The summer after we built a deck onto our house — there were four new decks  on our street alone — our baby was eight months old. In addition to undergoing another hot summer, we had a huge yellow jacket infestation in our neighborhood.

One of the problems with wood decks is that they are, unfortunately, a place yellow jackets like to build their colonies. We had a particular problem with them appearing through the gaps in the decking.

Our daughter was too little to understand what they were and when she was playing her little pool and a yellow jacket crawled up between the boards, she reached down to pick it up. The look on my child’s face nearly broke my heart. Why did it hurt her? Why would anyone or anything hurt her? It was such a harsh lesson for such a little girl. She wasn’t totally traumatized, but she also never tried to pick up a yellow jacket again. She was nothing, if not smart.