Friday, August 29, 2008

Fruit Flies and Mice!


Suni was working hard in their booth at Swiss Days and I got to pal around with Max and Luke for a day! I was left strict instructions to figure out a way to get rid of the fruit flies in Suni's kitchen. At first I thought, gee what is she talking about........well yeah until Luke left half of his banana on the kitchen counter, WOW, I'm surprised they (the fruit flies) didn't cart us all off!! I knew there was a homemade trap, I called LaVon and got instructions. I also needed some sticky mouse/rat traps, seems like I have mice living in the base of my hot tub, yikes! So the boys and I headed out to Smith's to get our supplies for our traps! Along the way we found a couple of hot wheel cars that were 60% off the lowest price, hey, they were practically free! I did find a fruit fly trap (jars that you fill with water, fly bait, dish soap), we threw that in our cart as well. First we had to get to my place and fill the hot tub and set those sticky traps (I can't buy the "real" mouse traps because I always am afraid I will set it off and catch my finger.....I talk from experience!!) Max was SO excited to look in the hot tub for the mice, he is such a character. He was pretty bummed that there were no mice. I took the hot tub apart and showed him where they were trying to make nests and stuff. We got the hose started and Luke and Max played while I worked on the hot tub. We never did see any mice - thank goodness!! However, Max was certain they would turn up in the water!!



We headed back to their house to set out fruit fly traps........first Max got me a piece of computer paper, we cut it into a square, then wound it into a cone, secured it with tape (Max found that for me too), put some ripe fruit in the bottom of a fruit jar - in our case we used ripe plums Suni already had on hand! Then you put the paper cone in the jar, pointy side in the jar, tape the cone all around the top of the jar, walaa, a fruit fly trap........they smell the ripe fruit, fly in the jar and they just can't figure how to get out of the jar! Max made his own trap too......he cut a chunk of paper, put a l-o-n-g piece of scotch tape hanging from it and then we taped that to the cupboard. The store bought traps went on the counter and under the sink. Then we waited, sure didn't take long until we were catching those pesky little devils!! No great photos of the traps! Just reallly cute guys playing in the yard and helping me out! Love you boys!

3 comments:

janetha. said...

sounds like a busy day of dealing with pests! well..max and luke are not pests, but you know what i mean! good work boys and nana sue.

ermakaluso said...

Oh, I don't think I'd want to see mice floating around a hot tub. I am happy that Max didn't get to see that either. Yuck.

suni said...

thanks for playing with the boys for the day...they had a great time! and i was pretty surprised when max told me he helped with the mice in your hottub! silly kid. and yes, his 'trap' is still hanging up...no prisoners yet.