A Major Victory

or, Me and the Bees (again).

So the weather's been warming, and my thoughts have naturally been turning to...painting (again) (...more). I've been drawn to the sad state of the upper windows and eaves on the east side.

Here's how the east side looked when we bought the place.

Besides just badly needing to be painted, I figured this was an area I could do in short bits and pieces without needing a ladder or scaffolding. (It's also the face of the house you see when you drive up, so I'll get a lot of bang for the buck!)

The weather being so opportune, I went out to evaluate and start scraping on Thursday. Things were going alright and paint was flying off everywhere, and then I noticed there seemed to be an ever-increasing number of wasps/bees/yellowjackets (this was the small yellow and black version, not the big black version we have) flying around.

I took a closer look and realized there were quite a number of nests being tended and built right under the eaves, very close to my head. I don't claim to be fluent in wasp-speak but they did look rather threatened, or at least disturbed, by the big creature running a large metal tool close to their homes (me). Of course, they had a right to feel threatened since my primary intention is to scrap down and destroy their homes. But it is my house.

I made a hasty retreat right at that moment though, being rather outnumbered.

I returned, however, with a can of whoop-ass (aka wasp & hornet killer) and gave them all a good dose. For good measure I climbed onto the south porch roof and sprayed a few nests there too. I'd be very happy, truth be told, if we had a lot less wasp/hornet nests around here!

After spraying the whoop-ass, I made an even hastier retreat through the open window and gave myself a rather large scrape on my back. When Troy saw it and heard the whole story, he decided me and the wasps were tied at one point each.

Since I saw no wasp activity and was able to get rid of all the nests (east and south), when I went back out to the porch roof this afternoon, I'd have to argue that I won this round.

So, yes, I was able to get some work done. Scraped everything I could reach:

The windows were especially bad. Is there some reason work like this either has to be above your head or below your knees? I'm not sure my neck can take this!!

I can't quite reach the far corner in the top left of the picture, but I'm hoping Troy might be able to reach it. That would save a tricky ladder/scaffolding solution.

Not to rest on my laurels, after I recouped from the scraping, I did an hour of priming too. Most of this painting will be white coats on top of white base coats, so I'll try to limit the number of postings...