More Adventures in Nature...

Warning: The following post contains graphic scenes of real nature. Prepare yourself.

Around this time last year Fiona found a tiny caterpillar and a big caterpilar which she adopted. You may remember this post. Well I guess this is the time of year that baby caterpillars are born because she found another one today and it was just as exciting...

Feeding it some grass...

While I was photographing Fiona's latest friend Adele crawled off into the playhouse. After a couple of minutes she started yelling at Brodie. She says " Bohdie NO" which is really cute but she sounded serious so I went over to see what was up. All I found was Brodie snuffling around a damp patch of yard so I figured he probably had eaten something gross and Adele had seen something... so I turned to her to tell her it was ok and spotted THIS in her hand.

Brace yourself.

EEEEEEEEEEHAAAUGH!!!

Yep. That, my friends, is a severed bird head.

My initial reaction was "how do I get this out of her hand without touching it". Second was "can I wash her hands with bleach?" and third was "I seriously hope that didn't make it as far as her mouth". So if she comes down with some horrifying bird disease, you'll know why.

DISCLAIMER: If you arrived here because you googled "can I wash my kid's hands with bleach?" I'd like to go on the record and say - NO. DO NOT WASH YOUR KID'S HANDS WITH BLEACH. You should use soap and warm water and wash thoroughly. Bleach is never the solution.

Haha, solution. Liquids pun.

Later, after the drama had passed, we were heading out for a walk. I came out of the house to find Fiona distraught. She'd been jumping up and down and the caterpillar had jumped out of it's box (a little tupperware I thought might provide some protection from her toddler fingers) and she couldn't find it. She was incredibly upset because she "wanted it to be her friend".

Poor little bean. So all in all, not the best nature experience today.

Fiona and nature

Sometimes we get some extra nature with our CSA food. The very first time we unloaded the food we found a tiny little caterpillar and Fiona was fascinated with it. Ever since then she has always asked (and looked for) the caterpillar. This week there was another tiny caterpillar! She was so excited. We put him in a box with some lettuce and watched over him throughout the day. We even skyped people to show him off.

After Fiona went to bed I found another caterpillar! A giant one! (Ok, he's really not that big, but compared to the other one he's enormous). I put him in the box with the other one and also put some corn leaves in there with him since the tiny one wasn't eating the lettuce.

The next morning they were both still there and had munched their way though a lot of corn leaf. Fiona was so happy to have caterpillars to love! She's pretty good at being gentle with them, and actually doesn't really like to hold them (the big one feels particularly weird walking on your skin) so at the moment they're just hanging out in a little container, eating corn leaf and pooping it back out at an incredible rate. Fiona of course finds the poop part completely fascinating.

I asked her what the big caterpillar's name was. She calls the smaller one "tiny teeny caterpillar" but was having trouble naming the big one. We talked about names, about how her name was Fiona and Mummy's name was Mummy, etc., and she decided to name the big one "eeeeooooeeeooootawaaaatawoootawaaata...". Every time I asked what his name was she gave me the same answer, so I guess that must really be his name!

So, nature fans, will either of them become a butterfly? We'll probably set them free soon, but they seem happy for now with their supply of corn leaves.