The nest in the upper right corner of this window is something I've been watching grow for the past few months. The day I noticed it, there were already two honeycomb shaped attachments, and just 2 hornets building it. The storm window had come loose just a tiny portion at a slight slant, and that is how they gained entrance between the storm window and house window. I watched them for about half an hour or so, thinking the whole time "I'll have to spray that down later on tonight before bed." However, the next morning came, and I'd forgotten... so, with a cup of morning coffee, I watched them some more.

Normally, anytime a bunch of hornets or yellowjackets start building one of these nests on the house, I get concerned about the kids getting bitten, along with Kenny and I getting stung, too... with this one, though, they picked out such a great spot right in between the storm window and house window, very high up, on a side of the house that is pretty remote. It helped that they were in good view of the webcam, as the computer I'm on is right in front of this particular window. My only concern has been that once summer is over and it starts to get cold, they may try to burrow into the warm house... but, well, I'll see what happens. I already checked the window panes to make sure there's no weak wood areas leading into the house.

So these yellowjackets/hornets have got quite a cool home, there's at least 40 or 50 hole things in their nest, and there's about ten of them that live in there. I didn't see any baby ones or anything, I don't know if they are just born big or what, but they just work busily all day, flying around at times to get gosh knows what. Probably food and water? I've no idea... but they have become interesting to me, so one day I do plan to spend some time reading about them online. Once I find a good website on them, I'll show the kids and we'll all learn some stuff we didn't know about this insect we usually just run screaming from.

I've only gotten bitten by this type of insect perhaps three times in my life, and the majority of those three times (two of them) happened in the week after Hurricane Bob hit Massachusetts in the early 1990s. A bunch of trees were toppled down by the high winds, and it displaced a bunch of flying insects who build their nests in trees. I will never forget driving down Route Six in New Bedford near Buttonwood Park a few days after the storm and seeing people in cars all around me getting stung, and the hornets, yellowjackets and bees that were flying around in my own car, threatening to do the same to me... and they did, eventually.

This time, though, they are at a safe distance. I can just watch them, and not bother them, and just enjoy learning about them. They won't sting anybody here in the house, they just want to hang out in our window for the summer and probably into the fall.

So, I'm going to let them... unless I read something online that explains why it's a bad idea. Hopefully, though, it's ok to just let them be there. I like them being there.

I was surfing around youtube to see if anybody had a clip of an old song called Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue (originally done by Gene Austin in 1926, but has had many versions done of it by various artists), and found this great video of what looks like a father and a son performing it (link): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c-AD8_nwPY&search=five%20foot%20two

What a busy but fun couple of weeks it's been. :) Kevin and Dawn got married on Saturday, and the inlaws came up from Florida and stayed here until yesterday morning. The weekend before that, Donna and David came to camp out on our front lawn in their mobile home and we spent most of the holiday weekend visiting ponds and lakes around Cape Cod, watching fireworks, and grilling up chicken and linguica. David made this cool boat that he designed himself and the boys had a blast seeing turtles out on the ponds and lakes and taking boating adventures. Everyone is so tanned! I usually burn, but this year I just got a golden brown, even though I pretty much cover myself with sunscreen.

This morning I woke up at two-forty-five a.m. after hitting bed at ten, so I think a few weeks of little sleep needed is here. Other bloggers probably get this, a few times a year, usually once a season, a block of a week or two where you just don't sleep your usual six or eight hours (for me it's around six or seven hours a night) but wake up after getting roughly half your normal sleep, but feel wide awake and energetic throughout the day? I used to think it was odd, but I've talked with other people online who report the same thing happens to them, so I know it's not that odd at all. It's not insomnia, because throughout the day I function at the same rate I always do, and it definitely doesn't have a negative impact on my awake hours. I'm actually even more energetic during this phase. In the summer time, I look forward to this little-sleep-needed pattern, because I get so much done before anybody in the house is even up for their day. Leaves the day wide open for other stuff, and in the summer time there's just so many options for other stuff to do.

We're still not done with the deck, but we did figure out a way to move things along a bit better. We basically are taking off each slat of wood and sanding what paint is on it right off, with an electric sander. It's tedious work, but at least there's visual progress at the end of a day. The past few weeks, though, we've not tackled the deck much, with family visiting us here on Cape and all. Most likely this weekend we will wrap up that project. There's probably another ten hours of sanding to do left, and that can be divided up between two days, and then one whole day for staining/waterproofing it. After that, I probably will start the indoor painting again, and the section of the house I'm doing this year should only take 4 days total. I might wait until September to start it, actually, because the deck project feels like it was enough home improvement for one summer. Will basically just see how inspired and ready I feel up to doing it after the deck is done.

Got a great new board game called The Cape Cod Challenge. We played it with the inlaws and the kids the other day, and normally this type of game goes for thirty or forty bucks, but I found it for under fifteen bucks at a Christmas Tree Shop. It's set up somewhat like a cross between Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit. The boys and a neighborhood friend of theirs as well as my inlaws and I all sat down at the table for an afternoon game when it was raining outside, and we learned so much about Cape Cod in that hour plus that we played. There were a few places in the question cards that we now want to go visit, because we'd never heard about them and they are right on Cape, short drives away in some cases. Massachusetts is so historical all over the place, but here on Cape Cod even moreso. It's amazing the things that have stood the test of time here, or that have been restored to their original form.

Getting ready to hit the shower to get ready for work today, and plan to spend most of tomorrow doing as much of the deck as I can while Kenny is at work. Hopefully the rain of today will clear out by tomorrow. If not, I'll just bring the sander right inside the house and take off some of the slats before they get too wet and just do them indoors. I really, really want that deck done this weekend! :D

I most likely will have some geocaching adventures to blog about at some point next week. Absolutely this weekend, after the deck work is done for the day, KC and I plan to do a few geocaches. If tomorrow is sunny or even just not raining heavily, we are going to find the microcache on Main Street in Hyannis. We still haven't made our first cache yet, and that is the plan for this summer, to start one of our own. We have the container we plan to use, and the place picked out for where we'd like to put it, just have to get it ready and also find out exactly what we have to do to start an official one that can be put on the www.geocaching.com website. Shouldn't be that hard or complicated to do.

Will link to our first cache as soon as we get it situated. :)