The fattypillars...how we love the fattypillars. Laurel's been bugging me to do this post before we leave tomorrow. A couple of months ago our lovely friend, Marie, brought us a couple of big, fat monarch caterpillars on a swan plant branch. You might have seen the posts about them as they quickly became hanging cocoons and then eventually, duh, butterflies. In their last days of hungry caterpillar feeding frenzy, we had to buy a few more plants and then later we planted those in the garden, where more Monarchs came and laid eggs on the leaves.
That was all really cool until Laurel witnessed ants eating the new baby caterpillars, and so, amidst many tears, she and Dennis dug up the plants and back inside they came, filled with tiny caterpillars and, apparently, more eggs. After a few days we had 18 caterpillars of various sizes. About 18 more than I'd bargained for when we planted those plants in the garden to get them out of the house.
Suddenly the tiny caterpillars (and their poopies) were doubling in size from morning to afternoon, and then we had heaps and heaps of really big ones that could only be called fattypillars. And the fattypillars munched and munched and a few might have eaten some littler ones, and then we moved them over to the big, big bush at the kids' school where they have a bit more room to grow and eat and thrive. And die without my daughter seeing it happen.
We made Trey carry them down the big hill because he's the least klutzy of the three of us. I think he was a wee bit embarrassed to be doing these silly things with us girls. He was a good sport though.
Goodbye fattypillars!! Good luck from your American friends! xo, K & L
No comments:
Post a Comment