“(Yep, I know, these damn little boy ball caps are really worming their way into my lifestyle now. I’m ashamed, but seem unable to resist their evil draw.)”
BWHAHAHAHA!
“The interesting bit is that it came distressed… It looks cool, but it looks like I’ve been wearing it while working on engines for the past few years.”
Excellent! A Cooter Davenport hat! “I don’t think that Mrs. Bailey approves. I fear that it might disappear while I’m away someday soon.” Now THAT would be a shame. Reminds me of a quote from our Junior Grand Warden a few years ago about me… “You can take the boy out of Lewis County, but you can’t take the Lewis County out of the boy.” You know, that was an honor!
“Me, I figure that a minute or two with a hot glue gun would be just as effective, but apparently such a fast solution is eschewed in favor of ropes, and pulleys, and nails.” Hard to comment on that one, but you indeed describe the typical hat a woman wears on the first Saturday of May for the 1 ¼ mile race.
“I guess what that writer wrote is right: “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.”” Don’t laugh, I’ve read that book. It’s more accurate than 99% of the people, both men and women, will ever admit.
But if she wears that hat to a Lodge event, I fear that she might be called Minnie Pearl, or the Granny in the Tweety and Sylvester cartoons. You might have to check to see if a little yellow bird is perched somewhere in the hat! And she’ll have to take an umbrella with her everywhere she goes to bash on every poor kitty that tries to tackle her hat!
I know Mrs. Bailey's rejection to the distressing because of the horrible thing she tried to do to our handyman. He forgot his hat here one day, a hat from Peterbilt as I recall. That thing was perfect. Lots of oil and grease in all the right spots, superbly shaped. Perfect in every way. Seeing it forgotten in our garage, she declares that the diseased thing needs to go to the dump! Mean ol' lady! Luckily I refused to allow such a travesty to occur.
Alas though, I have learned that yellow is best avoided for events at Churchill Downs. Apparently the bugs like yellow.
The flying insects have a preference for the lower wavelengths, such as blue, violet and ultraviolet, which we can’t see but many other animals (including deer) can see. Interestingly, a lot of detergents today have UV brighteners. A good demonstration as to why companies do this is to take an article of clothing that you regularly hand-wash without laundry detergent, then take a similar article of clothing that has been washed in that detergent, then hold them up under a Black Light. You’ll find the one with the brighteners shines brighter. And as such, it’ll shine slightly brighter under normal conditions with the natural UV light. Unfortunately, those UV brighteners really show up to those animals who can see UV in their visual spectrum, such as the above mentioned insects and deer, among many others. But the UV insect attraction is also why you use a UV light with bug zappers, which brings me to my current outdoor project.
Out antenna has collapsed onto our chimney, and I have to get it down this summer while it’s dry. Unfortunately, over the spring, a batch of yellowjackets decided to build a nest near where the antenna pole is in the ground, next to the chimney. Any attempt to move the antenna results in a swarm of angry wasps. Not good, but it did remind me of a solution that worked about 20 years ago.
Yesterday afternoon, I pulled out old bug zapper out of the shed (you’ve seen it) and fired it up to make sure it worked. It did, so I then ran out the extension cord to the Yellowjacket nest, then took the zapper and carefully placed it on the nest. I didn’t plug it in yet, as I wanted to make sure all the vegetation was clear of the zapper and didn’t want to accidentally short it out. I succeeded in clearing the brush, and not surprisingly, the yellowjackets did not appreciate the new obstruction to their entrance. A nice cloud of yellowjackets swarmed the zapper, so I gave them an hour to calm down. When they did, I then snuck up to the nest and zapper and plugged it in, fully expecting to get stung at least a few times. That didn’t happen, so I quickly cleared, and the yellowjackets came back out due to the new buzz sound of the UV light’s transformer and the new light. With that swarm, I knew something was going to happen. I had my first kill within about 20 seconds, and 3 within the minute. The constant pops and fry buzzes kept going, actually creating a puff of smoke at one point when a big one came out and got jammed in the grid. This morning, no pops, and the grid is a mess of yellowjacket bodies. But I’ll leave it on for another day or so, just to make sure. Those bug zappers WORK.
I'm not too much of a fan of wiping out Yellowjackets any more than killing web spiders. They take out the more destructive insects, such as aphids, whiteflies and termites. But this batch built their nest in the wrong place, so for this year, I'll have no yellowjackets on the property. Hopefully they'll pick a more remote spot to build a nest next year.
MWB Bailey, perhaps use a touch of caution when recommending the glue gun method. I believe there is a company who failed to recognize the potential of misuse of their product as a styling agent and it was a near thing for a moment. 👀
“(Yep, I know, these damn little boy ball caps are really worming their way into my lifestyle now. I’m ashamed, but seem unable to resist their evil draw.)”
BWHAHAHAHA!
“The interesting bit is that it came distressed… It looks cool, but it looks like I’ve been wearing it while working on engines for the past few years.”
Excellent! A Cooter Davenport hat! “I don’t think that Mrs. Bailey approves. I fear that it might disappear while I’m away someday soon.” Now THAT would be a shame. Reminds me of a quote from our Junior Grand Warden a few years ago about me… “You can take the boy out of Lewis County, but you can’t take the Lewis County out of the boy.” You know, that was an honor!
“Me, I figure that a minute or two with a hot glue gun would be just as effective, but apparently such a fast solution is eschewed in favor of ropes, and pulleys, and nails.” Hard to comment on that one, but you indeed describe the typical hat a woman wears on the first Saturday of May for the 1 ¼ mile race.
“I guess what that writer wrote is right: “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.”” Don’t laugh, I’ve read that book. It’s more accurate than 99% of the people, both men and women, will ever admit.
But if she wears that hat to a Lodge event, I fear that she might be called Minnie Pearl, or the Granny in the Tweety and Sylvester cartoons. You might have to check to see if a little yellow bird is perched somewhere in the hat! And she’ll have to take an umbrella with her everywhere she goes to bash on every poor kitty that tries to tackle her hat!
I know Mrs. Bailey's rejection to the distressing because of the horrible thing she tried to do to our handyman. He forgot his hat here one day, a hat from Peterbilt as I recall. That thing was perfect. Lots of oil and grease in all the right spots, superbly shaped. Perfect in every way. Seeing it forgotten in our garage, she declares that the diseased thing needs to go to the dump! Mean ol' lady! Luckily I refused to allow such a travesty to occur.
Alas though, I have learned that yellow is best avoided for events at Churchill Downs. Apparently the bugs like yellow.
The flying insects have a preference for the lower wavelengths, such as blue, violet and ultraviolet, which we can’t see but many other animals (including deer) can see. Interestingly, a lot of detergents today have UV brighteners. A good demonstration as to why companies do this is to take an article of clothing that you regularly hand-wash without laundry detergent, then take a similar article of clothing that has been washed in that detergent, then hold them up under a Black Light. You’ll find the one with the brighteners shines brighter. And as such, it’ll shine slightly brighter under normal conditions with the natural UV light. Unfortunately, those UV brighteners really show up to those animals who can see UV in their visual spectrum, such as the above mentioned insects and deer, among many others. But the UV insect attraction is also why you use a UV light with bug zappers, which brings me to my current outdoor project.
Out antenna has collapsed onto our chimney, and I have to get it down this summer while it’s dry. Unfortunately, over the spring, a batch of yellowjackets decided to build a nest near where the antenna pole is in the ground, next to the chimney. Any attempt to move the antenna results in a swarm of angry wasps. Not good, but it did remind me of a solution that worked about 20 years ago.
Yesterday afternoon, I pulled out old bug zapper out of the shed (you’ve seen it) and fired it up to make sure it worked. It did, so I then ran out the extension cord to the Yellowjacket nest, then took the zapper and carefully placed it on the nest. I didn’t plug it in yet, as I wanted to make sure all the vegetation was clear of the zapper and didn’t want to accidentally short it out. I succeeded in clearing the brush, and not surprisingly, the yellowjackets did not appreciate the new obstruction to their entrance. A nice cloud of yellowjackets swarmed the zapper, so I gave them an hour to calm down. When they did, I then snuck up to the nest and zapper and plugged it in, fully expecting to get stung at least a few times. That didn’t happen, so I quickly cleared, and the yellowjackets came back out due to the new buzz sound of the UV light’s transformer and the new light. With that swarm, I knew something was going to happen. I had my first kill within about 20 seconds, and 3 within the minute. The constant pops and fry buzzes kept going, actually creating a puff of smoke at one point when a big one came out and got jammed in the grid. This morning, no pops, and the grid is a mess of yellowjacket bodies. But I’ll leave it on for another day or so, just to make sure. Those bug zappers WORK.
I'm not too much of a fan of wiping out Yellowjackets any more than killing web spiders. They take out the more destructive insects, such as aphids, whiteflies and termites. But this batch built their nest in the wrong place, so for this year, I'll have no yellowjackets on the property. Hopefully they'll pick a more remote spot to build a nest next year.
MWB Bailey, perhaps use a touch of caution when recommending the glue gun method. I believe there is a company who failed to recognize the potential of misuse of their product as a styling agent and it was a near thing for a moment. 👀