I hate Yellow Jackets (hornets too)

We have hornets at our house in Pensacola.  The last time I got stung I was on a ladder and the damn thing stung me on the tip of my nose.  Damn!

I tumbled over with the ladder. Thankfully, it was onto soft grass.

Here is a small yellow jacket nest.

termites, Eric...........termites

stormwatch89 wrote:

termites, Eric...........termites

Yeah, but... Termites don't sting the bejesus out of you...

I also hate Yellow Jackets E, and I feel for you. Once while I was working for the State & National Park Service leading Youth Conservation Crews we were on a 2-week camping trip building a trail in the remote backcountry. I always hiked at the end of the line to make sure I didn't lose anybody and that nothing happened to anyone. The kid in front of me stepped in a Yellow Jacket nest and they flew up and I got stung & bitten (they can do both) 14 times on my head... and I am allergic to bee stings. Fortunately, I always carry my epinephrine shot (and Benadryl) with me and the kids injected me with it while carefully pulling all the stingers out of my head. It was extremely painful... all those bites and stings on my head. Plus I was super worried about having an anaphylactic reaction so far back in the mountains with all my kids since I'd been stung & bitten so many times.

Unfortunately, my Summer of Fun was not over yet. That night after we'd gotten back to camp and we'd cooked & eaten supper and washed up, I took a Benadryl and was lying down away from the campfire because the kids were having fun and whatnot. It was still daylight and I looked across the trail and saw a mountain lion stalking back and forth, staring at me. I shook my head back and forth, like to clear my head, thinking I was seeing things, but I was not. I called one of the boys over (I didn't want to panic the whole crew needlessly) and he saw the mountain lion too. We got pots and pans and crashed them together to scare it off, but we saw him/her several more times. They are the most fierce predator in the states besides grizzlies (not counting humans, of course), and they have absolutely no qualms about attacking humans, particularly a female if she has young nearby.

Summer of Fun STILL not over, lol.

At the end of our 2-week camp-out to build that trail I scheduled to take the kids on a day-long horseback trip into the backcountry as a reward for all of their hard work. The outfitters were one trail horse short and put me on an old, high-strung roping horse. The moment I tried to mount him he went completely nuts and threw me, and when I fell I broke my right arm. Of course I was 5-hours from a damned hospital, lol.

And that concluded my Summer of Fun. But whenever I think back on it, it all started with those damned Yellow Jackets! :-P

riceme wrote:

I also hate Yellow Jackets E, and I feel for you. Once while I was working for the State & National Park Service leading Youth Conservation Crews we were on a 2-week camping trip building a trail in the remote backcountry. I always hiked at the end of the line to make sure I didn't lose anybody and that nothing happened to anyone. The kid in front of me stepped in a Yellow Jacket nest and they flew up and I got stung & bitten (they can do both) 14 times on my head... and I am allergic to bee stings. Fortunately, I always carry my epinephrine shot (and Benadryl) with me and the kids injected me with it while carefully pulling all the stingers out of my head. It was extremely painful... all those bites and stings on my head. Plus I was super worried about having an anaphylactic reaction so far back in the mountains with all my kids since I'd been stung & bitten so many times.

Unfortunately, my Summer of Fun was not over yet. That night after we'd gotten back to camp and we'd cooked & eaten supper and washed up, I took a Benadryl and was lying down away from the campfire because the kids were having fun and whatnot. It was still daylight and I looked across the trail and saw a mountain lion stalking back and forth, staring at me. I shook my head back and forth, like to clear my head, thinking I was seeing things, but I was not. I called one of the boys over (I didn't want to panic the whole crew needlessly) and he saw the mountain lion too. We got pots and pans and crashed them together to scare it off, but we saw him/her several more times. They are the most fierce predator in the states besides grizzlies (not counting humans, of course), and they have absolutely no qualms about attacking humans, particularly a female if she has young nearby.

Summer of Fun STILL not over, lol.

At the end of our 2-week camp-out to build that trail I scheduled to take the kids on a day-long horseback trip into the backcountry as a reward for all of their hard work. The outfitters were one trail horse short and put me on an old, high-strung roping horse. The moment I tried to mount him he went completely nuts and threw me, and when I fell I broke my right arm. Of course I was 5-hours from a damned hospital, lol.

And that concluded my Summer of Fun. But whenever I think back on it, it all started with those damned Yellow Jackets! :-P

That reminds me of a two day campout we had on Perdido Key.  I'm on the iPad right now and can't go into detail, but will do so when I get to a decent keyboard.

I got stung Sunday. They are so fast he got me twice before i knew it.

Hornets are really bad news.  A couple of years ago I got hit twice in the back of my neck. It brought me to my knees. I thought someone had hit me with a pipe.

Yellow flys "The Pines" near fort Morgan........DAMN!!!!!!!  Mullet fishing adventure from hell...LOL

TEOTWAWKI wrote:

Girl your life is scary....yikes...but I know you are a tough cookie...anytime I think I need another adventure I will just reread your posts till the urge passes...lol

Haha... Adventure is the spice of life, T!!

Eric wrote:

That reminds me of a two day campout we had on Perdido Key.  I'm on the iPad right now and can't go into detail, but will do so when I get to a decent keyboard.

Hey don't forget to tell us your story when you get to a keyboard, E.

Thirty-two years ago, six of us went camping in that cove behind Fort McRee on a Memorial Day Weekend.  We were on our 17' Boston Whaler sailboat.

Getting there, the wind was slight and it took a while... no outboard on the sailboat.  Since the wind was so slight, I suggested we pitch the tents on top of dunes.  We pitched the tents on top of the dunes.  We went over the dunes to the Gulf to skinny-dip.

On the horizon, a black line appeared.  A few minutes later, we realized it was one hell of a storm and it was coming toward us... FAST!  We scampered back over the dunes to the campsite, but the windstorm hit us before we reached the campsite.  At least it didn't drop any rain.

We got to the campsite and the wind was howling, blowing sand around like a sandblaster.  One dome tent was sailing away, across the lagoon in the water.  It was retrieved but their gear was soaked.

The storm blew for hours, the tents were flattened and we took to the water to find a refuge from the stinging sand.  All we could do was drink our beer... and drink we did, going through all our beer (3-4 cases).

When the windstorm subsided, we stumbled to Fort McRee (it's entrances were open then, closed now) and did some exploring inside the fort.  Christine fell into a slotted hole in a hallway and severely bruised the outside of her right thigh from her knee to her hip.  (There was ecchymosis 6" wide and a scrape that looked like a surgery scar from meatball surgery with stitches too far apart.  She still has a remnant from this scrape.)  The alcohol in her body assisted in the formation of this huge bruise.

The next morning we were cooking breakfast and huge thunderheads rolled in from the West.  We hurriedly broke camp, jumped into the sailboat with a frypan still sizzling with sausage in it, and sailed toward our launch ramp about 2 miles away, trying to outrun this storm.  Dammit!  We got hit by this storm too!

Our little sailboat had no reef points on the sails and the wind was blowing so hard, our poor overloaded and overpowered sailboat became difficult to control.  I turned the sailboat around and we sailed with the wind until we ran it up onto a beach.  The boat was okay since all the boards were up.  We dropped the sails and made a makeshift rain shield with it... and waited out the storm... and ate our now soggy sausage.

After an hour or so, the rain tapered off to a drizzle and we set off for the launch ramp, but the wind had died completely, and I think the tide was dragging us away from the launch ramp.  We wound up paddling all the way to the launch ramp in the drizzle.  It was a very long paddle.

It was a weekend I will never forget.  I bought an outboard motor the next week!

LOL, I bet you DID buy a motor! I kept wondering how the yellow jackets or hornets were going to fit in, but they were more than sufficiently replaced by the storms, haha!!