Flies get stupid. Not that I think an insect that eats....well....anything that isn't moving, is that smart. But in the Fall they fly around and seem a bit off. They land on your nose. I mean, really? Why? They doze around in circles for what seems like forever - just what are they looking for with those compound eyes??
But, they are even easier to swat. That is the BIG ones. Then there are those pesky fruit flies that come into your house at this time of year.
We have friends who have gardens - produce gardens. They welcome their first ripened tomato like the second coming. Watching, waiting and guarding it until it is a glorious red and then delicately plucking it from the vine and marching ceremoniously into the house for the rest of the family to ohhhh and ahhhh over the first of what they hope will be a bountiful harvest.... they then hoard the few dozen or so after that.... and THEN - well - when the yields are truly overwhelming...they can't get rid of them fast enough.
'Get your tomatoes here. Get 'em before they are too ripe. Get your tomatoes...you can eat them off the vine, you can slice 'em or dice 'em, even can them for winter......we are sick to death of friggin' tomatoes....'
The joys of over planting.
Honestly, my neighbour has given us about six giant cucumber every day for the last week! Not the nice little cucumbers or zucchinis that we can actually use; more like the size from The Pod People in a horror flick. We don't even eat cucumber that much in the first place. AND his tomatoes - the gnarly looking ones with lots of dirt packed into the bottom where they have been sitting on the ground for a few weeks have been arriving on our doorstep in buckets. Thanks! BECAUSE along with all this produce you get pesky fruit flies. They hover, by the masses, around the cat food, the empty beer bottles, any fruit or veggies you have laying around, in wine glasses from last night......and you just can't get rid of them.
Well....here is why:
Using high-resolution, high-speed digital imaging of fruit flies faced with a looming swatter, researcher Mr. Dickinson and graduate student Gwyneth Card have determined the secret to a fly's evasive manoeuvring. Long before the fly leaps, its tiny brain calculates the location of the impending threat, comes up with an escape plan, and places its legs in an optimal position to hop out of the way in the opposite direction. All of this action takes place within about 100 milliseconds after the fly first spots the swatter.
Dickinson's research also suggests an optimal method for actually swatting a fly. "It is best not to swat at the fly's starting position, but rather to aim a bit forward of that to anticipate where the fly is going to jump when it first sees your swatter," he says.
So, if you see me madly swatting the air with my fly swatter it is because I am trying to anticipate where the gazillion fruit flies will be next......or at the best, I will hit a few just by flailing about.
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Fall, when my flower plants need to be plucked out and tossed away. When do you do this? I hate to pull up perfectly good, blooming, plants that I have watered and fertilized all summer just because it is Fall. Do you wait for the first frost and then pull them out - all wilty and wet? Or be pre-emptive? Every year I agonize over this and generally wait too long, the first snow comes and I don't have to worry about it until the next spring....when everything is bone dry and brittle and very hard to pull out of the pot.
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Fall, when I have to put all of the summer furniture away for the winter. It was so much fun putting it out and anticipating warm summer days and nights....but now.....winter loooooommmmms!
Things I have learned this week:
Busy people get things done. We are on the countdown to heading south for almost a month and our list of things to do just keeps getting longer - but I know we will, somehow, have it all done by the time we leave.....I hope.
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Even my cat hates the Fall. She has been waking us up at the crack of dawn all summer. Now that the nights are cooler she doesn't come down from the loft until the sun is well up and warming the day. Either that or she is just old and can't get up as fast as she used to.....I can relate.
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House flies are carriers of numerous pathogenic bacteria. Gangrene, tuberculosis, dysentery, anthrax, plague and different types of poisoning are just some of diseases transmitted by flies. (Hope you aren't eating breakfast as you read this!!) They also 'poop' several times a minute.......eeeewwwww
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