Thursday, April 9, 2015

FEAR




"The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself....."

.....and spiders, and wasps, and bees, and......


In my previous blog post I listed some of the narrow escapes and harrowing experiences I've had during my tumultuous existence. The restraints of time and space prevented me from mentioning all of them, but I think I gave a reasonable sample.

I also mentioned that, at this point in my life, I'm nearly immuned to fear. It takes a heckuva lot to scare me. Besides the ravages of old age and impending death, there are only two things left that fill me with undiluted fear:

Spiders and scorpions.

When I lived in Texas, scorpions were everywhere. I found them in my shoes, on my clothes. There was a huge one on a towel that I was going to use after washing my hair. One night, just as I was about to turn out the light and go to sleep, a scorpion was lurking on the headboard of my bed. I would wear my boots all night long, for fear of stepping on one.





My terror of spiders has been a lifelong obsession. I hadn't seen very many spiders here in the mountains (of course not - - it was winter). The other night, however, I happened to go outside via the back door. As I was coming back in, I suddenly noticed two big spiders on the door that I previously hadn't seen.

After I was safely inside again (or reasonably safe), I Googled poisonous spiders of Tennessee and spent the duration of the evening scaring myself witless while reading Internet arachnid horror stories. Brown Recluse infestations, vicious spider bites, deadly infections, horrifying amputations......

Holy crap - - I was suddenly having flashbacks of  childhood stories about Miss Muffet on her tuffet, innocently eating curds and whey. 
What the hell are curds and whey, anyway? For that matter, what is a "tuffet"??




Is is too late to get to the point of this blog post?


Probably, Jon, but you can give it a shot.

I have recently - temporarily - retired my fear of scorpions and spiders, in favor of bees and wasps.
With the arrival of spring, my place is becoming infested. Bees and wasps of every conceivable denomination are nesting (or attempting to nest) on my front and back porches. They are so aggressive and intimidating that I can no longer go outside.

carpenter bee in flight

Thanks to the help of two people who left comments on my blog, I was able to identify the dreaded carpenter bees - - who are drilling enough holes in the porch wood to make it look like Swiss cheese.
This is all new to me. In Texas my house was made of brick and I didn't have wooden decks.

Holes in wood made by nesting carpenter bees
(this is not my photo - I got it from the Internet) 

Since I presently have absolutely no defense against the onslaught, I plan to drive into town tomorrow and stock up on insecticides, wood putty, paint, varnish. Oh yea - -and fly swats.

It's obvious that none of the wood on my porches or decks have ever been painted or treated with anything, and the bees love the natural wood.

Yesterday I clobbered a monstrous carpenter bee with a mop and he went down like the Hindenburg.

Oh, the humanity........!!

Later, when I opened the front door, an angry bee immediately came in and I chased it around the living room for twenty minutes. It also chased me around the room. Since I had no weapons at my disposal, I finally managed to kill him with an empty pizza box (I kid you not). It wasn't easy.

While in my Internet quest to find ways of eliminating bees and wasps, I came across some of those "environmentally friendly" websites that suggest ways of gentle elimination without pesticides.
Talk to the bees. Develop a friendly rapport. Plant posies away from your house to gently distract them. Build them a wooden guest house.

Hey, here's a flash:

I'm not an environmentally-friendly type person. I don't want to save the Madagascar Doo Doo Bird. I don't give a rat's ass about saving the planet. I'm not "green". And I'm not "natural".

You're not "natural", Jon? Hey, we already knew that.

I'm gonna get the most potent pesticides I can find and blast all those buzzing son-of-a-bitches right into the far side of the Hereafter. 

Full speed ahead!!!
 


Wow, Jon - - you've just sealed your fate. At this very moment, hundreds of Earth-Friendly people are putting curses on you and scratching you off their "Friends" lists.





24 comments:

  1. You need Mr. Pest Control. We had a wasp nest on the balcony and the wasps had to go.

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    Replies
    1. Pest Control will be my last option - - but I might eventually have to resort to it.

      Delete
  2. It's Us vs. Them. Only one can win.

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    1. Tony, I sure hope Them doesn't win......

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  3. lol that was sweetly funny, I love how you have no shame about your paranoia! BTW you probably won't have to worry about bees much longer, not the European Honey bee at least - they're declining fast fast fast. I have a feeling though, that you'll find something else to replace bees should they disappear. What's that under the bed Jon??? :-) Hey you're still a friend.

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    1. Cathy, I have been shameless and paranoid for as long as I can remember. It's part of my charm. I haven't yet had the courage to look under the bed.
      Delighted to know you're still a friend.

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  4. I'm more afraid of scorpions then rattlesnakes. Sorry to read you're not green. You and John may be alike. I caught him putting trash in with the recycle stuff.

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    1. Paula, I honestly think I'm more afraid of scorpions than spiders.

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  5. Replies
    1. I'll do my best.
      If you don't hear from me in a few weeks, you'll know the bugs won.

      Delete
  6. I don't know about carpenter bees. All we have are the fuzzy happy kind that don't sting unless you step on them barefoot. But wasps and hornets? I have a great natural distraction for them, an aerosol with a 20-foot stream of chemicals made naturally and mostly on this planet. Spectracide is non-conductive under 47000 volts, so you can spray it into some favorite nesting areas --like your breaker box-- with some confidence in personal survival. Wear a full face shield.

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    1. I never thought about the breaker box, Geo, I'll have a look tomorrow. All of the bees are making Swiss Cheese holes in my back porch. I initially plugged them with wood putty, and they bore new holes right through it.

      I've read that you should spray into the nests at night, when there's no activity, then fill the holes with steel wool - - and then seal them. And paint the wood with an oil based polyurethane paint.

      My frustration knows no bounds.......

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  7. So I was generally amused - as usual - by your recent accounts.
    Until I got to your mention of 'gentle elimination.'
    Thank God, I'm not the only one!!! Since no-one I know in real-life knows I blog, I feel reasonably safe agreeing with your damn-the-environmentalists philosophy. Unfortunately, the Giant Corporation that took over our company a couple years ago is hugely focused on greening becoming one with Mother Earth.

    PS - You don't have anything purple (lilac?, eggplant?) near your home do you? A few years ago we discovered a sizeable hive under the eaves of our house and had to enlist the services of a professional bee-man. They were African-ized, which I guess are dangerous. Anyway, he told us bees are frenzied by the presence of the color purple. Who knew?

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    1. Myra, I've made a lot of enemies with environmentalists - and some of them are friends that I've known most of my life. Perhaps I'm too outspoken and crude with my opinions, but I love to torment them.

      Well, I definitely don't plan to wear anything purple! And there is nothing purple around my house. Many of the trees have purple blossoms but they're far away..

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  8. "Build them a wooden guest house." Just what you need to grow a swarming hive full of them. Talk about a nuisance. I can empathize with your plight. I am allergic to bees. I can die if stung. I say you declare WAR and annihilate them all. They are a royal pain in the ass.

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  9. I can only imagine how terrifying it must be to be allergic to them. They are really aggressive and nasty. I never knew what a nuisance they are until I moved up here in the mountains - - and I honestly didn't know that they're attracted to wood.

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  10. Don't fall for the guest house route. Last year we tried being environmentally friendly in trying to rid our rose garden of white fly. Ladybirds apparently are a good natural adversary. We have quite a few in our garden anyway but we ordered 200 online along with two "ladybird houses" - one for the front and one for the back garden. These are small, wooden, pretty bird house like structures with holes drilled into them for access which we were assured would help with ladybird preservation and breeding. Within a week of setting the ladybirds free in the rose garden (by gently placing them on affected rose leaves) they pretty much all disappeared. God knows to where - darkest Peru probably. We've left the little houses in place as they are easy on the eye and in hope that this summer they may be of assistance to our native ladybirds. We'll see.

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    1. Hi, Craig - ladybirds are generally called ladybugs in the U.S., and I haven't see any here in the mountainous wilderness of Tennessee. Instead, we have the Asian beetles, which look very similar to ladybugs but are brownish in color and tend to be rather aggressive. I hope that native ladybirds will decide to inhabit your little garden houses this summer.

      Despite all of my complaints, I really do like the wonders of nature - - but I don't enjoy being annoyed by them......

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  11. I am thankful spiders can not fly...

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    1. Claudia, I don't even want to consider the possibility........

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  12. It's so conflicting when one tries to live a philosophy of respecting ALL life - and then there are beings such as you've illustrated, which I had to hurriedly scroll down, or try not to look at. If all life was cuddly would have made life so much simpler.

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    1. I was very hesitant to post pictures of these creepy creatures because I hate them so much. The scorpion photo really unnerves me. I agree that life would be much more agreeable if we only had to contend with bunnies, puppies, and kittens.

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  13. Jon,
    The most dangerous insect we have here are the yellow jackets. They are very aggressive and, when they sting you, it hurts like hell. A couple of years ago, Miguel, my landscaper was trimming my holly bushes and he accidentally hit a nest of those yellow jackets. He immediately threw down his gas powered trimmer and RAN! That's what you do when yellow jackets come after you
    My bachelor uncle George (my mother's brother who I always suspected of being gay but has nothing to do with this comment), was stung in the mouth by some kind of insect ONE DAY AFTER HE RETIRED while mowing his lawn. He swelled up like a ballon for two days then died. Bees, wasps,and any insects that sting are dangerous and it is best, even if you're a bleeding heart liberal environmentalist like me, to GET RID OF THEM. By the way, carpenter bees are not as dangerous but you don't want to be living with them either on your porch. We're pretty lucky here in southern Delaware because the main thing we have to worry about are mosquitoes. Lately the state has been taking pretty good care of them. But when I first moved down here in 2006 they were ferocious. In fact, southern Delaware, near the beaches and wetlands was nearly uninhabitable for years because of the heavy mosquito population. Who know what pesticides are in the system to keep them under control but it's better than that first year when I was here and I was a mass of red welt from them sucking my blood while I was mowing the grass. Good luck with you new challenge!
    Ron

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  14. You made an apt observation when you said it's a new challenge. When I moved here to the mountains, I hadn't realized that I'd have more problems with insects than I did in Texas. The bees and wasps are especially frightening because they are so aggressive. I have a feeling they are going to be very difficult to keep under control. The tragic story of your Uncle George is REALLY unnerving. Wow! I wonder if they ever found out what kind of insect bit him.
    Thanks for your input, Ron.

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