Once Bit, Twice Shy?

As I type this I'm sitting in my Lazy Boy with a bag of frozen peas lying on top of both of my hands.  The old saying, once bit, twice shy is very true for me.  

 

Just like my Pouting Angel, I'm not having a great night.

I'm trying to bring down the swelling of six yellow jacket stings.  Yes, six.   

This is my left hand, the right one is worse, with swelling almost to my elbow.  My head and neck are miserable, too.

Ouch.

This wasn't supposed to happen.

 

Today's plan was to finally get around to cutting the tall grass in the Back Eight and the pines.   Our temps were in the upper 80's today, which is rather unusual for September.  I'd let the field go all year without cutting it with the 'Bush Hog', an actual name for the implement seen in the picture above.  

We got a late start today, like usual around here.  Carl had to sharpen the two big blades for me which entails removing them from the machine, a job neither of us like very much as the bolts are very tight by necessity.  The job was made considerably easier by the impact driver/tool, though.  

I assisted in my usual go-fer manner;  finding tools, holding parts, doing what I'm told without wandering off (too far, anyway.)   Carl always jokes about how I get bored and walk away.  Not true!  Well, ok, a little true again today; there were some weeds near the garage which needed pulling and he didn't need me standing there, breathing down his neck, doing nothing while he worked.   I was there for the important stuff, like putting the nuts back on the bolts as he held them up from under the machine.

  I'd cut the field the last time in late August a year ago.  Letting a year go by wasn't the best idea, but we've been busy with everything else around here, so the field was low priority.  However, today (Saturday) was the day.

Carl removed a length of gnarly nylon baler twine wrapped up in the blades from last year's adventure.  Seems I'm always hitting something when I cut hay.  The poor tractor works hard enough without extra stuff stuck in the blades.

Blades and twine parting company.

After resharpening both blades and greasing the turning parts, I was on my way to the field.

It was around 4:30 PM before I got started.  The grass is tall and cuts hard and the seed heads get sucked into the radiator, so I have to keep an eye on the temperature gauge and get off every so often and clean the screen on the tractor.  

Tractor driving is a form of solitude.  I think and pray about a lot of things while going to and fro.  As with any equipment pulled behind a tractor, I spend more time looking backward than forward out of necessity to ward off any disasters which might happen if something came unhooked, plus checking on how well the grass is being cut.  Maybe I can go up a gear?  Maybe I should go down a gear?  It all depends on the quality of the cut.

Being over eighty degrees out and with the tractor working hard, the heat was climbing.  There was a breeze at times though, and it felt heavenly.    The pine trees have grown so much over the years that now the tractor barely fits between them even though they were planted sixteen feet on center.    

As I circled around the trees, I kept a close eye out for any hornet's nests, which sometimes are located out on the end of a branch.  I'm not fond of hornets in general, and messing with their house seems like a really bad idea.  There were no nests in sight, but I was glad to get back out into the open field nonetheless as it the work goes faster in a straight line.

Just as I was starting to cut in the open field,  I suddenly felt something burning on my neck.  A yellow jacket/wasp/hornet-ish-like thing was stuck down my shirt.  I started swatting at my neck and suddenly felt searing pain on the back of my head and one of my hands.
By then I'd lost control of the slow moving tractor and was whacking myself as hard as I could to kill them when two more landed on my hands and stung them, too.  At this point, I knew I was in big trouble.  Without slowing down the engine RPM's, I threw out the PTO for the mower, stepped in the clutch and slammed the tractor into high gear, flying across the field in a breakneck fashion.  Thankfully, I was able to out run the demons.

A bit of a panic ensued as I hightailed it for home; you know how you hear people can become allergic to bee stings at any point in their lives?   And that could be from only one sting, this was something else again as I counted at least six stings.  I don't own an Epi Pen.....I'd better drive faster to get home just in case.  

Carl came up to the tractor as I pulled in the driveway and I showed him my rapidly swelling hands.  

"Are you ok?"

"I guess so, I can still breathe, I'm assuming that's the most important thing," I said, wincing as I took  a bag of frozen peas, hash browns, cauliflower and strawberries out of the freezer.

"Keep ice on it and text me if you start to feel sick," Carl said.  "Do you want me to go finish the field?"

"You can if you want to, but stay away from the last place I was cutting."  

Carl said he could see I'd hit a ground nest as it was still swarming when he drove back out to the field.  He steered clear of the area, thankfully.  This is the first time I've ever hit a ground hornet nest and I hope it will be the last.  

When I made supper (guess what we had?)  Yep, peas, cauliflower, hash browns and strawberries.  We had to eat my First Aid kit since it was defrosted.

A quick internet search revealed fatal anaphylactic shock can occur in less than five minutes for those unfortunate souls who are truly allergic.  Wow.  That's a sobering thought.  I guess I'm lucky to get off with two swollen, awfully painful hands which hurt much worse than my scalp and neck does.  

I did dishes tonight and got my now-freakishly-fat hand caught in a wide mouth quart jar.  That was a shock.  Luckily I got it out with just a little work. 

I was glad I had also remembered to remove my wedding band, too, or my circulation would be cut off as my hand swells.  

 I was just telling Ann the other day how quickly our lives can change.  On Friday afternoon on my way back into the  house from the mailbox, I tripped walking up our back porch steps, slamming my full weight onto my right wrist as I hit the porch railings.  My wrist didn't break this time, thank goodness, but really?  What was I looking at?

 This all goes to show how fast things can happen, as in the old saying 'A New York Minute'.  One minute you're fine, the next minute you're doing battle with venom-filled insects.  

I've been stung before, which definitely makes me twice shy.  

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Now where's my Benadryl?  It's gonna be a long night.