Cold snap with yellowjackets

 The forecasters were right: It was cold, 34 degrees, so I donned the bee suit and poured 5 gallons of soapy water down the entrance of a yellowjacket den in the woodlot.

These yellowjackets are burrow dwellers. There might have been thousands inside. I’d seen dozens hovering at the entrance before the cold snap.

The Wise Woman bought the bee suit without asking and insisted I wear it. She was right. Despite the cold, I was met by a dozen sentries.

I don’t like killing — not even rattlesnakes, scorpions and black widows. But I also have a sense of myself as an animal with family members who are less murderous, and thus more vulnerable, than I am. I accept that some animals can’t live next to others.

I have had friends who’d be outraged. They’d tell me I was in the yellowjackets’ habitat.

I’m not sure that’s true. I’d say the yellowjackets and I are in disputed territory — not theirs, not mine.

They won Round 1. I took Round 2.