Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 20:18:24 -0400 From: "Paul V. McCullough" <pvmcull@voicenet.com> To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg2288$foo@default> Subject: VFT 1, Fly 0
As I've said before, ever since I set up my CP terrarium, all the bugs
which used to pester us have disappeared! No wasps in the kitchen, no
spiders on the ceiling over the bed, no ants running near the doors,
etc. Not that we're infested- we're not.
We have a regular exterminator who visits at least once every three
months. But we also live at the edge of pine woods and all kinds of
bugs thrive around there... and by this time of the year, I usually hear
my wife's blood curdling screams to save her from the clutches of some
"enormous" arachnid in the bathroom. I always manage to save her by
over-arming myself with hammers, RAID, rolled up past issues of TIME,
and in some cases, dixie cups. Don't ask why, but if you can't kill the
beast, trap it in a dixie cup and run for cover! Most arachnids and
other bugs die from the fear of my overkill approach before I smash them
into oblivion. I then strut around feeling good that I've defeated a
"sesame seed sized" spider almost too small to exist...) But I
digress...
At any rate, after a late night of working, I came home last night at
around 10:30pm and found a fly buzzing around my kitchen. This fly must
have been a new visitor as he was real alert, and easily thwarted all of
my attempts to capture him. I really needed to feed my large VFT and
was even considering feeding some raw burger to it. (I can hear the
gasps already; but I've found tiny specs of lean meat -NO FAT- can be
very beneficial to VFTs if done once and no more then once every three
to six months in the absence of a normal bug diet. My traps fed this
way never rot and always reopen and the plants thrive. The trick is to
make sure that you use no more then a quarter of the size of a bug that
you think the trap can handle...)
Then it hit me- flies, like other bugs, become disoriented at night,
and fly to any light source. So I ran into my living room, turned on
the Klima-gro (KG) lights, turned out all of the other lights, and
waited about thirty seconds. The fly suddenly slammed into the glass
door/panel of the KG. I opened the panel about four inches. And walked
out of the room for half an hour. When I came back, the fly was gone,
and one of the biggest VFT traps was shut tight around the shape of a
fly body! Pretty cool, huh? Kinda neat to see a VFT actually capture a
fly, too. :)
-- Paul V. McCullough "3D Animation World" http://www.voicenet.com/~pvmcull "CP Page" http://www.voicenet.com/~pvmcull/pics/cp/carniv.htm
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