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October 2011

Help! Eye’m Begging You!

7

We are having a little problem over here.  No, not the fruit fly problem.  I’m crossing my fingers that that issue is nearly behind us though our latest problem rhymes with fruit fly:  Dallas’s eye.

Dallas is having an issue with his eye(s).  Randomly throughout the day his eye will swell, turn blood red, and get really itchy, especially his caruncle.  (Don’t know what a caruncle is?  It’s that little red ball on the inside of your eye.)

Then, to make matters worse, occasionally his sclera will also get puffy and watery.  (Don’t know what a sclera is?  It’s the white part of your eye.  Look at us!  We’re learning so much!)

He’s also started swelling all around his nose and cheek and under his eye.

I can’t remember when this first started.  Maybe about two months ago.  Dallas’s eyes seemed to flare up in the morning and in the afternoon.  I had switched fabric softeners, so I stopped using the new softener thinking he was having an allergic reaction to it.

We thought things were getting better, but now he’s still having flare-ups and I think they may be getting worse.  He’s tried taking Claritin thinking perhaps he was experiencing allergies.  He’s tried taking Benedryl also in case it was an allergic reaction.  It doesn’t seem like either medication did anything.

He went to a general doctor yesterday, but of course, his eye wasn’t cooperating for the doctor…or should I say it was cooperating?  In any case, his eye was fine at the time so the doctor couldn’t see what was going on.  She prescribed an antibiotic in case he has an infection.

Of course, when he came home from the doctor, his eye went back to its old antics and we decided to make a video to memorialize the grossness.  Grab some popcorn!  Pull up a chair!  Click on the link and see a bit of what I’m talking about.  Then please come back here and comment if you have any idea what could be going on.

Click here!

Shoo Fly!

10

I hate fruit flies.

I haven’t always had such strong emotions about the little insects.  At most, I thought they were merely an annoyance.  That was until the Golden Fruit Fly Infestation of 2011.

We were given a bag of cherry tomatoes.  The tomatoes were so good, and we were heartily enjoying them.  However, when we made it to the bottom of the bag, we found a squished tomato.  Disturbing that tomato caused a cloud of fruit flies to scatter all throughout our kitchen.  At the time, neither Dallas nor I knew the misery that was in store.

The fruit flies annoyed us for a few days, but we weren’t too worried.  They only have a life span of a few days, and we’ve had fruit flies here and there before.  They just die out and we move on with our lives.  However, after a few days, I realized the fruit flies were not going away; in fact, I was pretty sure they were multiplying.  Thus began our crusade to rid our house of those irritating things.

We researched how to get rid of fruit flies online and made three traps.

Trap #1:  Yogurt and soap bubbles

We filled a container with yogurt and put soap bubbles on top.  The soap bubbles were supposed to trap the fruit flies.  Most flies were too smart for this trap.  They waited until the bubbles had popped and then went after the yogurt.  We only caught a few.

Trap #2:  Tape trap

I was sure this would work.  I had talked to my brother who told me he had a fruit fly infestation a while ago and they got rid of the flies with fly tape.  I decided to concoct my own tape trap.

Yep, there it is in all its glory.  Scotch tape sticky side up with a glob of yogurt in the middle to entice the flies.  This trap caught exactly one fruit fly.

Trap #3:  Funnel

This was by far the most effective trap.  You simply make a funnel with paper and put something inside the cup that the flies want.  They go down the funnel to get the goods, but can’t find their way back out.  I was skeptical of this method, but it’s been the only thing that has worked.

I finally broke down and bought real fly tape on my brother’s glowing recommendation.  The real fly tape was just about as effective for us as my Scotch tape trap was.  I had such high hopes that I would wake up to find hundreds of dead flies on the tape.  No such luck.

We’ve put more funnel traps out and I think I’m finally noticing a decrease in the flies.  At least for today.  Does anyone out there have any other tricks we should try?  I can feel my sanity slowly slipping with each new batch of flies that I spot.