Major pest explosion creates set backs

So check this out...as IF....my life isn't an annoying enough interuption to my horse journey....the stinking weather has wreaking havoc around these parts.  The long wet winter, then the long wet spring, cut WAY into summer, including snowing in JULY when it should be 105*.......has caused an explosion of all sorts of pests.  Normally one species a year gets out of control, and it is a different species each summer.....last year it was the flies.....but this year makes last year seem tame.  The flies are beyond out of control and my spalding fly predators coupled with fly spray, are barely making a dent.  My horses water trough is full of aproximately a hundred tadpoles, so at some point we are going to have a frog/toad explosion....I just don't have the heart to dump them out and kill them.....they eat FLIES.  I am hearing horrid reports of the rattlesnake boom, but fortunately have yet to see one myself (always a hope regardless of the situation).  As if all that isn't enough, we got home on sunday after boating to discover our house engulfed in ants trying to escape the heat.  They were in the pantry and all the food in there, in the laundry room and kitchen, a trail across my desk and back down to the dog food that the dog understandably stopped eating.  In the hallway and bathrooms, and all over my bedroom night stand.  The next to worst, is the leave cutter bugs, that normally do not come in the house, that are also in alarming numbers this season, have decided the warmth of my tv screen and my body at night.  It is bad enough that I have a phobia of spiders crawling on me in my sleep, to now have these stupid lawn bugs wake me up crawling on my leg or something.  So now for my poor horses misfortune.....JELLOW JACKETS.  Living in the country has thickened my city skin, and I no longer run wild screaming at the sight of an innocent honey be....but I have yet to get over my fear of the thier evil cousins the jackets and hornets.  OMG, they are off the hook right now.  It all started when I went to feed my horses sunday morning and found two yellow jackets sitting on my hay.  I screamed for my husband and the fight has been on since then.  There was a huge nest in my hay shed, an even bigger one in my tack shed, an even bigger one in the tack room of my horse trailer, not to mention the couple dozen more that are in between  the shingles of my roof.  I estimate that there were close to 200+ jackets buzzing about my house that morning.  We got some spray and my husband knocked down all the nests he could physically reach.  We hung a trap and hoped to catch the ones that didn't die from the spray.  Well it has not helped the horses water trough at all.  We caught a few under the tree, but last night there were still about 30+ hovering over thier water, with the horses in the shadows just watching, parched and desperate for water.  I moved the trap near the trough last night after the jackets nested down for the night.  I just called my son at lunch today to walk out and see if we had achieved any success.  Of course NO.  So I googled "jellow jacket trap" to see what solutions I could find to this problem.  I was surprised by what I found and hope to have success tomorrow with this FREE home made trap that I will make tonight when I get home.  Here is a video I found on one version, and here is an article on the other version.  Similar, but a bit different, so I will try both, as the commercial brand is NOT sufficient this nasty out of control season. I swear if fall rolls around and the turantulas are out of control too....I will just faint.  What does all this have to do with setting me back on my journey you ask......well it is too damn hot with venomous and annoying pests buzzing about for me to be outside!
Savvy On
Michelle