Too Many Fruit Flies!

Fruit flies have been all over the kitchen and pantry in recent weeks. I saw a news broadcast last week that said the number of fruit flies has increased and it's probably due to more people recycling and not rinsing food containers well enough. We have good rinsing habits in this household. It's our trash can that is oh so popular with the fruit flies.

Well, my mother-in-law gave me a great tip to get rid of them. You create a trap that kills them. I tried it last night. They were swarming around pound cake so I put this "trap" next to the cake. This morning the numbers were: pound cake=0 v. trap=17 fruit flies!

So, you want to know how to create one of your own?

You will need plastic wrap, a dish, apple cider vinegar, plastic wrap, a rubber band, and scissors.

First, rip off enough plastic wrap to cover the dish and come part-way down the side. Next pour apple cider vinegar into the dish---enough to cover the bottom of the dish. Third, find the center of the plastic wrap and cut a small slit. The slit in my example was a little smaller than one inch. Now you are ready to put the plastic wrap over the dish and secure it in place with a rubber band. It's that simple. You're done!

More Progress...Ceiling Painted

Yesterday Bill and I painted the ceiling in the living room. We used Homax Sand-Texture texturizing paint additive in the white ceiling paint. We decided it was best to use some kind of texture on the ceiling because the joints where the drywall meet and the divots made by the nails are visible. I filled in the divots with joint compound, and now after adding the texture, they are barely noticeable.

The sand texture threw paint all over when you rolled it and made a mess. Here's a picture of Bill after he finished.

Lightning is nothing to be trifled with!

Wednesday night lightning hit the house. It was strange because the storm that generated this particular lightning was only one of three bolts of lightning. The third one hit our house and the storm was pretty much over besides a some rain.

We think the lightning hit the well and blew the cap off. It followed the lines into the house. It fried the well's submersible water pump. It fried the electronic control boards on the furnace (integrated hot water and baseboard radiator heat). It melted the cable lines.

It also damaged our electronics. It fried Bill's computer, fried the cable modem (which the cable company replaced), damaged the Linksys router, created color-burn on the screen of our 32" TV, fried two other TVs, and fried the photo printer.

In the yard, the lightning tore up the grass and left strike marks on the large sycamore.

You can follow the line it made from the well, to the tree, and across the yard.

Here is a view of the torn up grass leading away from the well.

The sycamore:




Leading away from the sycamore, across the yard.

The lightning tore up the grass, throwing clumps of grass as far as 10 feet away.



It disintegrated parts of the sycamore's roots, leaving shreds.
















Here it split the root and threw it in the air.