Well, I tried. Posting every day for the month of October was not a requirement of the October Blog Party, but I thought it would be a neat experiment to see if I could keep up with it. I couldn’t. When I started posting about TV show updates…I knew I was in trouble. So I took the weekend off to refresh myself and I’m doing a little better now…though I probably won’t be posting every day anymore!
On to my scary weekend news: Wasps have taken up residence in my compost bin. (Well, really, it’s my parents’ compost bin, but since I drive out to the ranch every weekend to take care of it – add to it, turn it, water it, etc. – I consider it “mine.”) It started out with just two. Then I opened the bin on Saturday and found around 25 crawling around on the apple cores, getting drunk off the fermenting fruit juices!
Apparently, this is a fairly common problem. It didn’t happen last year, however, presumably because my dad was adding chicken waste to the bin on a fairly regular basis. I’m guessing that the wet sawdust and smell of chicken droppings deterred the wasps. So he’ll be adding some chicken waste this week, if all goes well.
Image credit: askanddiscuss.com
I also heard that wasps are often attracted to your bin if the pile gets too dry. So with Brian’s help, we put the hose in the bin, weighted down the top, and turned on the hose. I expected to have an angry cloud of wasps pour out of the holes in the side of the bin, but none came out. (They were probably too drunk on those apple cores.) Hopefully, the extra moisture will help.
Eventually, they will retreat from the winter cold. My concern, though, is whether or not they have built a nest in there. I’ll just have to wait and see. I suspect, though, that the chicken waste will really help get things back to normal in there.
If you are experiencing a wasp invasion, please let me know if you have found any solutions! Later this week, I’ll be back to tell you about the amazing time I had with my mother and sister at the Fall Femme Fair in Bend, where we had a pretty amazing tarot reading…
Don’t forget to check out the October Blog Party for some excellent October inspiration, and Mrs. B.’s 31 Days of Halloween for unbelievable giveaways!!
Copyright: A Green Spell
http://greenspell.wordpress.com
