Monday, May 17, 2010

“Callapitter”

Today’s post comes straight (unedited) from the mouth of our little fairy. I dearly wish I could share the hand gestures and expressions also…alas, her words will have to stand alone! She is quite excited about her first blog post…! May 206

I was playing outside and making a fairy house and my dad found a “callapitter” and we took it inside and put it in a huge jar from the basement. And we put it on the porch on our nature table. I tried to make its natural habitat with a twig and some dandelions and some leaves and lots of stuff from the woods. And it was yellow and white. The kind of caterpillar that it was... it was a Chinese Gypsy Moth. I named it wonder because it wonders all the time what it’s home is. May 204May 208

If you don’t know what leaf it eats then sometime... then you can bring it outside and put it on a flat place on a rock or something and take it out of your jar and get leaves and see if it will eat the leaves. To tell if it eats one you see if it has little bites out of it. We should not touch it all the time. We should just touch it once in the day, but we can watch it though. May 217

It’s going to make a cocoon and turn into a butterfly.

May 220That’s all.May 223

We found some great information about keeping a little caterpillar happy here. And here is a guide to identifying little critters you might find in your own yards.