Monday, August 10, 2009

Problems with flys and flies...

Hi everyone, Scruffy here. Yes, I'm still visiting my brother Buttons and the bears of the burbs. That's what I call them, now that I've become a city bear. Since I'm here, and I don't know for sure how long. I thought I'd take advantage of the opportunity and post something on Buttons blog.

When I was to move to Chicago, I tried to switch identities and places with another bear named Lucky. In the switcheroo caper I traded clothes with him. This sort of backfired on me, because he wouldn't give me back my clothes. So I asked mom if she'd make me a new pair of jeans. This time blue jeans, and she also made me a pair of boxers.

New boxers - this photo is for you Bob!

My designer jeans - designed by mom.
I was modeling them, dad notice something was wrong
with them. He started laughing I didn't think it was funny. I don't know if you can quite see it here...


She'd stitched the fly on both the jeans and the boxers to the wrong side of center. She was thinking the same rule of fashion applied to pant flys as with shirts. That boys and girls clothing overlaps are opposite. Seams Seems that only applies to the shirts. She was sure happy there was no actual zipper involved. I dare say she'd started over.


She fixed them and I was happy.

The other flies in our lives. My question to you: Do you ever have problems with fruit flies? We seem to be having an invasion here. They were especially bad on Saturday. So mom finally took some time out from sewing to freshen her fruit fly traps. I stationed myself near one yesterday to see how they were working.



There was only one fruit fly about the rim of the trap at the time,


There's one on the inside
there were a few more buzzing about inside. Mom mentioned that after she freshened them on Saturday there were about 50 fruit flies lined up on the edge of the paper cone. Did she take a picture? Of course not.

To make your own fruit fly trap you need:
*paper to make a cone; the bottom opening should be the size of a pea; narrow to fit into bottle below the neck.
*scotch or masking tape; tape the paper cone together
*stapler (optional, instead of taping the cone together)
*1 water bottle ( a good way to recycle some of them)
*Fruit Fly Bait
1/4 to 1/2 cup cider vinegar
2 or 3 pieces of old fruit like grapes, cherries, melon, apple or a piece of banana skin
*water; enough to fill the bottle to about 1" below the paper cone.Tape around the paper to the top edge of the bottle.The bugs crawl in, but can't find their way out, eventually they meet their demise. Now I know there are those who'll find this inhumane. If you don't want to kill them I suppose you could take the trap outside and let them go. You'll be doing this frequently as they are more prolific than rabbits! Beside which some may just sneak back into your house from the outdoors. I read that the female fruit fly can lay between 500 and 1000 eggs. Because of this you must keep your traps around for at least 10 days after you have seen the last one buzzing about or it turns cold. You will want to freshen the bait occasionally.


Now, just one more photo for the fun of it, then I'll get out of here. One of the things I love to do when visiting here is wall walking. There is a half wall between the family room and the dining area.


Look mom, no paws!
Oh no, there's Buttons, wonder if he knows I'm posting on his blog?

Well grr-bye,
Scruffy here for my bro-

Buttons

2 comments:

Sir Woodstock said...

Nice to meet you Scruffy.
You certainly look very smart in your new attire - I personally have no experience with flys as live mostly en-naturale, Mother not being handy with the old needle and thread.

Thankfully we do not have any of those other flies either - not even wasps this year, it must be all the rain.

Regards & hugs to all
Woodstock

B.T.Bear (esq.) said...

Hey, grayte boxers!!!
WOW yor mummy shor is good at mayking Bear clothes! I dident notiss the mostake on the jeens at all, by the way. Hehe!
Maybe yor froot flys ar just tryin to mayke chutney. Com an see my new video an see wat I meen!

:@}