Monday, September 26, 2005

Mighty Mowing Missionaries

They seem determined to come over and wreak havoc with the vegetation running wild in the back yard. This week there were four of them again, complete with two machetes, a hand saw, and a pitchfork.

They were disappointed to discover that the bees' nest was still very much active and alive, even after last week's adventure with gasoline. I looked it up on the 'net, and it appears we have a yellowjacket nest. The only way to really get rid of the suckers is to completely cover their nest and smother them. Due to the location of the nest, I don't think that's really likely. I suggested that the missionaries work around them, which they mostly did today.

I bought some cookie dough for them, and made fresh warm cookies again. Again, they appreciated it. Fresh cookies and Gatorade.

The really frightening moments came when they decided to delimb some of the dead branches from the trees in the back. I started hearing these horrible CRASH noises, and ran out to see if First Aid was required. There was a missionary 30 feet up in one of the trees, sawing off any branch that looked dead. After a few minutes, I went back in and grabbed my camera, and got a couple of shots of another missionary in another tree:


The other three guys were pulling the branches he'd cut into another part of the yard, away from the yellowjacket's nest, which was almost directly under the tree he's standing in. Right after I took this picture, he sawed off the branch he was standing on. No, I'm not joking. At least in this tree he didn't go nearly as high as the other guy did in the first tree.

The pile of wood in the foreground was cut by the missionaries last week. I ought to start hauling it around the house and put it on the porch before the rains come. If we get our wood-burning stove checked and fixed again, we have plenty of wood to burn in it.

They definitely want to come by again and keep at the work. All of this from an offhand remark...

No comments: