My darling wonderfully gifted and creative child is still in denial. Has no clue why she did it or why it might be a problem for me. or for her. On Wednesday and Thursday , there seem to be no end to the wave of flies. How is this possible? A quick check on-line tells me why. These little females can lay 500 EGGS! That was some serious banana. Must have been chock full.of larvae. Getting sick thinking of it...
I am going to Hell, I know it for certain.I have taken the lives (and souls if they have them) of what seems like 1000's of fruit flies since this whole thing started.
My mass murder spree started on Tuesday with me swatting at them with rolled up newspaper. Not a very effective technique. I am reminded though of a story that I read as a child....."Take that!" as she struck the flies such a heavy blow with the newspaper that no fewer than seven lay dead upon the table, while the others flew up to the ceiling fan in great haste."Seven at one blow!" said Bebe with great pride. "Such a brave deed ought to be known all over the metaverse , and it won't be my fault if folks fail to hear of it."
I ran from spot to spot trying to catch groups of them until I thought, this will never work, I'll be insane by the end of the day. Think of other methods. Think Bebe.Think.........
Method 2- Fly Strips, Ok, a bit old fashioned, and kind of disgusting to look at, good for catching a hundred or so.
Method 3- Isopropyl alcohol (wearing protection) in a spray bottle, knocked them down and killed the ones hanging on the counters and on the cabinets. Result, disinfected counters and flies refusing to land.
Method 4- Traps made out of Mason jars and sniff sniff, my Shiraz. Let the flys go in ... cover quickly with a plastic lid, quick swirl to get them wet, and let them drown. Not very effective cause you have to stand there and catch a bunch in the jar . Another downside I didn't like having to share my good wine with a bunch of pests. Method 4A, Trap with apple cider. Produced nothing , I guess they don't like organic cider.
Method 5- (after consulting Google) Made the trap out of Mason jar, a banana peel and plastic wrap. Place peel in jar, cover with taut piece of plastic wrap and poke holes with a fork in wrap. The holes are big enough for the flies to get in, but they cant find the hole to climb out. This method produced amazingly good but disgusting results. I suppose the buggers were partial to bananas. By Friday, The jars were full and audible buzzing was heard coming from the jars. Our house is almost fruit fly free now and I can get back to the business of being creative in Inworldz.
What happened to the flies in the jar you ask? Did I release them outside or not.... ? You know the answer. I am going to Hell and my darling wonderfully gifted and creative child is still clueless (and will not be near bananas for the foreseeable future).
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Friday, November 19, 2010
Princess of the Flies
I have been absent from virtual worlds for a bit now because I have been fighting what seems like a losing battle. I don't know when it started.with my daughter, but I guess it was bound to happen sometime. My daughter who is now 9 had started expressing dislike for certain foods, bananas in particular. This is unusual because ever since she came into our lives at the age of 6 months, she has loved food passionately! This is a child who loves Lima beans, sushi and Brussel sprouts and the one who asked me to serve broccoli and cauliflower at her 6th birthday party. Totally opposite from her brother who lived on nutritional supplements and refused to eat for 5 years.
I discovered on Tuesday that I had a fruit fly problem. I didn't think anything of it until late in the day when they seemed to be everywhere. I went a bit nuts swatting flies and looking for the source. They seemed to be hovering around the fruit basket and around the kitchen food locker where canned good and baking supplies are kept. I checked the fruit and that wasn't it, checked in the locker .... nope, nothing there. The more I moved, the more the flies went buzzing about EVERYWHERE!!! EWW. I knew at that moment, that the source had something to do with my kids. If you are at all squeamish, stop reading here. If you are a parent of bright and hyperactive kids, read on, you will understand.
The flies seemed to be more concentrated near where my daughter sits for meals. I confronted her and she acted like I had 5 heads. Denial ain't just a river in Egypt , as my late mom and Mark Twain used to say. I knew I was on to something. Long story shorter now...... My darling wonderfully gifted and creative child as I shall call her, has not been eating all of her breakfast or lunch. Mornings have been tough for her and me too because she is now in an independent school 25 minute drive instead of the local elementary school which is a 3 minute walk. No rolling out of bed at 7:45 anymore. She is slow and unfocused and would rather read and chat rather than eat and go to school. Don't get me wrong, she loves school, she is just not organizedWhile I am getting ready thinking she is finishing up her breakfast, she has been wrapping up uneaten food in napkins and hiding them out of sight under the buffet . This explains a lot, especially where all of my cloth napkins have gone. While this is a very creative idea, it made me spend hours scrubbing and swatting and sacrificing my wine in effort to trap the bastards.
I suffer with severe seasonal allergies --- stuffed up nose until the killing frost, so I am pretty much useless in the detecting scents department. I should have been a fruit fly... I would have easily found the rotting banana, rolled up in my Battenberg lace napkin, looking very much like a corpse in a murder mystery movie. I would have also found the bite sized shredded wheat nuggets, bundled up in 2 of my favorite napkins, still moist from Monday's milk. And .... and..... all in all about a weeks worth of assorted tidbits from meals, all bundled up neatly in napkins. There is good news. All of these neat little bundles were in the pewter platters and bowls stored under and not on the carpet. And the kitchen source? A quart sized plastic Chinese soup container, with oatmeal and BANANAS! the mother lode! I spent all day searching for the buggers and there they were, unbelievable. Just out of broom and mop range. Exhausted, from dealing with the family and sending hundreds and hundreds of fruit flies to their death, I sat down and managed to drink a fruit fly free glass or two of wine before falling asleep at the keyboard . Sigh
Day two...... Wednesday stay tuned.....
I discovered on Tuesday that I had a fruit fly problem. I didn't think anything of it until late in the day when they seemed to be everywhere. I went a bit nuts swatting flies and looking for the source. They seemed to be hovering around the fruit basket and around the kitchen food locker where canned good and baking supplies are kept. I checked the fruit and that wasn't it, checked in the locker .... nope, nothing there. The more I moved, the more the flies went buzzing about EVERYWHERE!!! EWW. I knew at that moment, that the source had something to do with my kids. If you are at all squeamish, stop reading here. If you are a parent of bright and hyperactive kids, read on, you will understand.
The flies seemed to be more concentrated near where my daughter sits for meals. I confronted her and she acted like I had 5 heads. Denial ain't just a river in Egypt , as my late mom and Mark Twain used to say. I knew I was on to something. Long story shorter now...... My darling wonderfully gifted and creative child as I shall call her, has not been eating all of her breakfast or lunch. Mornings have been tough for her and me too because she is now in an independent school 25 minute drive instead of the local elementary school which is a 3 minute walk. No rolling out of bed at 7:45 anymore. She is slow and unfocused and would rather read and chat rather than eat and go to school. Don't get me wrong, she loves school, she is just not organizedWhile I am getting ready thinking she is finishing up her breakfast, she has been wrapping up uneaten food in napkins and hiding them out of sight under the buffet . This explains a lot, especially where all of my cloth napkins have gone. While this is a very creative idea, it made me spend hours scrubbing and swatting and sacrificing my wine in effort to trap the bastards.
I suffer with severe seasonal allergies --- stuffed up nose until the killing frost, so I am pretty much useless in the detecting scents department. I should have been a fruit fly... I would have easily found the rotting banana, rolled up in my Battenberg lace napkin, looking very much like a corpse in a murder mystery movie. I would have also found the bite sized shredded wheat nuggets, bundled up in 2 of my favorite napkins, still moist from Monday's milk. And .... and..... all in all about a weeks worth of assorted tidbits from meals, all bundled up neatly in napkins. There is good news. All of these neat little bundles were in the pewter platters and bowls stored under and not on the carpet. And the kitchen source? A quart sized plastic Chinese soup container, with oatmeal and BANANAS! the mother lode! I spent all day searching for the buggers and there they were, unbelievable. Just out of broom and mop range. Exhausted, from dealing with the family and sending hundreds and hundreds of fruit flies to their death, I sat down and managed to drink a fruit fly free glass or two of wine before falling asleep at the keyboard . Sigh
Day two...... Wednesday stay tuned.....
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
It seems to me......
It seems to me that we matter.What we say matters , if you take the time to understand where we are coming from, you will see, that we matter too. We may not be the big kids, the in-clique..... the popular ones, but what we have to say matters...... to us and maybe to you if you take to time to hear us out. Do not dismiss us.... Do not think that all we do is whine and complain. Take a look and see if there is a real problem and address it. Because one day , we will grow tired of being dismissed and leave. This is not a threat, it is just what happens.
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