Shoo, Fly!

As a gangly kid, I could sometimes be awkward in my movements, like most kids are; running, jumping, swinging my arms around and generally acting like a new calf in a pasture. On more than one occasion, I can remember bumbling through the kitchen and suddenly stopping dead in my tracks when I came in contact with something really gross: sticky fly paper in my hair and another time on the arm of my bathrobe. I'm talking about those fly traps that looked like a curled roll of film coated in sticky glue hanging from the ceiling and usually with dozens of houseflies attached to it. Some dead and some with their little legs rapidly flailing about in a useless attempt to get free. Disgusting! I don't know what my mom was thinking hanging those inside the house but, hey, it was the 70s. That and a flyswatter was her best defense given how frequently the door open and closed throughout the day. Probably because we're only a household of two adults versus a family of six with a dog and two cats, we don't get a lot of houseflies here in Dublin. We do get a few uninvited guests every summer, though: ants, occasional mosquitos and fruit flies! The ants we get tend to come in a couple waves with warm weather. The big, black ants are the first and they're usually just a few scout ants nosing around the kitchen. I'll sometimes put a sheet of paper down for them to crawl on and then bring them outside. If partner, Joe, sees one, he just squishes it without blinking an eye. I'll ask him if he thinks of the family left waiting for their return and he just rolls his eyes at me. The teeny, tiny brown ants I've always known as sweat ants arrive in droves, usually focusing on any crumbs left on the counter and/or the sugar bowl. There's no rescuing these little babies. There's just too many and once you invade my sugar bowl you've crossed a line. A damp sponge takes care of them and I apologize as I wash them down the drain. The sugar bowl gets relocated for the duration. According to AI on Wikipedia, there is no such thing as sweat ants, but there are sweat bees: tiny bees attracted to human sweat. Interesting! Mosquitos you just deal with. I have no compunction about killing them. Preferably by clapping them mid-air before they've bitten. Of course, smacking them on your shin which results in them exploding with your blood does give a sense of satisfaction. For God's sake, though (Joe) don't smack them directly on the walls of the house! Or, if you do, please grab a wet paper towel and clean up. By the way, did you know that only female mosquitos bite us? They need blood to lay eggs. The males only eat plant nectar. Finally… fruit flies. They've always been a bit of a mystery to me, kind of like pantry moths. We bring fruit into our homes that are supermarket or farmstand-fresh — perfect looking goodness at this time of year. We set out a bowl on the counter with maybe some plums and nectarines. The next morning while you're groggily pouring your first cup of coffee, you find yourself waving around at these little gnats drunkenly flying all over the place. What the heck? It's not hard to figure out, though it is unsettling. Fruit flies hatch from eggs that females lay on or just beneath the surface of the skin of many, many types of fruit and it's very hard to prevent this from happening. Even washing your fruit before placing them in the bowl may not work if the eggs are under the skin. According to "How To Get Rid of Fruit Flies For Good," an uncredited article from The Cleveland Clinic (www.health.clevelandclinic.org) fruit flies are attracted to the fermenting sugar found in all kinds of foods and drinks. As fruit ripens, the sugars it contains begins to ferment. This is often when we consider it to be at peak ripeness. Does this mean we eat fruit fly eggs? Well, yes. Yes, we do. Generally, it's harmless to us. Thanks to our immune systems, our bodies are equipped to get rid of all kinds of bacteria. The acids in our stomachs kills most bacteria and those pesky little fruit fly eggs. However, once fruit flies are buzzing about your kitchen, it can be difficult to get rid of them. They're happily feasting on old food and fruit (or rotting food bits in your drains) and meeting their next dance partner. Female fruit flies lay up to 500 eggs at a time. If you can bear to part with it, I find a partial glass of wine a good fruit fly trap but apple cider vinegar will also attract them in good numbers. They typically drown in it. Prevention is the best plan, though. We know washing fruit doesn't eliminate all fruit fly eggs but it will cut down on some of them. Refrigerating all produce can also significantly cut down on fruit fly blooms. Unfortunately, there's lots of fruit that tastes a lot better when kept at room temperature. Throwing fruit and vegetable peels in an outside compost pile instead of in your trash is also recommended. You can also freeze peels first which kills the eggs. Bananas are the biggest fruit fly attractant and, in this case, the eggs are under the skin surface. Luckily for us, we don't typically eat banana peels, we just slip our feet on them.