Monday, June 16, 2008

Metamorphosis

Ever since June hit a few weeks ago, the boys have spent the better part of every afternoon out scouring the yard for caterpillars. I'm not sure what started this trend, but they've become quite proficient at the hunt. Even determined little Reuben--who used to rely on his older brothers to satisfy his bug-lust--set off entirely on his own a few days ago and stumbled out of the brush some time later with a beaming smile on a face and a wriggly little caterpillar dangling from his fingers.




Needless to say, we now have all sorts of jars and tin cans littering the front porch. They are filled with snails, caterpillars, potato bugs, you name it...and topped with the timeless waxed-paper-poked-with-a-fork-and-held-down-with-rubber-bands ensemble.



This past Sunday morning, Justin and I were on the couch reading the paper, occasionally glancing out the front window at the boys (some still jammy-clad) playing out in the grass, when Cole burst through the door with this:


which is, of course, a perfect little cocoon he discovered in the glass Ball jar that was suddenly and inexplicably missing its caterpillar resident...

I might have been even more excited than he was. I'm pretty sure I've never seen a real cocoon before (other than one on display at the zoo, perhaps)...we are anxiously awaiting the next stage of life to appear!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is great! I would be excited too. Normally the captured creatures from our yard don't live to see another day much less continue on in their cycle of life. What a joy! The fav around our house are the frogs. We have yet to see one live for much longer than a couple days in one of our bug houses...
-Chris

zachori said...

Fun stuff! We had some butterflies hatch in a cage in our house. Some friends of ours hatched a moth and it let the kid carry it around for 2 days w/o flying away! (it was probably not healthy, but fun anyway!) you can google butterfly or metamorphosis and find some cool pics and info!

zachori said...

hmmm, i meant that maybe the moth was not a healthy moth, not that it was unhealthy to carry it around! Just clarifying!!

karissa said...

Still waiting for a picture of the butterfly-has the cocoon survived the boys?

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the comment about the tzatziki! I had forgotten all about that! I doubt my hubby'd go for it, but on some nice tortilla chips, YUMMM!

Sorry to hear about your chicken. As I was reading I was like wait, weren't they going to eat those? But still, I completely understand. We used to loose chickens all the time to possums until they were all put in an indoor/outdoor coop. We don't eat our chickens, we eat the eggs which are a renewable protein source and we can keep the chickens :o). You don't need a rooster to make eggs either unless you want chicks. Just an FYI in case you can't bring yourself to ring their neck, there's always farm fresh eggs!