O Holey One

I didn’t pay much attention to the first one and just thought it would go away.  It was a pile of dirt that some critter had dug in my yard.  But, as the third, fourth and fifth hole appeared in my front yard I realized I had a problem.  I couldn’t tell what animal had made its home there so I went to the most reliable source I knew – Google!

I typed in “dirt holes in yard” and several sites offered suggestions for my problem.  After reading, I decided that my holes were mole holes and the safest remedy was to flood out the holes.  So, the next morning, I got my water hose and started flooding out them bad boys.  Nothing really happened.  Well, not until I got to the fourth hole.

While flooding that hole, this wasp/bee-looking thing tries to fly out.  I quickly kept drowning it and stepped on it to kill it.  The same thing flew out of the next hole as well (but that one got away).  Crap, I have an even bigger problem.

So, I took a picture of the “thing” with my Iphone and went back to my reliable source.  My photo of “it” and the dirt description matched perfectly to the cicada killer wasp.  Just great I’m thinking to myself.  I have a yard full of killer wasps planning a revolution in my front yard.  I drive to Home Depot and buy some wasp killer and it does a great job of killing several.  Days go by and I don’t see any news holes.

Until a week later.  I guess it took them suckers a whole week to clear another path, because two new holes appeared.  I tried calling the wasp specialists listed in the phonebook, but they all said they can only kill the wasp in the present holes and make no guarantee against new holes from forming.  Since they are underground there’s no real way of knowing how many are there or what direction they are traveling.  In other words, I should just stick to my $3.97 spray instead of charging them $65 to do the same thing.

So I’m stuck for a couple more months with cicada killer wasps until summer is over.  They may try to tear up my yard and dig all type of holes, but I promise I will spray every inch of my yard every week until they realize that they messed with the wrong homeowner.   I just hope PETA doesn’t come knocking on my door in protest!

M.Y.  August 2010