I seem to have more than my share of bad luck, so it’s worth noting when good fortune smiles my way.<\/p>\n
Yesterday afternoon I was mowing at my church, as I do every week.\u00a0 I was on the riding mower, going back and forth on a level area of lawn.\u00a0 As I approach the middle of this particular section, I noticed what looked like bugs flying around.<\/p>\n
As I get closer, my vision improved, and I saw that it wasn’t just a few insects, but dozens–perhaps more than one hundred–swarming low around a spot on the ground.<\/p>\n
Whoa!\u00a0 I’ve seen this act before.\u00a0 Those weren’t bugs, they were yellow jackets, and they were all riled up.<\/p>\n
I spot several of them headed in my direction.\u00a0 I lift up on the mower’s forward pedal and slam down the reverse pedal.\u00a0 The mower doesn’t go fast backwards, at all.\u00a0 And it never seemed slower than it did at that moment.\u00a0 But somehow I managed to get away without being stung.<\/p>\n
Minutes later I approached the scene again, much more carefully–on foot–to assess the situation.\u00a0 There was indeed a hole in the ground, with a steady stream of yellow jackets going in and out.<\/p>\n
My first pass had been close enough that the mower vibrations had stirred them up from the depths of the nest.\u00a0 But I was going fast enough to escape the initial wave of danger.\u00a0 By the time I returned for the second pass, they had assumed their battle stations and were ready to attack.<\/p>\n
Needless to say, this encounter surprised me.\u00a0 Last time I mowed, I didn’t see a sign of yellow jackets.\u00a0 Seven days later, there’s a nest with hundreds of them.\u00a0 Sometimes nature is unpredictable.<\/p>\n
As I said, this isn’t my first run-in with yellow jackets.\u00a0 A couple summers ago I mowed over a nest and got stung three times.\u00a0 Those things really hurt.\u00a0 I’m very thankful this confrontation wasn’t as painful.\u00a0 It could have been much worse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I seem to have more than my share of bad luck, so it’s worth noting when good fortune smiles my way. Yesterday afternoon I was mowing at my church, as I do every week.\u00a0 I was on the riding mower, going back and forth on a level area of lawn.\u00a0 As I approach the middle […]<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2554","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"h-entry","8":"hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2554"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2556,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2554\/revisions\/2556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}