Working On A Quirky Graph

Life, I find, is often hilarious if you look at it correctly.

A couple of weeks ago I lost my neighbors know they had a wasps nest in their tree on the street lawn. For those unfamiliar, the street lawn is what we call the patch of grass between the sidewalk and the street. It is generally the homeowner who maintains, but if you want you can petition the city to plant a tree there. When I bought this place the first thing I did was request a tree. The trees in that space are generally the responsibility of the city, so if there is anything wrong with it, or, if there is, say a wasp’s nest in the tree, you can the city out and they will deal with it.

Which is what my neighbors did. They called the city and a couple of weeks later, the nest has been removed. What I didn’t realize would happen, was that the wasps would look for a home and decide on mine. I’m not even sure why the decided on my little lamp, but this evening I go to sit out on my porch, only to see something fly by my head. When I looked up, there are over a dozen wasps making a home in my outdoor light. How they knew I’m the one that ratted them out is beyond me, but I’ve already called an exterminator to see if I can get them to call me back tomorrow.

Thank goodness for Google which has informed me that they are attracted to yellow light, so now the light is off, and repelled by basil, citronella and rosemary. Unfortunately I just moved those plants off my porch and put them in the ground in the strip between the houses. That also means I will be buying new ones to put on the porch along with pots that hopefully won’t be destroyed in the next storm.

It is an odd thing. I’m annoyed and absolutely cannot have them on the porch or I will never have mail delivered again, but it also means that my neighbors on the other side won’t hang out right next to my porch for fear of being stung. At least it will be somewhat quiet out front tonight. Except for the random thud of a wasp flying into a window.