Lord of the Flies

It seems that I've gone a touch overboard on the fresh produce I buy. I bought a bag of apples a couple of weeks ago and a bunch of bananas last week. Ok, the bananas was more like three bunches and not one, but in all fairness, my kids usually chow through those before the end of the week.

This week, however, the bananas and the apples weren't really eaten for a couple of reasons. First, I had bought some grapes, pears and something else I can't quite recall. Second, if I don't pack fruit, no one takes it. The boys have been on a banana boycott as of late for some reason and seem to have included apples in that boycott. Maddy won't touch an apple to save her life. Robin doesn't even notice the fruit bowl unless it's hurtling towards his head so I've been trying to give everyone some variety in their lunches, but we don't seem to be using the stuff fast enough.

Therein lies the problem. Because we aren't using it fast enough, my kitchen has been overrun by fruit flies! Ugh! I despise those stupid things . They're so darn small but annoying. I have yet to figure out how to humanly get rid of them. Ok, maybe humane isn't the word I'm looking for. I'm trying to get rid of them without dousing my kitchen in a bunch of chemicals. So far, not much has actually worked.

One thing I have done to try and get rid of them is to use up all the fruit so it's not sitting out. I made a dozen banana muffins along with three banana loaves (little loaf pans lest you think I had the crop of an entire banana tree sitting in my kitchen!) as well as two dozen apple-raisin bran muffins and eight...yest eight mini apple-raisin bran loaves. Yes, I chopped that many apples. Oh, what a royal pain in the tush that was. Almost nine cups of apples later I was so glad to have finished!

So, anyone have any bright ideas as to how to get rid of the pesky fruit flies? I'm all ears!