Yes. Yes, I did.
Today, I took my revenge. Granted, it needed to be done anyway, but after dealing with some pretty intense pain last night, and with the stings still hurting, though not badly, this morning, I rolled my little butt out of bed, well out of my recliner, that is, and I set to work.
Super thick wool socks?
Check.
Long John’s with baggy jeans over the top?
Check.
Long sleeve sweater with jacket over the top?
Double beanied head?
Check.
Double scarfed neck?
Check.
Gloves on both hands?
Check.
Avast arsenal of brake cleaner at my disposal, with my mother standing in the wings refilling as needed?
Check.
😎
Here we go…
The ground near the lawn mower was literally a buzz with yellow jackets. They were everywhere, drinking the do off the grass, I imagine. Dozens and dozens and dozens of them, if not more.
I wasn’t sure how they were going to react. I inched toward the swarm, staying close to the outskirts, and tagged one of the yellow jackets that was closest to me with a stream of brake cleaner.
One down.
Brake cleaner kills them within seconds. Pretty humane, I think. I hope.
I waited until there was a fairly large swarm fairly close together buzzing about the ground by the mower. Then… With a can of brake cleaner in each hand, having tested ahead of time where the jet was going to stream out once I press down on the top, I inched close toward the busy swarm, got close to the ground, and a letter rip!
I sprayed and sprayed and sprayed for several seconds, and then I turned and ran back to the house quickly.
I have no idea how many I was able to get that first go round, but I think I did pretty well.
Gratefully, they seemed not to realize what was going on. None of them followed me back to the house, and when I inched back toward the yellow jackets that were still flying just barely above the blades of grass, none of them seemed to pay any attention to me.
So I set to work picking them off one by one.
I targeted the ones that were closest to me but furthest away from the majority, and one by one, I would take them down with my steady stream of brake cleaner. A good solid shot to knock into the ground and then a couple of quick squirts, and each was dead.
Over and over and over again I did that, the grass blades turning brown a few minutes after coming into contact with the brake cleaner.
It wasn’t long before there was a sizable brown patch in the yard by the mower, and a lot of little brown patches around the main big patch. 😬
When there were only maybe a dozen or fewer buzzing around the lawn mower, I got up the courage to get my jump box (I ran away from it last night with the key still on, so it drained the battery way down), Open the hood of the lawn mower, and jump the lawn mower, and then drive it as quickly as I could away from the area.
Gratefully, if any yellow jackets tried to sting me, none of them went to my face, the only exposed area of my body. I was able to drive away, park the lawn mower, and then head back to the hunting grounds.
I was out there for a good long time pointing the leftover yellow jackets until I felt like I had reduced the population sufficiently to get the gas can and pour gas down the nest hole.
I did so, gratefully still sting free, and lit it on fire.
By the time I throw the full of gasoline and put it on fire, don’t know if there were any yellow jackets even left in it. With the lawn mower parked over top of it, I think they all pretty much vacated their nesting hole anyway. I didn’t see any flying in and out of the hole while I was hunting all of the others. But still, it needed to be done so as to not have a lovely repeat of my yellow jacket fun.
After the yellow jacket morning shenanigans, I think I spent some time working on my mini excavator, trying to get the pin bushings out on the one that’s super bad.
I tried and tried and tried. I used a super hot torch. I used a 5 lb sledgehammer. I tried pounding inward. I tried pounding outward.
Then I found my Milwaukee Dremel clone, and I used one of the little grinding bits that mom had for her Dremel, and I started grinding away the bushing.
That’s going to be how this gets done.
There was only one grinding bit, and it lasted only as long as it lasted, and then I was back to nothing, but seeing that it was likely going to succeed as the method for removing the bushings, I ordered 20 more little grinding bits from Amazon that will be here on Sunday, I think.
Cross your fingers. I might just be able to get those bushings out using the grinding method. 🤞
My body has started swelling up from the yellow jacket stings. I guess we’ll see how bad the swelling gets. 😅
I spent some time working on my vehicles, trying to dry out my minivan after it got water in it from the last mega rainstorm.
I also spent a good little while cleaning out my big Twinkie work van, so that I would be prepared for Freaky Friday (a label my sister Heather gave to my Friday work days. At least I think she is the one who gave Friday that label. 🙂)
I think that was pretty much the day.
Early to bed in an effort to get some sleep before my crazy Friday.
Lift the world.
~ stephen
Lift the World 