Magic Time at the Farm, Part One:
The Horror! Sluggish Hornets Invade!
They hibernate in the wood. Wood hornets, they should be called. Maybe they are, at least by me. They look like this:
When we arrived at the farmhouse and kicked on the heaters the masses were awoken. And the invasion, however slow, had begun.
The drive to Clarendon from Amarillo was breezy and quick, and by breezy I mean the wind sweeping across HWY 278 treated our station wagon like a sail. Upon arrival, we were greeted by two dogs.
When we arrived at the farmhouse and kicked on the heaters the masses were awoken. And the invasion, however slow, had begun.
The drive to Clarendon from Amarillo was breezy and quick, and by breezy I mean the wind sweeping across HWY 278 treated our station wagon like a sail. Upon arrival, we were greeted by two dogs.
Whose dogs were these? It was a mother and puppy, waking from a spot on the concrete walkway and barking angrily at us.
Shooing them away wasn't too hard, but it was a little nerve wracking, especially since we wanted to let Cassius run around. Dog-centered violence wasn't on the menu for this trip.
Inside, after getting the electricity and heat back up and running, found me in the kitchen getting dinner ready. Until---
---On the wall! Oh shit! Crawling slowly now on the ceiling was a great big red hornet. I freaked out a bit, expecting it to start flying at any minute. I made sure to keep Corrie and the Boy out of the kitchen for the time being, and made a makeshift hornet killing device: a water spray bottle and a rolled up newspaper.
They had wasp spray, but it was of the canister variety, the kind that rockets out a foam spray up to twenty feet on a line. No way I'm using that stuff in a kitchen.
Surprisingly this hornet didn't seem interested in flying (later I learned "interested" would be replaced with "able to"), and I blasted it with water and beat it to death.
Then we ate dinner and tried to figure out bath-time as the Dolmans slowly began to arrive.
The next morning we were awoken to an odd scratching on the window pane next to the bed. Pulling back the blinds yielded---
---Oh shit! Two hornets! Later on Cass was on the floor and, like usual, he was banging something hard on the floor. After calming down from the window pane hornets, we had a chuckle and told Cass to chill out. I hopped down to scoop him up and bring him into bed before we went out to make French Toast. Right next to Cass's banging device---his water bottle---WAS A HORNET!
Was he trying to smash a crawling floor hornet? Is he, like his mother, allergic to hornets? Less than twelve hours at the Farm and poppa's freaking to eff out...
People started making fun of me for my freaking out, "Aww, is that another hornet for ya?" followed by laughter as I cursed and stormed off to find another flyswatter---I destroyed four separate old-school swatters in that first twenty-four hours.
"Your daughter is the one who's allergic!" I would shout as I went searching...sometimes daughter was replaced with sister, but still.
Each day there were more and more hornets. Walls, window sills, the back of the couch, the bathroom. I was living through a horror film.
I was getting through to someone at least, as my niece came and found me on one of the last days at the Farm: "Uncle Pat, can you come and kill this hornet?"
The weird thing was, they were all pretty sluggish and tired. Having just come out of hibernation, the hornets weren't really able to fly or be aggressive. It was just warm enough for them to wake, but still cold enough to hinder normal activities. That made them easy to dispatch.
Corrie was saying that this was one of the main issues facing the Bunkhouse, one of the dwellings on the Farm property that is used for sleeping during the large family reunions: the hornets had made it a nesting spot and needed to be dealt with each summer. It looks like it could end up being the ultimate downfall of the Bunkhouse.
And now this issue may be plaguing the farmhouse itself.
The farmhouse is actually two or three separate buildings, brought from different places and bolted together over the years, and it now may need to be razed.
Well, it's needed to be razed for some time now, but that won't happen for at least another decade.
Near the end of the trip it all had become passe, and I think that's the real ending of the "invading horde" horror film: you just deal and go about your business.
Shooing them away wasn't too hard, but it was a little nerve wracking, especially since we wanted to let Cassius run around. Dog-centered violence wasn't on the menu for this trip.
Inside, after getting the electricity and heat back up and running, found me in the kitchen getting dinner ready. Until---
---On the wall! Oh shit! Crawling slowly now on the ceiling was a great big red hornet. I freaked out a bit, expecting it to start flying at any minute. I made sure to keep Corrie and the Boy out of the kitchen for the time being, and made a makeshift hornet killing device: a water spray bottle and a rolled up newspaper.
They had wasp spray, but it was of the canister variety, the kind that rockets out a foam spray up to twenty feet on a line. No way I'm using that stuff in a kitchen.
Surprisingly this hornet didn't seem interested in flying (later I learned "interested" would be replaced with "able to"), and I blasted it with water and beat it to death.
Then we ate dinner and tried to figure out bath-time as the Dolmans slowly began to arrive.
The next morning we were awoken to an odd scratching on the window pane next to the bed. Pulling back the blinds yielded---
---Oh shit! Two hornets! Later on Cass was on the floor and, like usual, he was banging something hard on the floor. After calming down from the window pane hornets, we had a chuckle and told Cass to chill out. I hopped down to scoop him up and bring him into bed before we went out to make French Toast. Right next to Cass's banging device---his water bottle---WAS A HORNET!
Was he trying to smash a crawling floor hornet? Is he, like his mother, allergic to hornets? Less than twelve hours at the Farm and poppa's freaking to eff out...
People started making fun of me for my freaking out, "Aww, is that another hornet for ya?" followed by laughter as I cursed and stormed off to find another flyswatter---I destroyed four separate old-school swatters in that first twenty-four hours.
"Your daughter is the one who's allergic!" I would shout as I went searching...sometimes daughter was replaced with sister, but still.
Each day there were more and more hornets. Walls, window sills, the back of the couch, the bathroom. I was living through a horror film.
I was getting through to someone at least, as my niece came and found me on one of the last days at the Farm: "Uncle Pat, can you come and kill this hornet?"
The weird thing was, they were all pretty sluggish and tired. Having just come out of hibernation, the hornets weren't really able to fly or be aggressive. It was just warm enough for them to wake, but still cold enough to hinder normal activities. That made them easy to dispatch.
Corrie was saying that this was one of the main issues facing the Bunkhouse, one of the dwellings on the Farm property that is used for sleeping during the large family reunions: the hornets had made it a nesting spot and needed to be dealt with each summer. It looks like it could end up being the ultimate downfall of the Bunkhouse.
And now this issue may be plaguing the farmhouse itself.
The farmhouse is actually two or three separate buildings, brought from different places and bolted together over the years, and it now may need to be razed.
Well, it's needed to be razed for some time now, but that won't happen for at least another decade.
Near the end of the trip it all had become passe, and I think that's the real ending of the "invading horde" horror film: you just deal and go about your business.
glad you got away from the terrible hornet invasion.... interesting to hear that they are sluggish and cold....
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