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lavacarancher

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Yesterday afternoon I was working on a waterer for my girls and walked by the corner of the shop carrying a few tools when out of nowhere something hit me in the side of the head just above the temple. Within a few seconds I found myself on my knees feeling like I was having a heart attack. Finally got my cell phone out and called my wife who was in the house. She came and got me up and got me in the house. Several Benadryls later I was feeling OK but my head was swollen up like a softball. Never had a red wasp hit me so hard. Must be global warming.
 
lavacarancher said:
Yesterday afternoon I was working on a waterer for my girls and walked by the corner of the shop carrying a few tools when out of nowhere something hit me in the side of the head just above the temple. Within a few seconds I found myself on my knees feeling like I was having a heart attack. Finally got my cell phone out and called my wife who was in the house. She came and got me up and got me in the house. Several Benadryls later I was feeling OK but my head was swollen up like a softball. Never had a red wasp hit me so hard. Must be global warming.
Click to expand...

Tough luck, yet some good luck in that you could get your phone out and help was available. Hope you are getting checked to see if you need the 'antidote' stuff to carry. Haven't heard of red wasps here in SD, but suppose there could be other varieties of them than the plain old black and yellow ones.......one of which is batting at my living room window right now! Sure hope you recover fast and that it was a 'once in a lifetime' incident!

I've never had problems with allergies to them, but two days ago one really dive bombed and stung my left hand just behind the first finger. Hurt more than any previous stings, but one Benadryl soon took hold and the spreading numbness up both arms stopped within an hour or so. Most times a plain old house fly hurts more and leaves a nastier itchy spot than a wasp, for me.

It was about 110% here an hour ago, with a brisk wind and so dry that the .06" of rain we got about 10:30 last night must have evaporated as it hit, except for what fell in the rain gauge! Miserable, but no record, either. Not many years ago we had a 117% day here, and our 'record breaking' year of 1936 (year Shorty was born) had both record high in summer, not certain, but think it was +122% or more at Gann Valley, SD, and the winter low was -56% in Jan. about straight north of us, near the ND border. Don't recall some of the data, but after all, that was four years before I was born! My father-in-law used to say Shorty was the only thing that grew on this ranch that year......and I'm sure that was accurate!

mrj
 
Never had an allergy to bee (or wasp) stings before but that doesn't mean anything. Red wasps are like yellow jackets on steroids. They are twice the size of a yellow jacket and packs a punch. May need to get tested. Wife is allergic to them but does not carry an eppy pen. My old Dad raised bees all my life and never had a problem until he was in his seventies. He got stung several times while robbing the hives and it dang near killed him. Doctors told him if he ever got one sting again it would probably kill him. We change as we get older.

Rain? What's that? Had to start filling my stock ponds this week. We haven't had any in about two months and it's starting to get a little serious. May have to start feeding before the end of the month. I turned them into one of my hay fields and that's just about gone now.

South Dakota, huh. You going to watch the eclipse? Wife and I were thinking about coming up to see it. Neither one of us have ever been there. Maybe we can visit Mt Rushmore while we're there.
 
Rain.....we were doing fairly well till two months ago, too. 'Normal' or 'average' is considered to be about 14-16" per year, more apt to be snow from about Nov. thru April, with the rain most often coming during the maybe 5month 'average' growing season.....but we have had lots of snow in both Sept. and even into June. Most calves we lost to snow was a really bad, if short lived, blizzard in May. Could not travel in any way to pick baby calves up. Very heavy, wet snow built up equally badly on horses hooves, 4-wheel drive pickups, and tractors. ALL were useless, plus losing ones direction was a real threat, too. We stock really conservatively, and have begun cutting numbers, so will see how it goes. We can get good fall rains, and our native grasses can recover pretty well fairly late into Oct. when we do. We are really blessed to have made the decision to put in lots of pasture taps when we got rural water here a few years ago. Seems costly, but sure makes a difference even when we don't have a drought, having the water well spread out to get the grazing more even.

Not sure how visible the eclipse will be here. I need to check out the details of it soon. It is supposed to be best in NE, not too far from us, and maybe in an area of SD within a hundred miles or so. We are about 120 miles from Valentine, which may be quite close to one of the special areas of NE to see it, but don't recall for sure just where that is. I'[m old enough to have seen a partial one many years ago. If you get to Mt. Rushmore, well worth the trip, imo, try to also see the lighting ceremony in the evening. That is pretty special. It seems like every part of SD has its special scenic places, and we recently found one new to us south of hiway #18 near the town of Rosebud. A road, BIA 5 follows the Little White River for a few miles, and it like dropping from SD prairies and plains into a miniature Black Hills, changing from cedar trees, Elms, and such to Pine Trees, Oaks, and similar trees like we see in the middle of the Black Hills on the west end of the state. Lived here for 77 and 81 years and it was the first time we saw that beautiful area! Guess there are real reasons this state is called "The Land of Infinite Variety"!

Hope you get to see the eclipse and many interesting places!
mrj
 

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