\tWent out to try to rescue my dying collection of plants today and spent quite a while staring up at our roof. For the last two summers, that roof has buzzed with activity. You can\u0092t give it a glance without seeing at least one wasp coming or going apparently home. <\/p>\n
\tFor whatever reason, I finally got fed up enough with the invasion this week that I asked a French friend to help me out… and call les pompiers. The firemen. That is who you call if you have a wasp problem. She called… they called her back and said they\u0092d be here Thursday sometime after 5:45. I like how the ambiguity of the arrival time makes it virtually impossible for them to be late. <\/p>\n
\tThey arrived and when I opened the door I was holding my French picture dictionary… looking up how to say \u0093roof\u0094 when the doorbell rang. I managed to tell them to follow me… pretty much by pointing then walking… to show them the area in question.<\/p>\n
\tI glanced at the book for the word for roof and pointed saying there are \u0093beaucoup\u0094 wasps up there. We tried to explain we think they\u0092ve built many nests under the roof tiles. They nodded skeptically and I took refuge back in the house. <\/p>\n
\tOne pompier put on a suit complete with a head covering and net over his face and big gloves. The other guy didn\u0092t. Monsieur Protective Suit climbed a ladder up to the roof for a closer look… then scurried down to have his sidekick zip up the protective suit. He had confirmed what we\u0092d told him. It\u0092s a real problem. <\/p>\n
\tThe second guy started carting out 5 gallon tubs of poison with a sprayer and Monsieur Protective Suit hauled them up the ladder then walked around the roof spraying. The sidekick would stand far back, pointing and hollering out advice on where else to spray. I was safely inside the house, so I don\u0092t know how many wasps came out of our roof to defend their homes. I really don\u0092t want to know.<\/p>\n
\tA couple of tubs of poison later, the pompiers put their ladder away and left. They said the wasps they didn\u0092t kill would take the poison home and kill off any stragglers. They also said if we see the problem return, just call and they\u0092ll be back. <\/p>\n
\tThey did all this and it didn\u0092t cost us a thing. Well, outside of our regular taxes it didn\u0092t. Unless a bill is on the way to us now. But I think it\u0092s part of your taxes. Taxes here are obscenely high, and people expect a lot in return. Understandably.<\/p>\n
\tWhich brings me back to today. Looking at the roof. Smiling. Because I didn\u0092t see anything up there at all.<\/p>\n
\tThen I noticed a wasp flying up the metal tube on the frame of our outdoor table…..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Went out to try to rescue my dying collection of plants today and spent quite a while staring up at our roof. For the last two summers, that roof has buzzed with activity. You can\u0092t give it a glance without seeing at least one wasp coming or going apparently home. For whatever reason, I finally […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/kaitlyn-marsue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/kaitlyn-marsue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/kaitlyn-marsue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kaitlyn-marsue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kaitlyn-marsue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/kaitlyn-marsue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/kaitlyn-marsue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kaitlyn-marsue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kaitlyn-marsue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}