They Can Have The Rest

  For the past few weeks, it has been a twice daily chore to pick the figs.  The two large trees outdid themselves and produced buckets full of the fine fruit.  Now the shelves are stocked for the winter with home-canned goodies!  It has been quite the job to, not only pick the figs, but to can them.  Now, however, the job is done!  While there are still several pickings left on the trees, I have no desire to continue.  While the chore is tiring, that is not the reason behind my decision.  This morning's visit to the trees was somewhat unsettling.  With all of the recent rains, it seems that fruit flies have hatched in abundance.  Both trees were literally covered with the critters!  While a good many were seeking refuge under the wide leaves, the remaining figs were being infested!  Nope.  Not happening.  I refuse to bring the fruits into the house as the flies would come as well.  Nope...no way...not happening.

  Fruit flies are nasty little critters.  They can infest a place by the thousands in a matter of days and are a pain to eliminate.  It is best to never let them get started in the first place.  It is a known fact that the flies are attracted to ripening fruit and veggies so the best bet is to keep a good watch on anything you may have in the kitchen.  A couple of fruit flies does not seem like much but when you consider they can lay about 500 eggs (no lie) at a time, it is easy to see how two can turn into a huge problem rather quickly.  

  I do have two good things to tell you about these little buggers.  First...they do not bite! Yay!  At least, they are not like gnats!  Second, they only live about two weeks.  Again, Yay!  Except that is a short lived bit of jubilation as they breed rampantly and the eggs only take about a day to hatch.  Better set some fruit fly traps!