SUMMER PROJECTS

One of the advantages of making landscape improvements in a rural area is that usually we don’t want or need to tame all of it the way we do with a city lot. It’s also more suitable to take a relaxed approach, so that from our deck chairs, we can sit back and appreciate the wild beauty beyond the boundaries of our territorial interests. Instead we carve out little usable outdoor rooms around the house and try to ameliorate their comfort and design with subtle, low maintenance improvements.

Furthermore around here we try to use as many found materials as possible and do most of the work ourselves. The Project underway at the moment is a long overdue little deck in a shady area between the fishpond and the fence which happens to be in shade from morning until mid afternoon. This is a huge boon on a hot and largely treeless property like ours, especially during a summer like we’re having this year. (Or maybe this is the new Mediterranean. We’ll see.)

This project required some cleaning of junk and hiding of concrete rubble from a demolished concrete block wall, a bit of grading to level the elevations, and removal of a few scrubby unwanted plants. For the main structural elements we decided to re-use a variety of 4 x 4 posts that were laying around the property including an old fence at the top of the driveway that had fallen over some years ago.

Photo from National Geographic

CONFLICT OF INTEREST
All seemed to be going well until several members of the family started getting attacked by wasps. We discovered their nest in a crevice in the dry dirt immediately under the entry door to the garden shed which sits right beside our deck-to-be. Not a convenient location for cohabitation with stinging insects.
This set off a flurry of internet research about wasp varieties and their nests and how to get rid of them as well as how to treat their stings.

SHARING SPACE WITH WILDLIFE, OR NOT…
It turns out that wasps are highly beneficial to humans (e.g. by eating other nasty insects like mosquitos) and so destroying their nests is not a desirable thing to do, if you can avoid it. However since we’ve disturbed their peace we’ve had none of our own. They attack constantly and aggressively, invade every meal on the (other) deck and seem to be threatening the comfort and safety of our family.(Hubbie seems to have a slight allergy as his arm is red and swollen like a blimp for the second time this summer.) While we’re sad about it, unfortunately this nest had to go. After installing a few wasp traps to neutralize the remaining, rather cross survivors of this apocalypse, now we can get back to finishing that shady reading/meditation/sunset cocktails deck by the fish pond.

While I prepared a special concoction of sugar syrup, blackberry jam and dish soap for an old fashioned, fill-your-own wasp trap, Hubbie came home from the hardware store with Tanglefoot wasp traps (I think he had revenge on his  mind.) Anyway, I can tell you that in the first few hours, the score is Homemade Goo: 0, Tanglefoot Trap: 20+.