I had a wonderful weekend in Fredericksburg with the girlfriends to celebrate turning 40. Then had a wonderful week vacation with ALL of the family (Cousin Camp '07) down at the beach.
But one REALLY exciting thing that has happened is that we returned from the beach trip to discover these groovy caterpillars eating my parsley:
There were seven of them creeping all over my plants. And yesterday I noticed a new one added to the bunch (very small one), but two others are now missing - I assume making a chrysalis somewhere. So after a little research I've discovered they are Swallowtail Butterfly caterpillars. And it looks like we'll either end up with this (a Black Swallowtail):
Or this (an Anise Swallowtail):
Either of which I'd be happy to see. We had a swallowtail show up last year and it was the biggest and most beautiful butterfly I've ever seen. However they have almost munched through all the leaves of my parsley, so I'm thinking I might go buy a few more plants to put out there to keep them fed.
Another discovery we had is that "Mr. Snakey" has reappeared in our backyard. It's a small garter snake we found earlier this year living under one of my planters (actually the one with the caterpillars in it). But I think he made a new home once he got tired of little kids lifting the planter up to catch a look at him and/or pick him up. But maybe after a week of no prying eyes he must have figured the little ones had moved elsewhere, because when they checked the evening we got home he was back in his old spot.
Here's one thing I love about my kids. They love bugs, snakes and other creepy crawly things. Grace will run up to me holding that garter snake, usually freaking me out (yes, he's cute but I have to steel myself to reach out for him). She loves to touch the new caterpillars, and runs around picking up the hairy webworm caterpillars that are everywhere this year. And of course, like every child, they are all over pillbugs. So I find myself saying more often than I'd like "the bugs may NOT come into the house - they must stay outside."
3 comments:
mmm- pillbugs are good eatin'!
be careful, some of the hairy 'pillars will sting you! Emma found that out, but maybe they are only North West caterpillars.
I hope Gabriel will think bugs are cool like I do. His cousin Cade hates anything that crawls. I think the catepillars that sting are the white fuzzy ones.
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