Tuesday mornings, the street I live on gets service: recycling, trash (every two weeks), glass (when we need to put it out, which is every few weeks), and compost/yard debris. Our trash and yard debris bins were emptied earlier, and an hour ago I went out to bring them back to the backyard.

The debris bin was noisy. I opened it and FLIES FLIES SO MANY FLIES MAYBE ALL THE FLIES

There was a swarm. From what I briefly saw, the swarm was flying in formation. No kidding, I threw the lid closed, jumped back and yelled a highly undignified "whuhhhh-UHH-uh" at the sight. I'm sure I looked amusing.

I took back the trash bin, then returned and took a longer look at the bin. Were any of the buzzing creatures also stinging creatures? I saw that they weren't. I rolled the bin up the driveway, left it on this side of the backyard fence, then opened it again. I'm giving the flies the chance to go somewhere else before I return the bin to storage. Whether they leave is up to them.

Were I really ruthless, I could've left it closed and hoped that the flies would, eventually, DIE DIE ALL DIE still in there. But even though dead flies can be composted, it didn't seem sporting to do that. Flies have their role in the Circle of Life^TM, and my being skeeved out by them doesn't change that. This is also true of house centipedes; I haaaaaate the look of house centipedes, but they do a needed job. (I'm glad I like spiders! Makes me more likely to let them do their job.)

Soon I'll close the bin and bring it in. Carefully.