He Saved the Day

Yesterday evening our little family took an evening walk. Our hay just got cut, so we can walk out in the pasture. We put Nathan in the red wagon, and he played with a stick as we walked the perimeter of our property.

When we got back up to the house, we went and observed the garden. Then we inspected our baby trees. Then we went out to my roadside garden to admire the "neon coral" (for lack of a better description) gladiolas that's blooming. The grass is really taking over that bed, so I started pulling it from around my baby day lilies so maybe they won't have to fight so hard to establish themselves by the end of summer.

Weeding is one of those things that once you get started, you don't want to stop because the results are so gratifying. So I kept yanking up clumps of grass while Paul and Nathan went on. Eventually they ended up back on the deck. Nathan went straight for the dog's water dish. Of course.

It was a peaceful night, the sun had gone down and it was cool. I could hear Nathan squealing and Paul talking to him.

Then I heard a clatter on the deck. I was curious, but figured it was the dog getting after the stupid cat. Then I heard Paul yell: "Rachel! Get Nathan!"

I sprinted to the house. I had no idea what had happened, but was really worried and freaked out, because Paul hardly ever uses my name (he calls me "Dear" instead) and he never yells. I find Paul ducking and swatting his hat. He said, "Get Nathan in the house! There's hornets - I've been stung five or six times already!"

I swooped down on Nathan and snatched him out of the dog pan and we scurried inside. I sat Nathan down and told Paul to get inside and get away from them! I now understand his logic: he didn't want them to follow him into the house. He finally came in, got the hornet spray and doused their nest. (I'll spare you the picture of their corpses and the *gag* larvae.)

He'd sat down to take pictures of Nathan, not knowing that just next to the post he was using as a back rest, there lurked a nest. We were just grateful that Nathan hadn't been stung, even though he'd only been a few feet away from their nest. Paul was a quick thinker and ran to the other end of the deck and away from Nathan, and the hornets had followed him. He was our hero.

Upon examination, he'd been stung five times: once on his back, once on his right forearm, once on his finger right next to his wedding ring, and twice on his cheekbone. We promptly removed his ring, and I slathered baking soda paste on them, gave him two Tylenol, then waited for him to swell up so I could get some good pictures.

He never did swell to the proportions I expected. In fact, after a couple hours, even the little bit of swelling had gone down. By this morning you couldn't even tell he'd been stung.

So no pictures. Sorry folks.

And I have more exciting things that happened this weekend. But I'll put them all in separate posts so they get the attention they deserve.