One cold, windy, gray day back in the Fall of our first year in the house, I looked outside to find that one of the doors to the old chicken coop had blown open. I really never noticed the structure, maybe because it sits on one of the farthest corners of the property. It startled me, really. I thought someone or something was hanging out in there. Armed with my boyfriend by may side, I made my way out in the the unpleasantness of late Autumn to figure out what had happened, or why the door was opened.
As I approached the coop I could make out the shapes of some caging or fencing, and a few tomato cages were stacked upon each other. I remembered something about the previous owners allowing the neighbors to store some things in there; maybe they forgot to close the door behind them…There it was! My gaze wondered up and I was standing in the doorway, facing one of the biggest hornets nests I’ve ever seen! I screamed and ran away.
My boyfriend thought it was a birds nest made of mud. Silly. I’ll give him that it was dark in there, but I know a hornets nest when I see one. We argued about it for a while and soon it became a conversation piece, something that we’d show guests anytime they came over. He finally believed me that it was a hornets nest after his father, brother-in-law, and several other people told him, “Yep! It’s a hornets nest”.
I wanted it gone. The size of it was terrifying! I could only imagine what it would have been like to walk past that coop while the nest was in use. The building probably hummed and passersby were probably attacked while walking their dogs on the sidewalk! Coincidentally there was an article published in the Quad City Times around the same time we found it, about a guy named Kermit who collects these things. We learned that hornets only use the nest for one season, never to return to the old one. I was comforted by this fact but still wanted the thing removed, just in case. We were able to obtain some contact information for Kermit through the newspaper and hoped that he would be interested enough to take it off our hands.
Skip ahead almost two years and we still had the darned thing! Kermit’s address and phone number was misplaced and I guess we sort of forgot about it with all the other little projects we had. When I did remember I started mentioning it to anyone who would listen. Whoever wanted it could have it just as long as they removed it themselves (I also learned that a well preserved hornets nest could fetch a pretty penny); A coworker took me up on the offer.
Today was the day! I gave Harold the key to the coop and he used a tiny saw to remove it from its holding cell. I took one picture. Didn’t get too close. And now it’s gone. I realized that it really was quite pretty up close. You can’t see that from the photo. It had all different shades of tan and brown, maybe some gray, and I think I saw a bit of blue, all swirled around. It was impressive. I think I’m going to miss it a little bit…Ha ha! No I won’t!
H
