Overcast and gloomy here. Had to turn my lights on this morning which I don't like to do. We had some small storms last night. Don't know what's expected today.

Will be trying to make a grocery list today. Have to decide if I think I'll feel like cooking or not. One of the two meals I made last week was pretty good although it was a curry dish and did not taste like curry at all.

Hope you all enjoy the upcoming weekend.

T.G.I.F. good afternoon OldBroad Draclvr Connie Gerry Ana and all who get the chance to pop in later. Oh my goodness OldBroad, next week won't come soon enough I imagine for you and brother...hope you got your grocery list put together. Any more weeding today Draclvr? The cold frosty adult beverage and pool are most excellent remedies. Connie, keep an eye on tropical cyclone! Gerry, the brew was excellent this morning. Have a quiet evening everyone.

Good Mornin everyone and welcome to Saturday morning in the break Room! Wide Awake Double Dark Brew is ready!

Enjoy your day!

Gerry

Good morning, Danish, Donuts and Bagels in the Break Room. A Costco trip is on the agenda today. Trivia at the Eagles tonight. Enjoy the day and hug someone.

Good Saturday morning! I am enjoying my 2nd cup of DDWAB... on my new hummingbird porch! The guys finished up last night. Need to move the hummer feeders back over here today. I told my neighbor I was going to leave one feeder out there for her bees. They are so gentle, landing on my while I put up fresh feeders. I've read they can recognize faces.

And, soot, to answer your question, yes to more weeding. We've had 3 more inches of rain this week and I just can't keep up!

Thinking of a bee landing on me just creeps me out, Drac. When we were out the other day, one of those hornets came way too close to me and I almost panicked and started swinging at it. I told my brother "hurry up, hurry up, open the door" and I ran inside. I have to go to the bank in a few weeks to withdraw some grocery money. I think I will go out the front door and walk around the block to the garage, rather than go into the yard near that hive again. Speaking of that hive, what is your suggestion to remove it. My brother will do it when it gets cold out. He has some spray from when we had a nest in our concrete front porch a few years back, but how do you actually remove the hive? I read something about scraping it?

Good day everyone.

The DDWAB & DDB smells wonderful. Thankfully the hornets and wasps are not interested and mostly stay away But the fruitflies are happily multiplying these sunny summer days. I made a fairly effective trap for them. Seems to help. At least so far.

Happy Saturday Gameboomers

Good morning Gerry, Connie, Draclvr, OldBroad, Fogfighter and all who follow. I am enjoying my second and final cup of DDWAB with a cinnamon crunch bagel. Yes Draclvr, weeding is a full time job. OldBroad, rather than waiting for the weather to turn cold a local pest control business should be able to remove the nest for you. Fogfighter, fruit flies are little rascals...what trap did you make?

Recycles and groceries on the Saturday docket for me.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

Unfortunately, money and talking to people are issues for us, soot.

Fogfighter, we get those pesky fruit flies every year too. They used to come in October but I think they started in August last year, so it's just a matter of time before they start making me crazy. It's always something.

My brother picked up my groceries today. Overcharged $2 for the Cantaloupe (that I was only buying because it is supposed to be on sale for the first time in 3 years). Again, nothing new there with that store.

Enjoy the day all.

Yes OldBroad, that irks me too when I buy something that is supposed to be on sale but is missed by the cashier or is not correct in the store's database.

oldbroad, hubby just took down a hornet's nest up at our farm a couple of weeks ago. He uses a hornet spray which allows you to stand far away to spray it. But I would suggest you get new spray to make sure it is still effective. He's not home right now, but I'll ask him for more when he gets home.

I wouldn't like a hornet to land on me either! But the worst thing you can do is wave your arms to get rid of it. Guenter did the several times and we told him that was a good way to get stung!

Thanks Drac. I know you mentioned them removing it and was going to ask then but didn't. Won't it be better when it is cold out? Yes, I know I shouldn't swat at them, it was a panic reflex I caught myself in because I don't want (any) bugs near me. They all creep me out.

I made a simple, affordable and effective trap from a used washed cottage cheese can with thin transparent plastic lid.
Punch a few holes in the lid. Should be large enough for the fruit flies to enter through; otherwise you selectively breed giant fruit flies.
2 mm seems to do the trick.

Pour vinegar, sugar or honey, dishwashing liquid and some water in the can. I fill about 10 mm. Then fasten the lid.

Give it some time but eventually, if the holes were of the right size and the bait right, the fruit flies will end up in the can.
The transparency of the lid is not necessary but helps monitoring the success rate.

If you skip the dishwashing liquid the fruit flies will thrive in there. A real fruit fly heaven.

Good luck to those who try.

Oldbroad, so Dave says, get some NEW wasp and hornet spray. It will shoot out 15 feet. Aim for the hole in the nest and spray the dickens out of it. Go ahead and knock it down, but you will probably have to spray it some more to get rid of the last of them. He says it works for him every time and no, you don't have to wait until it's cold.

Thank you Draclvr but we are waiting until it's cold. Not taking any chances with them now.

A good game plan, oldbroad if you are OK with waiting!

Good Morning Everyone! Welcome to Sunday! Wide Awake Double Dark Brew is ready to start your day!

Oldbroad when we had a hornets nest hanging from the barn one summer I hooked up a hose and sprayed it from a long distance away using a nozzle that had a"super" pressure and knocked it down with water...but you need to be able to be far away to do it.

I was close enough to the side door of the house to pop inside once the nest was knock down. Perhaps when it gets colder you can do that.

Hope you all enjoy a cooler day!

Gerry

Good morning and thanks for the WADDB. Smells great.

Today pleasant 22 Celsius and some clouds. Ms Hornet and Ms Wasp are absent but I bet they have nests somewhere in the area.
Fortunately they are not that aggessive over here. Harmless until they feel threatend, I'd say. Still nice not to be too close to them.

Happy Sunday Gameboomers!

Good morning, Danish, Donuts and Bagels in the Break Room. I got stung on the leg by a wasp on Monday. The swelling and itching finely went away on Friday. I was just walking out the gate when it hit me, zap. Enjoy the day and hug someone.

Good morning everyone. Enjoying Gerry's wide awake double dark brew with an asiago bagel from Connie. I was working in the back yard one summer and stumbled into a ground hornet nest not realizing it yet. Then, I heard my lab whining and nibbling her fur...and looking closer saw hornets burrowing into her fur. So I start pulling hornets off her fur (I was wearing leather gloves) and next thing I realize is I am now a/the target and getting stung--only I didn't have two fur coats like Stormy Lou. So, it was time to retreat. We ran for the house, I finished brushing/pulling off hornets from both of us and we eventually escaped inside out of harms way.
Happy Sunday to one and all...take care and keep smiling.

Good Sunday morning! Our fellow stinging creatures find us to be intruders in their homes! When I was in college studying for my degree in Wildlife Biology, we spent a week in the field learning to do population estimates, tracking radio-collared animals etc. One exercise was to walk a transect line with a 15 foot pole. You could not deviate from the line and then the team would identify everything - plants, animals, insects - on either side of the line. I walked across a ground hornet's nest and they "marked" me. I tried to get away, even hiding behind a 6' 4" teammate. Once one of the wasps stung me, they were satisfied and left. Of course, my teammates were all laughing at me trying to get away! What made it especially funny to all of us is that I was 40 and they were all 20!

Gee, thanks for the wasp/hornet stories to help me enjoy my coffee. Yuck! I was stung once on a young twenties birthday (don't remember which one exactly) in my house. We had a lot of wasps inside the house that I grew up in. The sting didn't bother me nearly as much as knowing that it had been on me. There were many times my bedroom window sill and somewhat the living room window sill would be covered in dead wasps because I could not stand to get near them even dead. One night when I went to lay down, there was a pile of dead wasps placed on my bed. I always blamed my cat (leaving me a present) but have often wondered if maybe my mom did it out of annoyance at me for leaving them all in the sill or maybe one of my brothers did it as a joke. I never did find out and I slept on the living room floor that night. I think my mom cleaned the bed.

Holy smokes, no wonder you're so adverse to wasps. I would be too if I grew up in a house full of wasps! I would have slept on the floor too. Creepy.

Good Morning Fogfighter, Connie, soot, Draclvr, oldbroad, hagatha and everyone. Wide Awake Double Dark Brew is ready. Enjoy!

Going to be another hot humid day today...then thunderstorms every day thru Friday! Hope I get to walk!

Have a good day!

Gerry

Good Monday morning everyone: I feel very sluggish today, waking up late and struggling to get going even after the strong Sumatran coffee we currently favour.

Overcast with light rain, but probably a chance to continue with my extensive hedge cutting later.

Like many of you I have always steered well clear of hornets and I am not at all keen on wasps, but I am happy to be around most bees (and have been tempted to keep a hive). At one stage we had a house in France which we only visited a few times a year and which had shutters: on one visit we found a well established bees' nest between the shutters and the glass on the outside of one window, thus having a fantastic view of the bees living and working from inside the room. I was quite tempted to leave the nest in situ, but the bees might have spread elsewhere in the house so we found a man locally who was happy to come and remove the nest carefully, trapping the queen in a box so that she then attracted all the other bees to follow her into it at nightfall, fokllowing which he took them into nearby mountains and released them. Fascinating to watch and we have some great photos!