trapped

I wave a broom to get them to react. They stare at me, but their big bugling eyes don’t show fear. More like: attack! But they don’t attack. If I had wanted to coax them down and chase them out, I failed. They cling to their nest and stay put.

We have at least four yellow jacket nests in the eaves of the porch that we are right now enclosing with screening materials. The little bandits didn’t build their own nests there. They invaded and pilfered old homes of paper wasps. My inclination was to remove them before screening. Ed thought otherwise.

If we chase them out now, they’ll come back and renest.
He has a point. But as less and less space remains without a screen cover, we accumulate quite the diversity of flying insects, coming in through unscreened spaces, but incapable of seeing the route out. I’ve been helping them along with a broom. I was hoping that the yellow jackets could be shooed out the same way.

But, they cling to nests and move around stealthily. We're getting set to wage war the minute we aggress against them. Ed has the arsenal ready: a big fat glass, a sheet of cardboard. Fortunately, I could not volunteer for that job. I’m too short for it. I was useless at mouse removal and now again I am useless at yellow jacket nest removal.

Did I ever mention that I am of hardy Polish peasant stock? Truly! But I'll hide when this particular nest removal takes place.


In other news – it was, indeed, a magnificent day, weather wise. Ed and I take our oatmeal out to the porch and we admire our handiwork (or, rather, mostly his handiwork).


In the evening, I meet up with my older girl and we attended the Concert on the Square. It is ironic that years ago, when our schedules were tight as anything, my girls and I still managed to pack a picnic dinner every week and make it to the Capitol Square for the Wednesday evening summer concert. But when the daughters moved away, I stopped going. It was an era that belongs to the past – I would say to myself. Eras, of course, aren’t that easily disposed of and now here we are again, sitting on the green grass and listening to the music. Well, no, not listening really. You can’t go and expect to listen to the orchestra. There are people sounds all around you and at first, it is slightly disturbing, because you want to hear the music, but after a while it all blends together into a wonderful symphony of jovial sound and nothing seems terribly disturbing anymore.





The moon shines bright tonight.







Clouds drift in, drift out --they're on summer break too after all, over Lake Monona, over our part of the world and yours, too I bet.