Holy Yellow Jackets Lawnman!

Daddy-O first became aware of a wasps nest somewhere in our yard by him and the dog getting stung a couple of times while mowing the lawn. But he wasn’t sure of the exact location and today we found out! Who would have thought it was under ground?! These busy little wasps dug UNDER an old railroad tie and burrowed into the ground to build this GIANT nest. We flipped the old tie over and couldn’t believe the Yellow Jackets actually ate away at the stinky, icky creosoted wood as well as dug out the rocky ground to build the nest. We weren’t sure at first if they were hornets, wasps or what, but after a quick internet search of matching up pictures we determined these ground scavengers had the perfect location –near where our neighbors and us set out our garbage cans for the weekly collection and were in fact, Yellow Jackets. Luckily, Tauzer and Daddy-O avoided being stung today but had to “eliminate” the col

ony. He said it was kind of sad to watch the brain-shaped structure deflate, and kill the angry wasps as the spray we used took affect. Sorry PETA, but the nest is situated right where kids will walk by when back-to-school starts and in addition to D and Tauzer-Schnauzer being stung, so had a neighbor. My whole nest fascination continued as I poked at the beautiful earth colored layers in the Yellow Jacket’s nest. Before seeing this ground nest, I had only seen the conical gray, papery kinds of nest hanging from trees and roof eves. The swirly outer construction of terra-cotta rings inspired me. When it's safe, I'll collect some of the

outer shell of the nest for a project, I was thinking something in different colors and layers of clay…

It’s hard to focus on getting all of my work done (not because I've been watching the Yellow Jackets) because not only did the sunshine return but I have fishing on the brain! I LOVE TO FISH. We’re heading down to Homer and going Halibut fishing again with long-time family friends Sean and Geri of North Country Charters. I’m bringing plenty of ibuprofen though, because last time I went deep sea fishing, my muscles were killing me from all of the reeling in we did! Since I 

had Halibut on the brain I made a couple of the fish in steel for the upcoming G Street Artist Fair  on August 15th that a customer requested I have for sale. Shhh, don’t tell, but I also made a small Halibut (they call it "Chicken" size -which is the best eating!) 

for Sean & Geri as a surprise. I’m sure they’re not reading my Blog because this time of year they’re up to their anchors with charters and fish or taking pictures for their customers who caught fish!