July 30, I’m cutting my grass and OUCH! A sting on the back of my neck. Yellowjackets swarmed the lawnmower. I had no idea where they came from. But (being who I am) I found the exact moment and ran the chart of this encounter. Mars crossed the midheaven at that moment. So I knew to pay attention to Mars– ruler of things that sting.
Fast forward to this week. My dog Jenny found the hidden nest. Whimpering and pawing the ground, I see a yellowjacket ON HER FACE, and she has about 6 yellowjackets buzzing around her. I call her in. Inside, we run from some buzzing we can hear but not see. We hide out. We finally get the little buzzer trapped outside.
Jenny is okay. She’s fine. But I realize, I cannot put this off much longer. I remember that big transits of Mars have coincided with animal encounters and stinging things in the past. And there are some big transits of Mars on deck this week.
Just before Mars entered Libra last night, I FOUND THE HOLE. The yellowjacket nest in the ground. AHA!
Generally I live and let live when it comes to wildlife, even most insects. But when it comes to angry stinging things defending MY front yard from ME, they have got to go. I knew what I had to do. I set up the tried and true Hornet King method that I learned about on YouTube. This requires a wet vac with soapy water in the tank. You place the snozzle at the hole, the entrance to the nest, to catch the wasps as they enter and exit the nest.
As the vacuum screamed and I got ready to do the deed this morning, I realized that this is a mirror situation– the yellowjackets are defending their home and territory, and so am I. Mars in Libra facing off with Saturn in Aries. Both uncomfortable and unhappy about this fight.
In the morning, I ran the vacuum for a couple of hours. Figuring I had sucked most of the wasps into my wet vac, I started digging– and I quickly realized there were still a lot of them. I needed to get my bee suit.
In my bee suit, switching between my digging fork and the vacuum, I dug out the nest, but the wasps kept pouring out. So I kept digging and found another section of nest that had 3 levels of honeycombs with a ton of larvae. My front yard was about to be swarmed with angry yellowjackets in another week or two. So glad I dealt with that. Like Hornet King on YouTube, I gave the nests I dug up, still full of larvae, to chickens. My neighbor’s flock enjoyed them.
See my latest forecast for a run-down of this week’s Mars transits. The Full Moon is just around the corner in air sign Aquarius– adding Lunar strength and magic to beings of the air. Birds, bees, and butterflies, and angry wasps too.
Y’all stay safe! I’ll be back with next week’s forecast on Monday.
