Friend Or Foe

I probably use the word hate more than I should. “I hate that” “I hate when that happens”, “I hate those stupid things”. Hate is a very strong word and I actually hate very little. What I really mean is that I intensely dislike that, those things, when that happens, but to save time and typing I will use the word hate in this post.

I hate yellow jackets. Not the wearable kind to keep you warm, although I myself would not wear a yellow jacket because I’m not a yellow wearer kind of person and yellow just does not look good on me. For those of you out there who have a yellow jacket, I’m sure you look gorgeous!! The yellow jackets that I hate are the little ones that fly around your head when you’re outside deciding whether they should sting you or not. In August when they become twice as aggressive as usual, which is aggressive enough thank you, it’s almost impossible to go any where outside without a couple of them dive bombing you and sending you scurrying back into the house. All summer long they continually fly around the oriole feeders trying to get to the sugar water inside and I have to keep putting a little oil around the ports to keep them out. (It works) They drive me absolutely crazy!! So yes, I hate yellow jackets.

Another thing that I hate are the crane flies. Those who follow my posts know that I have been bombarded with these insects this year since the end of September. And they’re still here. Still swarming all over the place, still in my hair, still sneaking in the house when I'm not looking and generally making pests of themselves. So yes, I hate crane flies.

Now to get to the point of this little story. Today I went outside to cut down the four o’clocks. They only had a few flowers left, and I would rather do it on a nice day like today instead of waiting too long and freezing my butt off, which I have done more than once. There was one yellow jacket out there buzzing around my head, and making a nuisance of himself but not really threatening, so I pretty much ignored him. There were, of course, also a bunch of crane flies out there keeping me company which I could have done without.

After cleaning up the plants, I sat down to take a break. There on the chair next to mine was a large crane fly. I guess he thought he needed a little rest too, after pestering me all that time. While I was debating whether I should just reach over and swat him, the yellow jacket flew over and grabbed him. Wrestled him right off that chair and onto the ground. They were both rolling around for a minute or so and then the yellow jacket grabbed tighter and flew off with him. I sat there dumbfounded almost not believing. I have never, ever seen anything like that before. Have I been wrong about the yellow jackets all this time?? Are they here to help instead of hurt?? Are they not my foes but instead my friends?? No, I can’t really say I believe that. Maybe for 2 minutes I didn’t dislike him as much as I did before, but that’s about it.