Kill the Wasps - How One Mommy Saved Summer

I love the summer. I love being barefoot, sleeping with the windows open, and spending as much time as possible outside. I love baseball, Frisbee, and the Fourth of July. I love barbecues and picnics and afternoons at the pool.

Unfortunately, wasps love the summer as much as I do.

I had childhood run-ins with all kinds of wasps-hornets, mud-wasps, paper wasps, and wasps of unknown origin. I actually bled from a yellow jacket attack on a hiking trip when I was 11. I learned to hate them.

And they apparently hate me back.

Early this summer, I discovered a little papery wasp nest inside my Weber grill when I was preparing to kick off grilling season. I shooed Jasper and Emilie, 10, inside and was able to scoop the nest into a plastic bag and heave it into the garbage cans by the driveway. I boiled hot dogs for the kids on the stove.

A couple of wasps were still buzzing around the grill a few days later, until my husband hit the whole thing with a long-range wasp spray. Effective, perhaps, but definitely toxic as well. Three guesses who had to clean that up later.

In July, yellow jackets closed down the outdoor pool at the Y. The wasps had burrowed themselves into the ground next to the pool patio. Someone innocently stepped on that patch of earth and set them swarming. One little girl was actually stung underwater; she jumped into the pool to get away from the yellow jackets but one held on, stinging her knee.

The pool was shut down for the rest of the afternoon, and the Y called an exterminator to deal with the wasps. I can't say I'm that excited to know that they probably bombed the area around the pool with pesticide.

The final straw came at the pitch-n-putt. Golf is a sport I love and truly a great activity for little girls; I'm delighted that Emilie has been enjoying learning to hit balls. I bought cans of lemonade for us, set Emilie up with her own balls on the green, and helped Jasper "putt" with his little plastic putter.

I took a drink of lemonade, and was struck with horror. Something fuzzy was moving in my mouth! I spit the whole mouthful of lemonade into the grass, along with a soggy yellow jacket. I saw that there were 4 or 5 of them on my lemonade can; while I watched one of them crawled inside.