One of the absolute most memorable moments of my life: the beautiful summer day I opened the door to one of my sheds and found myself staring directly into a huge — and very active — wasp nest.
I didn’t know I could move like that, as in faster than Ben Johnson on steroids. This was pre half-knee replacement in my right leg and just walking out to the shed had been painful. It was one of those bone-on-bone issues on the inside of my right knee (from an old baseball injury).
As soon as I opened that door, they attacked and I somehow managed to bolt at the speed of lightning from that shed door over to behind my big car shed, about 50 metres, possibly without my feet even touching the ground.
That would be known as the flight response — supplemented by intense awareness of the fate I was facing should I stand still.
Once I felt confident I had dropped off their radar, I stealthily approached the nest for a good look (and stayed about two metres back) and watched those hard-working wasps go about their business. Busy as bees. And I truly marvelled at the amazing nest they had built. So delicate. So big. One of nature’s works of art.
After observing for a few minutes, I gently closed the door and left them to enjoy the fruits of their labour. I didn’t need to go in that shed often anyway — why wreck their magnificent home? I left it and them there for the summer.
The abandoned nest has been on the door for years now and was in perfect shape till I bumped the bottom of it with my shoulder a couple of months ago. I keep it there for show and tell and because I like looking at it.
Every once in a while I ask someone to open the door for me and that nest scares the hell right out of them. Fun.
While on the subject of wasps, has this ever happened to you? Twice now, while cruising down the highway on a summer day, driver’s window open, enjoying the breeze, I’ve had a wasp deflect off the door mirror and go down the back of my shirt. Inside the shirt.
The first time I didn’t know the wasp was there till I leaned back and it stung me on the spine, right between the shoulder blades. That is what you call a major shock, because at first you have no idea what’s happening. So you pull over, screech to a stop, jump out, pull your shirt off (frantically) — and see wasp drop to the ground. After that, you pull your shirt back on, practice some deep breathing and drive on.
The second time I felt the wasp hit my neck before going down my shirt so I just pulled over and shooshed it out. Wow, that is some kind of pain when you’re not expecting it. If it’s a thrill you haven’t experienced yet, you have something to look forward to. Enjoy!
Not only do I admire the delicate construction of this wasp nest, but also the artful creation of a swallow’s nest on a hubcap.
I can hear a swallow talking to God: "Ok, so humans get some land, carpenters and wood to build their home, what do we get?"
"A beak, some mud and wherever you can make it stick."
Somehow, it just doesn’t seem fair, but this nest on this vintage hubcap is impressive. Seems to me I got it in an old barn somewhere when I was buying hubcaps from a farmer. He threw this in for free. Imagine how awkward it would be just for the swallow to start the nest on bare tin. Truly an extraordinary accomplishment. I’ve had this for years, and it still hasn’t fallen off. That’s good work.
Truly a work of art. There’s no way I could construct this with a beak and no hands. Nope.
Maybe not even with hands.
Birds, bees and animals build some truly extraordinary homes under very challenging conditions. Consider the beaver. Not only do they have to source, cut down and mill their own lumber, they also have to haul it to the site without getting eaten by a predator or killed for their fur by a trapper — build it both below and above water, generally flowing water — and make it sturdy enough to withstand spring runoff and summer storm surges.
"Naturally" designed and built homes deserve a great deal of credit and there isn’t a creature in nature I don’t have some degree of admiration and respect for, except that Killarney mosquito that gave me encephalitis when I was 12. I’m still not very happy about that.
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