Friday, July 20, 2012

Nature all Around . . .


A few weeks ago, Dreamer came home from a family outing with a fuzzy caterpillar.  The area that we visited had a lot of butterflies and moths constantly flying around us, so we were all curious to find out if this caterpillar would turn into a moth or caterpillar.  

 Fuzzy Wuzzy

Once at home, we got out our butterfly enclosure and Dreamer set to work on a nice habitat for the caterpillar.  She incorporated dirt, twigs and fresh leaves.  She first gave it leaves from a poplar tree and he quickly went to town.  ( I saw he, but we really don't know if it is male or female, how can we tell?)  . . . Anyway, after about of week of providing fresh leaves and them being devoured quickly, there were a couple of days of not a lot of eating and then the caterpillar found a comfortable spot at the top of the habitat and began spinning a fuzzy, web-like cocoon. 


 The caterpillar was completely enclosed on the 13th and nothing has changed.  We are excited to see what happens, and hope that something will.

~ ~ ~


A week ago, Darling Helper found a salamander, or newt, in the widow well at a cousins house.  The next day, Dreamer found one also and so we came home from our trip with two amphibian stow-aways.       Dreamers salamander didn't seem interested in eating anything and lasted only about a week, but Darling Helper's slimy lizard has a voracious appetite.  When we got home, she made it a larger, comfortable habitat and after getting some worms to feed to him, she has been excited watch it.





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