Episode 1

 

So we rejoin our intrepid hosts at the first campsite.  This one's accessible by truck, so it's much easier to get to, and we can leash up our dogs and just hang out.

We bring our firepit from the city, pick up a nice large tent that we thought looked neat, and headed out for a few days.

Now, there's something funny about where I'm standing when I take this picture, but I won't know it until later:

Thing is, there's a yellowjacket nest immediately below my feet. I just didn't know it, because everything had been going so swimmingly all day long.

Later that afternoon, I'm sitting in the blue chair, right where it is now. My lovely wife, not pictured, is sitting in a chair, also not pictured, on the other side of the fire. Our big white hound dog is sitting next to her, and the other dogs are in the tent relaxing.

All of a sudden, sheer chaos explodes around me.

Nisba, the hound, screams like someone dropped a hot coal into her bed and jumps clean out of her harness, wrapping her lead around my wife's chair and knocking over a number of small items in the process. She then bolts around the corner of the tent with my wife starting to scream too as a look or horrified confusion spreads over her face. 

I jump out of my chair and run around the corner to where the two of them are huddled, both in absolute shock, where my wife is frantically slapping yellowjackets out of Nisba's fur while stripping off her own clothes, which are filled with them as well.

I help rip the yellowjackets off both of them, detangle and strip them both down, and shove them both bodily into the tent and zip it behind them.

Somehow in this process, despite having to pull yellowjackets out of the skin of two of my favorite people, I've managed to not only avoid any stings, but also the attention of the swarm. These hellish little bastards are for some reason treating me like I don't exist.

I'd like to say there was some manly theme playing in my head, or that I said something potent and amazing, but I think I probably just said something like "stay inside, I'll figure this out".

Being careful to keep the smoke from the fire in between myself and the swarm, I saw what had happened.

Those of you smarter than me have already figured this out, of course--there was a hole in the ground just buzzing with yellow, angry little needlejets who were upset that we put a firepit next to their home and then let a dog lay down on top of their foyer.

I am assured by the only observer to this act that my next actions came swiftly and confidently, but not being outside my body to observe, I have to take her word for it.  In the first discus throw of my life, I picked up the lid to a cast-iron dutch oven and slung it over to the nest, where it plopped down directly on top of the hole.

Perfect--though there were still dozens of yellowjackets in the air, at least they could not call for reinforcements.

I quickly mixed up a solution of kerosene, dish soap, and water, and had myself a little "bowl o'death".  Not necessarily the most environmentally friendly thing in the world, but a cup of kerosene on the ground is a lot better than this buzzing tornado we find ourselves in. 

Good news is, a tiny bit of kerosene on a yellowjacket is nearly instant death, so I started slinging my ad-hoc bug spray at them to knock them out of the air, and then once the aerial ranks had been dealt with, poured the rest directly into the gullet of their once proud house.

Our first misadventure had been handled, with only minor casualties to the family, and a little bit of traumatic and unintentional training for our dog.