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elfsThe hornets have been bad this year. One of the disadvantages of living in a low development region is that the environment is great for carnivorous flying insects: there's plenty of roadkill and tons of trashcans, not to mention all of the bugs lefts dead and dying the constant work of lawnmowers. There's a hive under the eaves of the garage, and now there's one in the kid's treehouse. The treehouse was build by the previous owner and is pretty solid, but she built it with two-by-fours and then covered with plywood. There are also some inside parts that are covered with plywood but exposed top and bottom-- this provides the hornets with the ideal hiding place. I have no idea how to get them out of there. And the kids really love that treehouse.
So I get out the can and read the instructions. The first one says, "Use this around dusk, when the hornets are at their quietest." Now, I have to wonder about the competence of manfacturers that can't speak English. I suddenly fear that I might not be in good hands here. Next to this is a little icon, white on the red background of the can, showing the sun going down.
"Point the nozzle at the hive and depress the trigger. Hold the trigger down until the you have emptied the canister." This is a nice way of saying, "Use it all up in one shot so you'll need to run out and buy more to get the next hive." This icon shows the classic bulky stick figure leaning back and pointing the can, shooting the upper-left-hand corner of the icon box.
But I bravely walk out to the garage around dusk, put on my safety goggles just in case, and point the can up under the eave. Usually, this place is buzzing with one or two hornets, but right now there are none. I press the trigger.
The white stream is coming out of the can and flying through the air, scoring the nest and most of the underside of the garage, covering it in a white sticky foam utterly unlike anything your gutter minds might concoct, but there's a lake of it pooling at the cusp of the garage and the driveways, right next to a big grate with a painted stencil that reads "Drains To Freshwater River" and a picture of a fish. Great, I think, great. I'm destroying the planet. But hornets aren't about to link arms and antenna and sing Kum-ba-ya, right? So what am I supposed to do?
Holy carp, this is taking a long time. The stream keeps coming and coming and I'm probably pissing off a great raft of hornets, a huge attack cadre of hornets, the biggest damn flotilla of hornets ever to get mad at one little Elf.
Finally, the stream runs dry. There's only a hissing sound coming out of the can. I remember clearly the last instruction on the can. The icon is most informative. It shows a figure running to the right with an arrow pointed at his back. I follow it to the letter: RUN AWAY! You have to love a product that has, as its last instruction, "Run away." Well, okay, it says, "Leave the area immediately." What it really means is "You've pissed off a lot of hornets, dummy. Do the right thing!"
Unfortunately, the hive survived my attempted homicide quite handily, and now I have to find some way of getting rid of them. Some other way. And the one in the treehouse, I have no idea how I'm going to get them out of there.
So I get out the can and read the instructions. The first one says, "Use this around dusk, when the hornets are at their quietest." Now, I have to wonder about the competence of manfacturers that can't speak English. I suddenly fear that I might not be in good hands here. Next to this is a little icon, white on the red background of the can, showing the sun going down.
"Point the nozzle at the hive and depress the trigger. Hold the trigger down until the you have emptied the canister." This is a nice way of saying, "Use it all up in one shot so you'll need to run out and buy more to get the next hive." This icon shows the classic bulky stick figure leaning back and pointing the can, shooting the upper-left-hand corner of the icon box.
But I bravely walk out to the garage around dusk, put on my safety goggles just in case, and point the can up under the eave. Usually, this place is buzzing with one or two hornets, but right now there are none. I press the trigger.
The white stream is coming out of the can and flying through the air, scoring the nest and most of the underside of the garage, covering it in a white sticky foam utterly unlike anything your gutter minds might concoct, but there's a lake of it pooling at the cusp of the garage and the driveways, right next to a big grate with a painted stencil that reads "Drains To Freshwater River" and a picture of a fish. Great, I think, great. I'm destroying the planet. But hornets aren't about to link arms and antenna and sing Kum-ba-ya, right? So what am I supposed to do?
Holy carp, this is taking a long time. The stream keeps coming and coming and I'm probably pissing off a great raft of hornets, a huge attack cadre of hornets, the biggest damn flotilla of hornets ever to get mad at one little Elf.
Finally, the stream runs dry. There's only a hissing sound coming out of the can. I remember clearly the last instruction on the can. The icon is most informative. It shows a figure running to the right with an arrow pointed at his back. I follow it to the letter: RUN AWAY! You have to love a product that has, as its last instruction, "Run away." Well, okay, it says, "Leave the area immediately." What it really means is "You've pissed off a lot of hornets, dummy. Do the right thing!"
Unfortunately, the hive survived my attempted homicide quite handily, and now I have to find some way of getting rid of them. Some other way. And the one in the treehouse, I have no idea how I'm going to get them out of there.
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Re: Me too
Date: 2003-09-30 11:25 pm (UTC)And "winter" in the Sound is the amount of snow that will shut Seattle down, but would cause Bostontonions to shake their heads and go one with their days. Yes, I've lived through several "blizzards" in the Puget Sound area. Quite the joke, really...to those used to much more in, say, Wyoming, or North Dakota.
'Course, my experience with snow before moving up to Seattle in 1990 was 5 snowflakes on the car windshield in 1975. I know. I counted them.
But that was in Florida. :)
Re: Me too
Date: 2003-09-30 11:35 pm (UTC)Re: Me too
Date: 2003-10-01 03:17 am (UTC)As for snow, we moved here Xmas '95, and haven't had nearly that much snow since. It's very disappointing when the piles of snow in the parking lot corners are all melted and gone by mid-April instead of the end of June. I like snow. Unlike rain, you can pick it up and/or move it out of the way.
I don't remember what Dad did to deal with the hornet's nest that we had one year, but I'm fairly sure it involved some nasty chemicals. Dad is like that.