"Debbie, whatcha' think'll happen if I stir up that hornet's nest?"
I'm looking at a nearly completed gray paper vespine nest. It's a gigantic digested bark masterpiece glued into the corner of a large window frame on Farmer Brown's barn. The nest overlooks our garden. Of course, it brings forth the true meaning and potential feeling of the classic idiom: To stir up a hornet's nest.
"No Ben, don't disturb it!" Debbie pleads. She's aware, as is Wikapedia that hornets are capable of "mobilizing an entire nest to sting in defense, which is highly dangerous to humans."
I would never disturb a nest. When I was four or five-years-old, living in the back country of White Plains, New York, I used to watch, what I thought were flies
buzzing in and out of the cocoa shell mulch. This sweet, chocolate-smelling ground cover supported foundation plantings around the perimeter of our home.
One day I decide to stomp the pesky bugs out. I remember raising my fat leg and the sensation of sinking up to my right hip in a yellow jacket's nest. I remember excruciating pain and the cold sensation of an ice bath. Geraldine, my babysitter tells me that Chipper, my Airedale had tried to fight the "bees" but, "Nicky (my nick name) they stung her twice as bad as you."
"Is she OK?" I ask, in tears. I cry because of the pain of the stings Geraldine's pulling from my welted body. I cry for Chipper. "Ooh, that brave dog's licking her wounds, rolling in
the cool mud down by the brook." Geraldine snaps her gum, hums a soulful tune and plucks stingers like a piece worker in a textile mill. Days later I catch the mumps. Chipper and I keep each other company. We're contrite companions. Partners in crime.
I suspect that this latest nest was founded by a clever queen wasp. Likely, early in the season, she reckoned that there would be thousands of bees and other vulnerable bugs populating our garden. Deb and I have noticed that we can work peacefully in our garden, weeding, picking cucumbers and cutting flowers with bees all around us. When we reach into a cucumber vine, the bees simply move on. If I wish to take a macro-photograph, they simply continue with their routine, never snarky-grinning or photo bombing!
After the excitement of the giant hornet's nest, the wonder of its construction, and the sheer potential of its danger dies down, I start to think about my tomatoes. I now realize that tomato plants and children have greater similarities than we parents would like to admit. O.K. It's easy to create a child, as simple as planting a tomato seed. As the tomato grows, it needs pruning, staking and nourishment. As a child grows, it needs pruning and grounding (or staking), and nourishment. When we see a child we do not approve of, we sometimes judge, "What a rotten child!" When we see some of my early tomatoes, we simply say, "Rotten."
This brings me to the question of various forms of tomato rot. Had I been more studious and disciplined in the raising of my tomatoes, might I have avoided the problems I am now writing about daily? Had I taken soil samples, sent them in to UCONN, might Farmer Brown's nitrogen rich turkey mulch have been an early red flag. Had I simply taken Farmer Brown's early advice, and sent in the soil samples, might the fruit side of my tomato
crop have been as impressive as the stalks and blossoms?
The day is cool and overcast, and we get a lot of work done, picking and weeding and discovering. The melon patch is bursting with immature cantaloupes. I am seeing evidence of pumpkins forming amongst their impenetrable madness.
The rain settles in and Debbie declares it a perfect work environment. The bees continue their work, I realize, in the rain. I see no hornets in the garden. This place is quiet, except the percussion of soft rain on the canopy of the pumpkin patch. If I listen, I can also hear the determined buzzing of our worker bees below.
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