YES - you did see that! Those paperwasps are your friends! I have an organic garden and I no longer have cabbage worms. The paperwasps took care of most of the worms last year and this year the wasps collected all the cabbage worms before they did any damage. The adult cabbage worm moths are out in large numbers, but they never take hold. I'm a little amazed by it. The wasps themselves never bother me in the garden. They just go about their business. I also discovered this spring that paperwasps also eat LEAF MINERS! I had a few leaf miners in my spinach, but they disappeared. I kept seeing the wasps crawling around the spinach and could not figure out what they were eating. Then I watched one chew through the leave and pull out a leaf miner. I have a sneaky suspicion that the paperwasps are running off with Mexican bean beetle larvae and immature squash bugs, but I haven't proved it yet. I've decided that Paperwasps are my favorite predator in the garden. When I started gardening, I never dreamed that they could knock out ALL my cabbage worms and leaf miners. Bellatrix

In my yard tool shed every summer I have 4 or 5 paperwasp nests hanging there and I have found other places where there are several of these paperwasp nests close to each other. This sounds like something looking for a reason to exist to me. These paperwasps have always been very gentle and do not mind my messing around near their nests, unlike their cousins the Yellow Jackets that most often nest in the ground and are just mean and ornery.

Having fun before winter comes? Congratulations on the new water park.

It's interesting to me that those who design feeders to be sold don't take into consideration what design(s) work(s). They keep making junk because we keep buying it. In my opinion, there are three big no-no's in hummingbird feeders. 1) The holes through which the juice is accessed must be small: just big enough for the hummers and no more. 2) The distance from the top of the juice to the feeder hole needs to be too long for wasps and bees, but short enough for hummers to get access. 3) The feeder MUST NOT leak. Over the years I have fed thousands upon thousands of hummers.