One of Those Farmer Types . . . .

Bees are bad around the Lovestead this year, unusually bad. Oops, the honey bees are good. No complaints there.  

They've been over to visit our flowers and trees on a regular basis since Chad brought them back to Taylor's field.  

We're always happy to see them.

The other varieties, though----they can take a hike and BEEEEgone.

Yesterday brought out several reasons.  I brush hogged the barnyard.  When I took the old Ford tractor back to its parking spot in the machine shed, I spotted several hornets rising from the ground in the same spot where poor little Foster got stung a couple of weeks ago.

Bill sprayed the heck out of that spot right after Foster's incident. Well, that apparently did not deter the surviving bees. 

I stopped short of parking the tractor back in the shed and told Bill we needed to do more about getting that nest out of there. 

When my sister came to hook up my horse trailer for this weekend's horse show (my other sister and my brother took the other trailer this morning to the coast for another horse show), I pointed out the can of hornet spray in the trailer tack room.

"You may want to go through the trailer and spray," I said, remembering how fast bees rebuild in every available spot inside a horse trailer. 

Later, my brother came by for a visit.  He had been to town to get more bee spray. That's when I told Bill we needed to do something about the ground nest where the brush hog sits.

After my brother left, Willie and Bill went out to move about 30 bales of hay from the shed to our barn.  Some have sat in the back of the stack for two years, so I wanted to have them where they could be fed first thing this fall.

All went well for a few bales until Willie pulled down several at once.  Bees came flying out of the bales, and Willie (who's been allergic to bees during youth) flew quickly out of the shed.  

I ran for hornet spray.  Bill did a bunch of spraying toward the stack and then started moving bales to the rear-end loader on the tractor. Willie drove the tractor to the barn. 

I showed him where I wanted the bales. He packed the first one into its spot and suddenly jumped and ran. A bee had stung him on the side of the head. 

Wasting no time, we headed to the house, where he applied cold water on the sting, later ice.  It hurt, he said.  

We watched him for any allergic symptoms and brought him more ice to soothe the sting. He appeared okay and later went home.  

That's when Bill and I climbed into the new car for Bill's first drive.  We headed to Wal-Mart on a mission to get more hornet spray,  as we had emptied our supply.

We found one brand in the garden center, grabbed three cans and asked a clerk if they had any more hornet spray.  He led us to another shelf, and we picked out an additional can.

During this time, after I told him all the problems we'd had in the past couple of hours, he said, "Oh, you're one of those farmer types."  

We just don't have any bees anymore," he lamented, noting he hadn't seen bees on his roses.  

"Well, we have honey bees that come to visit us from next door," I said, "but we're dealing with the nasty bees. My son got stung." 

Made no difference.  The guy wasn't impressed.  I had been branded a farmer type who was gonna do damage on a bunch of hornets who had done damage on our dog and our son.  

Bill and I decided that we hadn't come to Wal-Mart for the bee debate, so we just moved on with our cans of spray and came home.   I unloaded about half a can on the nest in the barn, which happens to be inside an old rag I've used for horse grooming. 

This morning, they're still there.  Stubborn little things.  I may have to make a few more stands against their presence, and I feel no guilt.   After all, they came uninvited into our barn, and they can go find someplace else to build a nest. 

I'm proud to be one of those farmer types, just as I was years ago when one of my educator colleagues yelled down the hall to me, "Marianne, you're just Bonner County!!!"

I think he meant to insult me, but it had just about as much impact on me as my bee spray did last night on the buzzing nest. 

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In other news this morning, if I get through the bee challenges today unscathed, I think I'll be seeing my friend Chris tonight.  She told me she's going to Scott Wyatt's book signing for his novel Beyond the Sand Creek Bridge at Vanderford's (6:30 p.m.).  

So, I'll plan to go down and see Scott and Chris and whoever else among us Bonner County types shows up. 

Happy Thursday.  BEEEEEE careful.  And, BEEEEEware of those nasty pests which could be lurking where you least suspect them.