A chrysalis to come? #phenology

Often, it doesn't take much to make us happy, as long as it's the right "not much." Today we're in that situation. Earlier this Autumn, we found a woolly bear caterpillar in the yard. S/he was destined to be captured and observed during the Winter so we could watch the chrysalis and the moth emerge. We've never done that.

We left the woolly bear where it was because we hadn't prepared a suitable home for it. Next day, home prepared, potential occupant was gone. You saw that coming, didn't you? While not devastated, nor heartbroken, we were disappointed, until yesterday. While letting out one or another of the dogs, we discovered a woolly bear on the cement floor of the screened porch. This time the caterpillar was promptly captured using the same equipment and techniques we use to transport barn spiders and their ilk from inside to outside. (See Method 2.)

the dark spot at the bottom of the green leaf is Woolly Bear

Photo by J. Harrington

We promptly prepared a suitable Winter home for the critter, replete with potting soil, twigs, dried and fresh leaves. Today we "misted" the inside using the same sprayer we use for our loaves of sourdough bread. We're still not sure if it's a him or a her. The jar now lives on a shelf in the garage. We'll check daily until s/he goes into hibernation, which we suspect won't be long.

S/he is more obvious in this close-up

Photo by J. Harrington

The preceding more than compensates for the fact that, after a long string of outstanding successes with our sourdough experiments, we hit one that isn't a favorite. We think we know why it's lacking flavor and we won't use that combination again, especially if we go and write it down, right now!

A Caterpillar on the Desk

by Robert Bly

           Lifting my coffee cup, I notice a caterpillar crawling over my sheet of ten-cent airmail stamps. The head is black as a Chinese box. Nine soft accordions follow it around, with a waving motion, like a flabby mountain. Skinny brushes used to clean pop bottles rise from some of its shoulders. As I pick up the sheet of stamps, the caterpillar advances around and around the edge, and I see his feet: three pairs under the head, four spongelike pairs under the middle body, and two final pairs at the tip, pink as a puppy's hind legs. As he walks, he rears, six pairs of legs off the stamp, waving around the air! One of the sponge pairs, and the last two tail pairs, the reserve feet, hold on anxiously. It is the first of September. The leaf shadows are less ferocious on the notebook cover. A man accepts his failures more easily-or perhaps summer's insanity is gone? A man notices ordinary earth, scorned in July, with affection, as he settles down to his daily work, to use stamps.  

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