We seem to have a family of yellow jackets living in the compost pile. I was hoping they were just dining there, but there are A LOT of them and they never seem to leave. :/

Sorry for the close up of the compost pile. These are yellow jackets, right?

This is my consequence for neglecting the poor compost pile for so long. I have spent hours today reading about how to get rid of them. I have learned that they swarm when agitated, apparently loud noise like the lawn mower can agitate them, and reading all that makes me itchy and twitchy all over! Ugh. I was painting on the back porch and swatted three of them with the paint brush! Good thing their buddies didn’t swarm!

On another note, the kids found the dirt garden again this evening. They went outside to play tag, wore themselves out, and settled in the dirt.

Dirty birds!

Eve found a worm and was eager to show me.

Playing with trucks in the dirt. Still a little boy.

They both came in covered with bug bites! Maybe not covered, but they each had six or seven swollen bites. I was worried they were stings at first, but neither of them noticed getting bitten and I think they would have noticed if they’d been stung by yellow jackets six times!

Weird afternoon. New neighbors and new stairs… we’re movin’ on… up?

Any advice how to remove yellow jackets?