The Hornet’s Nest

D. E. Larsen, DVM

The mid-July afternoon sun was hot as Dana, and I headed across the lower field of the Broadbent farm. We were headed to a fishing hole we didn’t often fish because of the brush.

Suddenly, Dana stopped.

“Wow!” he said. “Look at that bee’s nest.”

On the highway side of the field, there was a massive nest hanging in a large arrow wood bush. It must have been a couple of feet in diameter and over two feet long.

We went closer to get a better view.

“Those are black hornets,” I said.

“Dad calls them bald-faced hornets,” Dana said. “He says their sting is nasty.”

We watched the nest for a time. The hornets were coming in and going out at a constant pace.

“Let’s get a bow and arrow and see if we can stir them up,” I said. “We could probably shoot an arrow through that nest from the highway, and they won’t know where it came from if we don’t move.”

So we abandoned the fishing venture and headed back to the house to get my bow and arrows.

“What are you two going to do now?” Mom asked.

“We found a big hornet’s nest down in the lower field,” I said. “We will see if we can stir them up a bit.”

“They are bald-faced hornets,” Dana said. “I’ve never seen a nest like this before.”

“You guys be careful,” Mom cautioned. “Those things sting pretty hard.”

We walked down the highway and found a spot with a clear view of the nest from the road.

“Do you want to take a shot?” I asked Dana.

“No, go ahead,” Dana said. “I don’t want to be holding the bow if they spot us.” 

“I don’t think it would matter,” I said. “They won’t be looking for someone with a bow. I think we will be fine if we just stand still.”

I notched an arrow and took careful aim. I released the arrow, and it made a perfect strike, passing through the middle of the nest.

There was an instant swarm of black hornets coming from the nest. The numbers almost blocked the view of the nest. We stood stark still, and no hornets came toward the highway.

After a few minutes, the hornets quieted and returned to the nest and their other duties.

“Now, I’ll take a shot,” Dana said as he took the bow from my hand.

Dana’s arrow struck the nest a bit higher than mine had, but the result was the same. A massive swarm of hornets, but when they found no culprit, they returned to the nest after a few minutes.

Back at the house, we made plans to take the nest to school.

“We should cut that nest out of that bush and take it to school,” Dana said.

“If you want to do that, you need to wait until winter when those hornets are all dead or dormant,” Mom said.

So that was the plan. We continued to torment the hornets from time to time through the rest of the summer.

***

“I can come down this Saturday, and we can cut the hornet’s nest down,” Dana said.

It was middle October, and there had been a frost. The hornets were surely dead by now.

When we got to the base of the bush with the nest, we watched it for a couple of minutes to ensure there was no activity around it.

“It’s pretty high,” Dana said. “I guess we can cut the main branch at the ground, and you can catch the nest, so it doesn’t break when it hits the ground.”

“Dad says when the hornets build their nest high, it means there will be a hard winter,” I said. “That probably means we will have some high water or snow this year.”

We found the main branch of the arrow wood bush that held the nest, and Dana made a whack with his hatchet. The limb was not completely severed, but it allowed the nest slowly swing toward the ground. I gathered the top branches in my arms, and Dana clipped the nest free with some pruning shears. We headed back to the house, holding the nest between us, suspended from the branch it was built on.

“Can you take me to school with this nest on Monday?” I asked Mom.

“Yes, I will have the car. I can take you,” Mom said. “We can follow the school bus, that way, Dana can help you pack it into the school.”

***

Everyone was impressed when Dana and I packed the nest into the classroom. Seeing a nest of this size was unusual, and most of the kids had probably never seen one like it.

“Okay, that’s enough of the looking. Let’s find a place in the science room for it,” Mr. Jimenez said.

The science room was just a closet in the corner of this shared seventh and eighth-grade classroom at Broadbent school. There was an empty spot on the shelf where the nest fit well.

The nest was at rest in the science room, removed from the disruption of the classroom, and soon, all but forgotten.

It was not long until we had a stretch of several days of bright sunshine and warm temperatures, typical of October in western Oregon.

“What is that sound that I keep hearing,” Mr. Jimenez said as he walked around the classroom, trying to define the source of this buzzing sound that had suddenly occurred.

“I think it is coming from the science room,” Joe said.

Mr. Jimenez opened the science closet door and met with several dozen hornets. He immediately slammed the door shut.

“I think we need to keep this door closed for today,” Mr. Jimenez said.

“Now, what are we going to do to get those out of here?” Gail asked.

“I thought they were all dead,” I said. “What do you think happened.”

“There were probably some still alive and just immobile due to the cold, or maybe some were still to hatch,” Mr. Jimenez said. “We probably should have put it in a freezer for a couple of weeks before putting it in the science room. That would have killed any hornets still alive and also any of the larvae.”

“I guess we better get some DDT,” Dana said.

“We will wait until tonight, and then the janitor can remove the nest and get rid of it,” Mr. Jimenez said.

“Maybe he can find a freezer to put it in,” I said.

“I think it is more likely that he will pour some gas on it and burn it up,” Mr. Jimenez.

That was that, and the nest was never mentioned again. It obviously had been destroyed instead of saved for future learning.

Photo by Public Domain Images from Pixabay.

A Well Placed M-80

D. E. Larsen, DVM

We stepped out of the gym into the growing darkness of a winter evening. It was a clear sky and no rain in sight.

“We are done early,” I said. “Mom won’t be here for at least a half hour. We may as well start walking and meet her on the edge of town.”

We had just finished basketball practice for the eighth-grade basketball team for Myrtle Crest Junior High. Don Miller, Paul Daniels, and I usually rode home with my mother following practice. Most of the town kids walked home unless the weather was bad. 

So tonight, we started with a group of town kids that included Dean Noyes, Bill Brodie, and probably others. The walk went down the street for six or eight blocks to Rotary Park. Bill Brodie left the group there and cut through the park to his home.

We turned to the right at the park and walked past Dean’s house. After Dean left the group, we went by Maple Elementary School.

“Say, something is going on in the school,” Paul said as we walked past it.

“Let’s take a look,” Don said

We walked up the stairs to the front porch and looked through the windows. Maple Street school had been the junior high school until they built Myrtle Crest. It was sort of a Spanish-style building, with a stucco exterior and partially enclosed porches at every outside doorway.

“Just a bunch of old ladies,” Paul said. “It looks like they must be having a fashion show or something.

The gym doors were open to the inner hall, so we had a full view of the gym floor. There were ladies carrying dresses and stuff here and there. The entire gym floor was packed. There must have been fifty or sixty old ladies in there.

As we turned to leave, Paul stopped and set his gym bag down. Paul’s family was well off compared to the rest of ours, and he was the only one with a gym bag.

“I think I have an M-80 in here,” Paul said as he dug through his bag.

Paul stood up, holding a large firecracker in his outstretched hand. 

“We had some fireworks for New Year’s eve, and this was left over,” Paul said. “Let’s set it off on the side porch and make those ladies jump.”

“We don’t have any matches,” I said. “Where is a smoker when you need one?”

“I have matches in here somewhere,” Paul said as he dug in his gym bag again. “Here they are.” Paul held up a book of matches.

We went to the side door the went directly into the gym. It was a much smaller, enclosed porch.

We lit the firecracker and ran.

Kaboom! The massive explosion reverberated from the enclosure, much louder than we had expected. The sound and force of the blast were probably enhanced by the enclosed porch.

“Wow! I bet some of those gals wet their pants,” Paul said. We all laughed at the thought of the chaos in the gym following the explosion.

We were still staggering along, laughing at the success of our stunt, when we heard the siren.

“Oh, shit! They called the cops,” Paul said. 

We ducked behind a hedge as the cop car roared by with lights flashing and siren blaring.

“Wait till he is out of the car,” Paul said. “Then we can run down the back street.”

“We need to hurry, so we can meet Mom on the bridge,” I said. “Otherwise, she will be driving around town looking for us.

We were in good condition, and to run eight or ten blocks to the bridge was no problem. We had to duck into a couple of backyards as the cop car was crisscrossing the town, looking for whoever set off that explosion.

We made it without being spotted. We were mostly across the river when Mom pulled up.

“You guys are panting,” Mom said. “What did you do, run all the way?”

“Yeah, we got delayed at Dean’s house and didn’t want to miss you,” I said.

Mom went around the block and waited to pull out onto the main street as the police car slowly cruised down the street.

“He looks like he is looking for someone,” Mom said. “I wonder what is going on?”

“It’s hard to say. Anything could happen in this town,” I said.

Link to M-80 on Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-80_(explosive)

Photo by Shivam Patel on Pexels.

The Battle of Ping-Li, From the Archives

D. E. Larsen, DVM

It was the end of a busy afternoon when I leaned into the reception desk to check on what remained of the day.

“I’m beat, how close to being done are we?” I asked.

“You poor man,” Sandy replied. She seldom gave me any sympathy. “Your last appointment is in the exam room. It is just a nail trim on a cat, you should be able to handle it okay.”

I stepped into the exam room and met Al and Vivian. They were new clients, but I had met Al when I was on a farm call out on Upper Berlin Road some weeks before. Al was a short guy, stocky, and with white hair and mustache. Vivian was taller than Al by several inches. 

Vivian was in immediate command of the conversation, Al would add a quip every now and then. They were parents of a long time client and had just moved to the area from San Francisco. Al had retired from a machine shop some years earlier but continued with his passion as a western cartoonist and illustrator. 

“Ping-Li is in the carrier,” Vivian said. “We just need his toenails clipped. I am on this blood thinner, and he doesn’t seem to understand that I can’t be his scratching post anymore.”

“And, Doc, he doesn’t really like to have his feet messed with,” Al said. “That is why we are here. We didn’t get one nail clipped last night.”

“Well, let’s get him up on the table and see what he thinks of us,” I said as I started to pick up the rather large carrier setting on the floor. 

I was surprised at the weight of the carrier. I leaned over and looked into the carrier as I set it on the exam table. 

Ping-Li was a large cat, well over 20 pounds and not fat at all. Ping-Li made his feelings known from the start, with a loud hiss at my face.

“I am not sure he wants to be friends,” Al said as Ping-Li hissed and jumped at the cage door.

“I think we will get some reinforcements before we get him out of the kennel,” I said. “You guys might want to wait out front.”

“He is pretty much a baby at home, but it is just the two of us most of the time,” Vivian said. “If anybody comes over, he generally hides. I am hoping this won’t be too traumatic for him.”

“Once we get a hand on him, we should be able to handle him okay,” I said. “I have a couple of gals here to help who are real cat ladies.”

“I don’t think I want to have him sedated for this,” Vivian said. “If it comes to that, we will rethink things.”

“He is one of the larger cats that we deal with around here,” I said. “But I think we can get him under control without sedating him.”

With that, Marilyn, Joleen, and I closed ourselves into the exam room with Ping-Li. The first task was to get him out of the kennel. He made it very clear that nobody was going to reach in and grab him. 

We opened the kennel door, and Joleen and I tipped it up to dump him onto the exam table. Good idea, but Ping-Li had himself braced against the sides of the kennel with all four feet. We shook the kennel several times before finally getting Ping-Li onto the exam table.

I attempted some soft talk and petting to calm him down. He hissed and swatted at the air close to my chest. Joleen made a quick grab for the back of his neck, and that got him a little under control. Using the extra-large cat sack, it took all three of us to get him stuffed inside and zipped up. He was almost too large.

Once secured, I did a quick once over. Everything looked okay, every time I came close to his head, I was greeted with a hiss. Using the scale on the tabletop, Ping-Li weighed in at just under 25 pounds. I looked at a couple of cats that weighed a couple of pounds more than that, but they were very obese. There was no fat on Ping-Li.

Once we had him in the sack, clipping his nails was no problem. We would just unzip a bottom opening by each foot, fight with Ping-Li to get the foot out of the sack, clip the nails and move to the next foot. By the time we were done, the hiss had become a loud growl. I think Ping-Li was indeed mad.

Marilyn checked with Al and Vivian to make sure there was nothing else. They came back to see Ping-Li in his sack before we returned him to the kennel. Vivian wanted to pet him to calm him down a little, but her efforts were met with hisses and growls.

We pointed Ping-Li into his kennel and started unzipping the cat sack. He was squirming out of it before it was half undone. He hit the back of the kennel, turned and hissed.

“Oh, I think he is mad,” Vivian said

“It will probably be more difficult next time,” Al said. “He is a pretty smart cat, and he will remember you, Doctor.”

Ping-Li became a regular visitor to the clinic. On most of the visits, he was much more manageable than he was on this first visit. But he continued to hate having his nails clipped, and it almost always required a cat sack to get the job done. 

I liked to think most cats became our friends, or they came to tolerate our invasion of their space. Ping-Li probably came to tolerate that invasion to a degree, but he never became our friend.

Some months after that battle with Ping-Li, Al came by with the cartoon at the top of this story. It still hangs in my study.

https://www.sweethomenews.com/story/2001/03/16/news/western-artist-al-martin-napoletanohas-brought-old-west-to-life-for-60-years/1384.html

https://www.google.com/search?rls=en&sxsrf=ALeKk01ZkATWBbb2NSQIBcqQ3Bms4Xe57g:1597031150836&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=al+martin+napoletano&client=safari&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwid_sLT3I_rAhUKHzQIHa_UCvoQsAR6BAgKEAE&biw=1343&bih=854