YJs are hornets, and much tougher and hard to get at than wasps.

Technically, yellowjackets aren't true hornets (they're Vespula rather than Vespa). Still closely related, they're both in the Vespinae subfamily of wasps. Still sound advice, of course.

I didn't get food made for the week, but I did roast some beets and make beet pesto, which is such an awesome color. And I made cookie dough for oatmeal-cherry-walnut cookies, which I put in the fridge to age overnight. The recipe called for chocolate chips, but I just don't do chocolate chips in oatmeal cookies.

Also got another load of laundry done, walked the dogs, went to the gym, vacuumed the house, tried to clean the rugs up a bit, and finished my book for book club on Tuesday (Atonement, if anyone cares).

My back is really bothering me, though, so I'm happy to be plunked in bed, trying to write a little bit.

all the nice environmental sites said if there was a wasp/human intersection - KILL. They are not human friendly or pollinators. We trapped then sprayed and dug and sprayed

Pour gasoline around the nest site, walk about 15 feet away, start throwing lit firecrackers at it.

... what? That's how my dad taught me how to deal with them.

I have an allergy to wasp stings, so my method is avoidance coupled with finding someone else to deal with removal. The one time I was stung, my entire arm was swollen and feverish for 3 days.

Yikes!

There was all kinds of clusterfrak on the other side of Operation Empty Shore House. Both my uncle and cousin hre full speed ahead perfectionists who butted heads the whole time, disagreeing on what to keep or throw. And then sent away most of their helpers before they were finished.

It resulted in my 85yo uncle driving a UHaul truck from Newark to the Catskills getting in around 1am.

All's well that ends well.. I hope.

Annoyingly, my neighbors have a yellow jacket nest in their eaves, and I told them (it's the back of their house but the front of mine) and they said they got someone out who told them it was yellow jackets, but "they'll all fly away in about six weeks or so, and we are going to wait until that happens to seal it up". Ugh.

So, if you get stung does that mean you can sue the pants off them? Negligence and all that. (IANAL)

I use to be terrified of bees, wasps, hornets, etc. Years of gardening have made me fond of bees and tolerant of mud dauber wasps. But yellow jackets still need to die.

I'm rather fond of whatever type of bee/wasp thingie it is that eats meat. When we had cookouts, we'd put out the steak scraps and watch the wasps neatly snip off bits and fly off with them.

I helped a girl deal with her panic about bees at an SCA event by telling her to just sit still as a bee flew around her, that it was looking for food and once it knew she wasn't anything edible it would fly off and look elsewhere. She was thrilled when it went off after a couple of seconds and we watched them fly around for a bit. Unfortunately, when she tried to share her triumph and the bees with her mother, Mom shrieked and began flailing around at the bees. No, she wasn't allergic, it seemed to

... to be just a case of overreaction to nature.

stupid touch screens.

Praise be all things educational. School is back in session.

From the radio, so no link available: There is "an active shooter" in Fort Lee, Virginia.

Do we have anyone in that area? (Edited to add: Fort Lee is near Petersburg, south of Richmond.)