Thread: Death, where is thy sting?

Righto @akaroa1, you asked for it... an utterly shit yarn, but hope you get a chuckle out of it...

After a week down in Chch for work, went out to bro's farm in Mid-Canty for the weekend. There was a loose plan to potentially head a bit further South to chase some wobblies.

However, after a stint of good weather, yesterday it was all hands on deck for silage, a bit of cattle work, and getting ready for the barley getting harvested today. To make up for lack of wobbly hunting, bro said last night we'd go and have a look for some posso's. Off we trotted, .17, woofer, and high spirits.

Barely out of his kennel, woofer bolts into the bluegums behind the house, and starts yapping up a tree. There, staring out of the ivy were a couple of beady, red eyes. To get a better shot, we were scrambling around a pile of straw and bark that came out of the bobby calf sheds. Bang! .17 normally smokes them, but this one dropped and was still running around (brother was shooting, FYI). It gave woofer a bit of a run around, then "hiss, growl, hiss, growl, crunch". Game over.

Right about this time, a strange hum starts below us... then around us... growing louder and louder... then: "Ow, fark!!"... "Ow fark-fark-fark, ow-ow-ow!!". There was a farkin' bloody wasp nest in the pile of straw we were stomping around on, and they were none too happy about it. Bro went in to the trees to finish off the posso, still slapping wasps and swearing as he was went. I herded the two nephews into the paddock, trying to get them away from the action, and all of us still swatting and slapping fecking wasps in the dark as we made our escape, all dancing round like absolute loonies.

We'd seen a possum by the gate as we drove in earlier, so went to get him. Now, either the wasps followed us, or were still on our clothing, but even while the second possum was dispatched, they were still buzzing about, and we were still getting stung. The outing was promptly cut short, and we all bolted home with our tails well and truly between our legs (except woofer, he'd had a great time!), stripping off clothing and cursing as we ran.

Despite 2 dead possums, it was the worst possum shoot ever. The whole thing must have been bloody hilarious to watch, though.

The team were still going hard harvesting when I headed to the airport this arvo, but if all went to plan, el waspo's will be swimming in petrol tonight!