No, this isn’t a Halloween themed post again, although that would be a great title for one! Instead, this is a post documenting my near death experience out in the garden today. I’m still trying to calm my racing heart as I type this but the good news is, I survived (obviously) and will live another day to face my mortal enemy once again.

Mortal enemy = murder hornets, of course.

Ugh. 😣

Things started out well. I pulled some more of these gorgeous, softball sized onions…

…and the last of the monster zucchini…

I checked on everything else and moved the sprinkler before making my way over near the apple tree to FINALLY harvest some of the Honeycrisps…

And that’s when I noticed that almost half of them were either on the ground already (!) or were being eaten right before my eyes by the &$(@! (insert your own expletive here) wasps!

I tried to snap a quick picture just in case my EpiPens failed me and I met my maker trying to pick these stupid apples…

You know, it would have been kind of like those eerie last photos before the guy gets eaten by the grizzly bear in Alaska or gored by the buffalo he was trying to pet in Yellowstone?

Yeah.

Except I wasn’t trying to pet these murder hornets or even live among them as one of their own. That would be crazy! I was trying to avoid them since I’m deathly allergic but at the same time I knew I had to grab as many of the apples I could before they got to them all.

Even the ones on the ground had wasps munching away on them, so they were a total loss. 😥

I was so bummed!!

Arrghh.

Oh well, I did get enough from that tree to make two pies this year. Last year I only got enough to make one pie (it’s still a young tree) so I guess I should be happy that I’ve doubled my yield this year!

And lived to tell about it! 😄