The cage of doom

Remember that caterpillar we caught eating one of my heirloom organic Australian butter beans?

The bean eating caterpillar

Yes, that one. I’m pretty sure it’s a looper caterpillar. Well, he/she has made a silky cocoon and is pupating.

Yeah, I know, it’s very hard to see

The caterpillar tried to hide the cocoon, so it’s quite hard to see.  It’s the green thing inside the furry looking thing under the stick about mid photo on the right.  I couldn’t open the cage to get a photo or the vegetable grasshopper probably would have escaped.  As you can see, taking one through the plastic didn’t work out so well, but you get the idea.

I thought Hannah’s class might like to see a weird looking grasshopper and a cocoon, so I asked one of her teachers if they’d like me to bring it in.  I don’t think most kids around here have seen such bugs up close before.  They probably don’t have weird parents who stick bugs in cages when they try to eat their vegetables.

The teacher was very excited and said she’d love me to bring it in.  It’s been raining the last few days, so on the way out this morning, we saw an obnoxious snail about to munch on my strawberry plants (they are in big pots at the front door), so I stuck him in the cage of doom with the grasshopper and caterpillar cocoon.  At least there is a live snail in the cage now, rather than only empty shells.  Never again will any of them taste freedom.  But at least they have shelter and food. And won’t be eating my crops.

Speaking of my strawberries, they are making runners like mad, and have already infiltrated the garden bed next to their pot.  I also have a native finger lime tree in a very deep pot at the front of my house.  When I got it, it was so small that it looked ridiculous in it’s pot.  I left a couple of inches between the soil and the top of the pot, and the tree didn’t go past the top of the pot. That was less than a year ago.  And if anything is crazy enough to brave the long thorns and attempt to eat my finger lime tree, it too will go in the cage of doom.

In the top left is my peanut plant that is in the garden under our front window. Below are my strawberries, and to the right is my finger lime tree which has grown by leaps and bounds since I got it.

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The new Cinderella Alexandra

A couple of weeks ago, I introduced you to Cinderella Alexandra, Hannah’s caterpillar.  You can read about her here.

On Thursday, it was finally Hannah’s turn for show and tell at preschool.  They only get to have a turn every two weeks.  From the very first day we found Cinderella, Hannah asked when she could bring her for show and tell.  She spent an hour talking to The Jess on the phone, telling her about Cinderella over and over again, an excited smile plastered on her face the entire time.

“Are you excited to bring Cinderella for show and tell today?!” I asked Hannah last Thursday morning, glancing at the cage as I spoke.

“Hannah, look! She’s hatched! She’s a moth now!”  Yes, I know, hatched is probably not the most appropriate word, but in my excitement, I had an episode of verbal diarrhoea. I was not actually expecting to see a moth quite yet.

“WOW!” Hannah exclaimed with joy “She’s a moth! She’s so pretty!”

Daniel checking out the newly emerged moth in awe. You can see the fur and cocoon in front of the leaf.  Cinderella is pictured from her underside.

We picked a big pink flower from the tree outside and put it in Cinderella’s cage because I read that moths don’t eat at all, but drink nectar from flowers.  Later I read that this particular kind of moth is a lichen moth, and they dine on “lichens and other encrusting algae and moss.”  Oops.

“We have to cover Cinderella’s cage so no one sees her until show and tell time.” Hannah told me.  When we got to preschool, we put Hannah’s blanket (don’t worry, it’s full of decently sized holes and you can easily breathe under it) over the cage and explained to the very understanding teachers that no one was to look under the blanket until Hannah herself showed them.

When Aaron got home that night, he and Hannah put Cinderella in the big tree in front of our house.

In the morning, she was still there.  In the exact same spot.  Shoot, what if her time in captivity rendered her unable to fly somehow?

Hannah had a different explanation. “She loves me so much, she doesn’t want to leave!”  The notion made Hannah extremely happy.

By 9am, Cinderella was still sitting in the tree, in the same spot.  Except she somehow found herself a friend.

“She found her mommy!” Hannah told me, pleased that her moth was not an orphan.

I’m sure hoping it wasn’t her mommy, because by friend, I mean the little floozie was making moth whoopee within 10 hours of her release.  Is it weird that I took a photo?

Cinderella is the one on the left. Female moths are bigger than males. Maybe it’s just this pair, but the male has a bluish tinge in his black parts where as the female is black black.

When we got home from playgroup at 12ish, she was still engaged in moth loving.  Still.  And Hannah was right, Cinderella is definitely the girl.

When Aaron got home at 6:10pm, they were still attached at the nether regions.

Apparently, moths mate for like 12 hours.  Who knew?

Saturday morning, she was still perched in her tree, sans her man friend.  Then by Sunday, she was gone. Maybe she flew away, maybe she got eaten by something, I don’t know.  Either way, the whole thing was pretty amazing. How many 3.5 year olds get to see a caterpillar, a cocoon, and then the resulting moth? I’d never even seen that before!

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Meet Cinderella Alexandra

“I think she might be sick,” Aaron said to Hannah, whilst giving me a knowing look  “We’ll see how she goes today, and if she hasn’t moved by the time I get home from work, we’ll have to put her back outside so she can get better.”

And by sick, he meant dead.  She’d been lying in the same spot for almost 24 hours.

“Ok.” Hannah said, head down, her voice reflecting sadness.

“We’ll see how she is today, Mommy.  I bet she’ll move.  She’s just having rest.  It’s nap time.” Hannah told me, believing every word as she said it.

We’d only had her for a day.  We found her the day before under Hannah’s pillow.  Yes, under Hannah’s pillow, a very strange place, if you’re a caterpillar.

“She crawled all the way under my pillow because she loves me!!” Hannah said excitedly.  “She loves me so much!”

I got a plastic takeaway container, poked holes in it, and gave it to Aaron to put the black caterpillar in.

“What are you going to name it?” Aaron asked her.

She thought about it a little bit.  “Cinderella.  No, she’s going to have two names.  Cinderella Alexandra.”

We read up on how to take care of caterpillars, and I bought one of those plastic animal containers with slits all through the roof to be made into her new home (for under $2, I might add!). Hannah and I put dirt on the bottom, some sticks for her to climb, leaves to eat, and a cotton ball full of water to keep everything fresh and hydrated.  Plus a little scrunched up wad of paper to use as a ball so she can “use her nose to kick it around her cage because she wants to play.”

Hannah carried Cinderella around with her for the rest of the day, despite the fact that Cinderella hadn’t moved in hours.

Hannah and her caterpillar helping me cook

Aaron and I were going to lightly poke her with a stick to see if she moved after Hannah went to bed, but Hannah came out of her room to get her.  Hannah wanted Cinderella to sleep on the little dresser next to her bed so she wouldn’t be lonely.

The morning didn’t bring any movement.  Cinderella was still in the exact same spot she’d been in since the afternoon before.

“Goodbye Cinderella,” Hannah told the caterpillar as we went out for the morning, “I love you!”

“I missed you so much!!!” Hannah told her when we got home.

She still hadn’t moved.

A few hours later, we were going out again and I checked to see if Cinderella had moved.  Aaron was only a few hours from returning home from work, and the chances of having to put her outside because she was “sick” were becoming very high.

Until I saw this:

At first glance, I nearly dropped the cage because I thought there was a cockroach in there.  Then my brain started functioning and I realised that a cockroach of that size would have no way to actually get inside the cage.  Plus there are no legs.

But hang on, isn’t that Cinderella curled up in a ball right next to the thing that has to be a cocoon? I thought that too, but closer inspection revealed that the ball of fluff is just that, a ball of fluff.  There is not enough mass there to be Cinderella.  Unless she suddenly shrank to less than half of her original size.  She somehow just shed all of her hair and is now in the cocoon.  That’s what we’re hoping at least.  Otherwise, we’re going to have a very disappointed little girl.

UPDATE: Click here to read the rest of the Cinderella story.

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Copyright 2013 Sheri Thomson