RHYS BOWEN: Dear God, if you're listening and you don't mind I have a small question. Why did you create fruit flies? And for that matter house flies that only spread disease or mosquitos that spread disease and also bite? What use are they in the great fabric of things? Fruit flies breed on decaying fruit and as far as i can see don't do anything useful. In fact they infect good fruit and here in California where the fruit industry is huge, we are supposed to trap and eradicate them.
Were you not concentrating the day that fruit flies were made? Were you already bored or tired after the creation of large things like dinosaurs and wooly mammoths so that you handed over the last few days of creation to a lesser heavenly being, one slightly less competent?
Anyway this blunder in creation has turned a peaceful, gentle being like myself into a ruthless killer. It all started a week ago when I brought home some organic tomatoes. When I opened the plastic box one small creature flew out. One tiny, harmless flying thing.. or so I thought. Until the next night when I was sitting, enjoying a glass of wine. I looked up and two tiny creatures were happily swimming around in my glass.
Then it was quite a few around the flowers I had just bought. I carried them out to the garbage bin. But the darned things kept appearing. I Googled and tried various traps: apple cider vinegar (didn't work). Honey (didn't work). Red wine... works well. At one stage my kitchen counter looked like a science experiment.
Where were they coming from? I had put all fruit and veg into the fridge but there they were, sitting on the rim of the bowl containing the wine. And cunning little buggers too.. If I moved my hand near to squash them they flew away. I tried bringing down the fly swatter rapidly, thus knocking them down into the wine. They swam across to the side and started to climb out. I squashed one on my thumb, then watched as he readjusted his wings and tried to fly off.
It was only when I found some in the pantry that I learned the horrid truth. At the back of the potato bin was a rotting potato where they were happily breeding. I've taken it out, scrubbed it, scrubbed the floor and now I hope it's just a case of rounding up the last survivors. But I've been spending half my day killing! Every time I come into the kitchen I see one, sitting at the edge of the wine. I creep up, fly swatter in hand and bring it down. Only to find the wretched thing has escaped again. It is becoming an obsession. So... if anyone knows a brilliant way to get rid of fruit flies, please share.
And God, if you can share a moment from more pressing things like defending Greenland from invasion or protecting innocent people from ICE, could you possible un-make the fruit flies?
Oh, I can so relate, Rhys . . . those annoying little creatures are everywhere and, sad to say, I haven't yet found anything that will get rid of them ☹
ReplyDeleteUgh! We’ve heard to put wine corks in the fruit bowl - not sure if that really works, or if the wine just makes you care less. Returning to SoCal today - hopefully there won’t be any little friends waiting for us.
ReplyDeleteWell, most flies exist for other animals to eat. God did not expect us to bring fruit into a house. :) Years ago I found a terrific solution for fruit flies. Take a small jar with a metal lid. Flip the lid upside down and punch it full of holes with a nail. Fill the jar with a couple of inches of wine or fruit juice as bait, and put back on the lid. Voila, a trap! Put the trap near your fruit bowl. Drawn by the enticing aroma, fruit flies will cunningly find the holes to enter the trap, but somehow cannot figure out how to get out. Perhaps they are too drunk? Every few days, skim the dead fruit flies off the surface of the liquid and perhaps add some fresh. In my experience you will soon be fruit-fly-free. (Selden)
ReplyDeleteThat is my trap, too, Selden, except I just pop a small, flexible funnel upside down into a juice glass with wine in the bottom. The funnel should not touch the surface of the liquid. They fly in, but cannot fly back out.
DeleteWait, not upside down, just with the funnel pointed down. Still a bit muzzyheaded this morning.
DeleteThey are annoying. Selden's solution is the one that I have heard most often, usually using vinegar as bait. They aren't too bad around here in winter, but are relentless pests in the summer when they find ways into the house besides hitchhiking on ripe fruit. I think God has got some serious stuff going on these days, Rhys, so try Selden's trap.
ReplyDeleteDear God: Why did you create humans? They take good fruit and use it instead of waiting for it to rot as Nature intended. Plus, they seem intent on destroying us. Just the other day, one of them crushed Cousin Ziggy between his fingers and all he was doing was enjoying the rottenness of Nature's bounty (a banana, in this case). Really, God, you should have thought this through. One might begin to wonder if fruit flies were ever your Chosen. -- Sincerely, The Fruit Flies
ReplyDeleteDrosophila! They are much used in research because they make new generations in the blink of an eye (I learned this from a bio major friend in college...). What worked for me last fall is like Selden's trap. I put apple cider vinegar in a jar, tightly rubberbanded plastic wrap over the top, and poked a few holes in the plastic. I set the jar near the countertop compost can where they were happily making new generations and within two weeks, not a fruit fly was seen except dead in the jar.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with yours!
Oh Rhy, we all empathize! I put cider vinegar in a small shallow bowl, add a few drops of dishwashing dishwashing liquid. It does work, eventually.
ReplyDeleteThere is a product called Zevo that’s similar to a nightlight with a sticky surface. Plug it in close to your fruit bowl and the flies are attracted and get caught in the surface. From Mignonne in Arkansas
ReplyDeleteSorry you are going through this Rhys! Though it does give you a reason to open some red wine.Benjamin Franklin famously said that beer is evidence that God loves us and wants us to be happy. I think it applies to wine as well.
ReplyDeleteMy unhelpful fruit fly story: When my parents were elderly, my sister's half-wild long-haired cat Sami went to live with them. Sami flourished there--she had laps to sit on, food, and not a whole lot of chaos around her. At some point, my parents had a fruit fly infestation and decided to use sticky strips to capture the flies. Somehow one of the strips got stuck in poor Sami's fur. The resulting attempts to unstick Sami caused several injuries and much hilarity. Eventually Sami was free. Red wine would have been a better solution.
Dear Rhys, and perhaps God – when you solve the fruit fly problem, would you please consider the white fly problem. They have secret homes on all my plants. They laugh at fly-be-gone, soap, hoses, alcohol though I have not tried the red wine and even picking off. I refuse to give in and destroy all my plants, and have so far excluded inviting aphids in as a spare army – they are as much of an issue as the white flies.
ReplyDeleteOh well, summer is coming – is it not? – and the doors will be open and maybe then I will not care.
As for part B of Rhys’s request, maybe you could that up to a priority before the flies, especially before someone’s greedy eyes begin to focus on Canada.