The other evening at dusk, I walked down the steps at the far end of our deck to find something I’d left in the yard. As I reached the bottom step, I felt a sharp, hot tingle that turned to a stinging, almost electric pain in my left hand. Then the same sensations occurred in quick succession on the back of my neck, my right elbow, my right calf (I had on shorts), and my right ankle.

My vertical leaping ability never was significant and these days it’s virtually nil. I did manage, however, to spring several feet out into the yard and swat away at the sources of my discomfort, which I had realized by this time were yellow jackets. They’d built a nest in the ground under the bottom step. I could see them swarming angrily in and out of the entrance hole.

At that moment I saw that Zeke, my German shorthaired pointer, was following me. As he reached the top of the stairs, I yelled for him to go back. But he kept on coming and received the full fury of aroused hive. Somehow or other they knew that his nose and the tender, bare spot under the base of his tail were his most vulnerable areas. Zeke squalled, but he did, nevertheless, know from previous incidents what to do. He jumped in the creek.

I rubbed away at my stings until the pain subsided. Then I went back on the deck, using another set of steps, went in the house, popped open a cool beverage, and plotted my revenge. This consisted of buying the next day a powerful aerosol “Wasp & Hornet” spray that propels insecticide in a stream for about 10 to 12 feet. This I administered just before dark. The yellow jackets promptly retreated from that site and haven’t, to date, returned. But I know they’re out there somewhere in the yard or garden or nearby woods plotting their revenge. It’s only a matter of time before Zeke or I or both us encounter them again.

My wife, Elizabeth, and I sometimes observe places on our property where black bears have excavated yellow jacket nests out of the ground. They do so in such a neat fashion that it appears, at first glance, as if someone had been digging a hole with a posthole digger. It’s well known that bears consider yellow jacket larvae to be a delicacy. But we wonder why bears aren’t disrupted from this activity by the numerous stings they must receive? Do they, unlike dogs, have some sort of protective system? Or do they relish yellow jacket larvae to such an extent that they’re willing to undergo the pain for the pleasure?

I have read in many sources that a favorite food of traditional Cherokees is yellow jacket soup. It is by all accounts a clear soup that’s very tasty. After my recent yellow jacket episode, I decided to Google “yellow jacket soup” and came up with a recipe from a book titled Traditional Cherokee Recipes By Principal Chief Wilma Mankiller (1988).

Wilma Mankiller was — as some here in the Smokies region will recall — the former principal chief of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma. I had the good fortune to meet Wilma Mankiller at the reunion of the eastern and western Cherokees at Red Clay, Tenn., back in 1984. She was then the vice chief, but even at that point in her career she was a very forceful, highly articulate individual. It didn’t occur to me that she might have a recipe for yellow jacket soup.

George Ellison is a writer who lives in Bryson City. He wrote the biographical introductions for the reissues of two Appalachian classics: Horace Kephart’s Our Southern Highlanders and James Mooney’s History, Myths, and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees. Readers can contact him at P.O. Box 1262, Bryson City, N.C. 28713, or at ellisongeorge@cs.com.