Whoa!!!

[Go240Zags]

When I first went to pick up my two Z's they were in horse pasture. A PO had removed the engine from the '72 and put it in the '71 (Series I body style). The owner of the cars had taken them in trade for some horse training/boarding. She said the block for the 71 was sitting out near the pasture under a tarp. I went to see it and lifted the tarp and there was a nice shiney black widow. I covered it back up and still have to go back and get it. To answer the first post, we do get black widows in Washington State -- but they like the wet side, not the dry. Here in Eastern Washington I've found them under rocks by the river. Yet the only others I remember seeing were in our basement when I was six and lived in Seattle, the wet side of the state. Or when kids who found them and brought them to school in Oroville. Here in Okanogan County we worry more about Rattlesnakes, altho I hear reports there is the occassional Scorpion found, but they're more common in Southeastern Washington State. Someday I'll tell you about my experience with wasps.

[Go240Zags]

As far as wasps go, the first fall I spent in my house I would wake up in the morning and there would be 30-40 wasps flying around in my kitchen. Moving slow because of the cold. I got tired of swatting them, so I brought out the vacuum and started sucking them up. This was repeated every morning for about a week. Sometimes there would be more, sometimes less. I couldn't find where they were coming from. One day I heard a kind of buzz coming from the refrigerator, but just figured it was the fridg doing its job. I live in an older log home. Little did I know they had somehow gotten from the outside of the house and into my wall behind the fridge. One night about 3 a.m. I remembered the strange buzzing and pulled the ice box away from the wall and there they were, dozens of mean looking buggers and they didn't look happy. They had chewed thru the wallboard and the wallpaper. Luckily I had a couple cans of wasp spray left over from a sale the previous summer. I shot both cans full at the nest and watched them slide down the wall. I was in my robe and hadn't bothered with slippers. They were not happy and my adrenal gland was working overtime. After I ran out of wasp spray I hoofed it out to the garage, got my cordless drill and a piece of plywood. Screwed the board over the hole pushed the fridge back and went back to bed. Guess I'd better do a better job patching it up now that wasp season has started again. It seems like all they do all day long is look for a way into the house and/or a place to build their nest.