Monday, November 26, 2012

Early October Discoveries

(I took a 2 month break from blogging so I'm going to be catching up for a while.  I contemplated quitting my blog and moving more to a digital photobook for my scrapbooking-but after two months-and not doing one, I realized the blog format really works well for me!)




During one of our backyard nature walks, Benjamin found Black Swallowtail caterpillars on our parsley plant growing in the garden.  We never ate that parsley but I'm glad it was there as a host for the caterpillars!  We brought them in and set them up in an aquarium in the kids playroom.


This one attached itself to the parsley plant itself and thus formed a green chrysalis.  Since I feared the parsley would get old and dry and maybe fall, I took the stem of the parsley it was attached to and taped it to a sturdy branch.


This one obviously attached right to a branch and formed a brown chrysalis!  This was so fascinating to see!



We got to see the new butterflies shortly after they emerged.



We kept them for a day or so, but when I couldn't get them to drink any sugar water we decided to let them go.  It was early October and I feared they'd find no food but I figured no food outdoors was better than living as a butterfly in a small aquarium!  They were meant to fly free, so fly free they did!



In this aquarium we had bessie bug beetles.  I think I've posted about them before.  We've kept them on and off, inside.  The boys find them when they go digging through old rotten wood in the forest.  They are so easy to keep because they eat the rotten wood and you just have to mist their habitat each day.  




Samuel absolutely loved to see them.  In that sense it was kind of a pain because he was always grunting and pointing at the aquarium, wanting me to get it down.  But it is neat to see how much Samuel loves insects and small creatures.  Once we were at a park and he just sat down next to a spider web and stared!


Now we are entering winter time, so our fun with bugs is over for a while but Spring is just around the corner!  I'm hoping to plant more veggies and herbs this year so we should have plenty of bugs and pests to study!

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