In August Johann found a fuzzy caterpillar on the bench next to him up at the school, so we brought it home as our pet. (I got the job of holding a very mobile caterpillar home-not the easiest task.) The kids affectionately named it "Tickles". They would take him out of his cage (a big animal cracker plastic container with holes drilled in the lid) and play with him-if you call watching it crawl around playing. Then all of the sudden Tickles disappeared, and we found this brown hairball looking thing is the cage. It didn't look like the cocoons we had seen before, so we didn't know what was going on.
Simeon with our bug cage back in August.
A few days later we found another fuzzy caterpillar, and the kids named it "Tickles 2", and within a few days it also turned into a brown hairball. So now we figured this must be what their cocoons look like.
While Johann was finishing up our front windows, another fuzzy caterpillar appeared, so into the cage he went and he was named "Tickles 3".
We left on our trip to San Diego wondering if we'd come back to butterflies in the cage-but instead we came back to 3 brown hairballs.
And that is what they are still-brown non moving hairballs or better known as cocoons.
Then last Friday I found another fuzzy caterpillar in the front yard. Ammon named it-you guessed it- "Tickles". He put it in a red bucket and gave it leaves to eat, and carried it everywhere. In the afternoon Johann and Ammon went out to get gas and oil for the chainsaw and when they got back they found Tickles on the driveway. They were concerned that he had climbed out of his bucket, but when they brought him back to the bucket, Tickles was still there. So now we have "Tickles #5".
Where all these fuzzy caterpillars are coming from is beyond me. We've never seen them before in our yard, and this year they are everywhere. Maybe something to do with all the rain we had last spring, or the hard cold winter? All 5 Tickles were identical. Dark brown with a reddish strip in the middle.
Ammon thinks that these are the best pets ever, and he is constantly taking them out and playing with them. He gives them rides on his shirt, gives them books to walk on, and carries them around on his fingers. He just loves them.
On Monday Corrine and Ammon had them in my bedroom, where I will add I was escaping to talk on the phone, when they told me one of the tickles was peeing and they needed toilet paper for it. WHAT-Tickles is peeing? So I went in to investigate, and sure enough there was green liquid coming from Tickles, but it wasn't pee. He's now buried in a flowerpot outside!
This afternoon Corrine decided that the caterpillars name is also "Sticky Feet", and she drew a nice picture of him on the driveway.
Tickles #5 has been given so much love, we are hoping he makes it to the brown hairball stage-aka cocoon. We are guessing, or really hoping, that they do truely become butterflies this spring, and we can watch them.
3 comments:
How fun to have lots of "Tickles". You guys lucked out. They sound MUCH easier then a dog:) I'm impressed that you've only had one Tickle pass away. I don't know if we'd have that kind of luck. I love the sidewalk picture. So cute!
That's really fun. You guys always have fun ideas and activities!
That's a funny story!! Very cute pictures, too.
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