Squirrel's revenge

Today has been one of those days where I've been trying to get things done. Sam woke up early and joined me for some yoga, then we grabbed some breakfast, made a new rocket out of a paper towel center, and then I started to paint the ceiling in the kitchen/dining room. Sam loves when I work on the house because then he gets to watch his favorite shows (Calliou and Backyardagains) while I work. It took forever. Then we had lunch and made a controller (cardboard box, legos, lincoln log) for his rockets. This was followed by Tom and Jerry (yes, from way back when we were kids and you know, Sam's belly laughs were a reminder why we loved this stuff. I'm sure it made us evil and violent too, that's why we're such unproductive members of society but I digress.) for Sam while I sealed the grout in the shower.

After all this I figured Sam needed to do something fun so we headed out to East Woods for a little hike. The weather was beautiful and while I'd planned to hike the path with Sam, instead we opted to hop rocks across the stream. It's kind of nice to just follow the kid agenda sometimes. We picked up lots and lots and lots of acorns, probably causing squirrel winter starvation. We experimented with acorn floatage and sinkage. If they're brown they float, if they're green it could go either way in case you were wondering.

We were heading merrily on our way home when all of a sudden Sam started screaming. I turned back to look at him and he was slapping at himself and crying and when I got there I saw he was being swarmed by bees or wasps or whatever the heck it was. They kept coming even when we started running. They were under and on his clothes I ripped off his pants and shirt to get them away from him. Even when he wasn't in them any longer they were on the clothes so I just left them there and ran away with Sam.

Final tally: Stings on Sam - 6, Stings on Anne = 6

Visual Evidence of some of Sam's stings:

I'm sure the squirrels sent the bees/wasps whatever after us because we took their acorns. Why else would this happen?

We're both OK, the stings are just a little uncomfortable now but we found they reacted well to the internal application of ice cream.

I wonder what the person who finds the clothes will think happened in those woods? Will they expect to find a body somewhere?

Maybe the squirrels got even by sending the wasps (or hornets, who really knows?)

Beth, I'm sure they must have been killer bees.....

Edited to add: Apparently they were Yellow Jackets which are a type of wasp the size of honey bees. They're attracted to dark clothing and Sam was wearing his favorite dark green sweat pants. And they swarm.

And more, Ben thinks we should call the police and let them know what happened in case they get a call from someone finding the clothes. I think the police won't care.