap or he notice I was officially out of bounds and away from his nest, so he flew away looking for the next target, the post-hole digger. Well I jumped up in any case looking over at my wife who at this point was thinking that I was having a heart attack and yelled bees, waving her away in case the little hellcats might consider her their new target. As I survey the damage walking toward my wife I notice both hands had scrapes and my little finger was throbbing a bit more than usual. But all in all I was ok. The next day I felt it a bit more of the tumble, some body pain. Let me tell you having you upper layers of skin removed from your palms kinda hurts. But that night I had my revenge with a little gas party, the stuff works wonders, not too much mind you, just a little… I wanted to light it, but that being a dumb idea and sense were in a drought at the time and with the dry leaves in the wooded area by the driveway, I figure I wouldn’t press my luck.

So you have to wonder what someone could learn from this experience. I had some of the right tools, the knowledge to complete the task, the resources to get the job done, but I was lacking some basic but important equipment and did not analyze the environment before starting. For instance if I had worn the proper shoes I may not have stumbled when I ran. If I had worn gloves I would have avoid the scraps to my hands when I fell. If I had just taken a moment to look and survey the environment before starting the effort I might have seen the yellow jackets nest and taken steps to correct that problem without injury to myself and my pride. So make sure you know what is expected, the environment you are about to go into and ensure the tools and skills are all available before you begin.