Flame on

Um, Houston, we have a problem.

Remember the nice little bonfire from the other night? The one that supposedly incinerated the dwelling place of the hornets in my stump? Welllll - not so much. The next morning, they were right there. They didn't even seem bothered by the apparent home invasion of the night before. It's like nothing happened.

How is this possible? I mean, it was the Fires of Hell in that stump! Flames 3 feet in the air, and so hot that even after the flames were extinguished I continued to stream water in there for a VERY long time and still sparks flew up and steam hissed. Like I said, Brimstone City.

So how is it that these stupid hornets return to the scene of the crime and fly right in and act as if nothing was torched? This morning, my husband asked me to come listen to something. I did not much like the sound of that request, and I was right. Out we go to the stump, which appears to be quiescent, and I reluctantly bent over and listened. You have no idea how much I did not want to do that. I could not see much good coming from it - either there was nothing there in which case why did I have to listen anyway, and I might fall in (it is a big hollow stump), or there IS something there in which case I most decidedly do not want to be leaning over the damn thing. But, what the heck. Everybody has to die of something, right?

My bravery did not go unrewarded (or unpunished, depending on your point of view). There was, emanating from the stump, a reeeaaallllly nasty low rumbling buzz. The buzz of a very large quantity of things, low in the ground. Coming. This. Way.

They did not actually appear (obviously, or I would not be writing this, I would be somewhere in Kansas by now still running) but the noise was most unattractive. The best I can figure, there is a large side channel down in there somewhere, like where a root went or something, and the flames simply did not go that way. So it was more like setting fire to the porch than bombing the compound. Marginally irritating, but survivable.

Options are being discussed. Option one: dump it full of dirt and plant something in it like I wanted to in the first place (my idea). Option two: fill it up with a mixture of diesel fuel and gasoline. My husband's idea. I asked him if he was going for the Olympic Torch motif. Besides the explosive risk, seems like a colossal waste of fuel to me - we could run the tractor for a month on the amount of diesel it would take to fill that stump! Mostly, however, I have no desire to see a crater where the garage used to be.

We are a little concerned there is another point of ingress/egress to the hornet colony. It would be more than a little disturbing to get all smug about having trapped/burned/pillaged the thing only to see a column of sociopathic hornets emerging from another spot on the grounds and heading our way bent on revenge.

What to do?! Too bad we no longer have Kate's snake collection in the garbage can, we could try putting them all down in there. Maybe a fire extinguisher? The foam could expand out in all directions and smother them. Plain old water? Drown them? CONCRETE! How about concrete? Ideas, people, I need ideas.

So, when I need ideas, I turn to that fount of all knowledge -- Google. It is very interesting what one comes up with when one Googles "how to get rid of hornets in the ground". Lots of people espouse some variant of the diesel/gasoline option. Smoke bombs. Soapy water. Plain water. Placing a glass vase upside down over the entrance hole (these people obviously have MUCH smaller hornets nests that I do! A bushel basket would not cover the hole in this stump!) Various poisons in spray or powder form. There are helpful suggestions like covering your flashlight with a red filter so you don't attract them. REALLY? Who tested hornets color night vision anyway?? There are horror stories, like a guy stepping off his tractor into a yellow jacket nest and being killed by thousands of stings. But far and away, here is my favorite suggestion:

Make them watch a Michigan game - they will be so bored they will kill themselves!

The things you can find on the internet.