The last couple of days have been warm and sunny, the breeze as refreshing as a glass of perfect ice tea. I have been trying to heard the brood outside to soak up some vitamin D (or is it vitamin K?) and encourage growth spurts. Yeah, that is why I want them outside instead of inside.
Youngest Daughter (we can call her Elianah,) is becoming quite the bug psychopath. Frightened neighbors are starting to call her Worm Killer. I passed by a newspaper in the local sportsmen store listing my sweet cherub on the Fisherman's Most Wanted for being a heartless bait killer who smothers her helpless victims by gathering them together in dump trucks and making beds of rags and towels for them. It is being labeled as the Night Crawler Massacre. The newspaper wondered if it would ever end.
I have no answer for them.
Along with the surfacing of worm kind, the spiders are out too. Now, I don't mind saying spiders don't bug me very much. A writhing mass if wiggling anything bugs me, use your imagination here because I am too frail to contemplate the insect world beyond actually writing "writhing mass." That is just gross. But spiders benefit the world by eating things spawned by the mass, and that is a lovely thing. So when I see an arachnid in the house I gently move it outside, and if I can't reach it, I ignore it. Really. Oldest Son (sometimes known as Jonathon or Homeschool boy) and I saw a fingernail sized specimen on the window just yesterday. We went over to examine it. The hunting spider was small and fuzzy, with white markings. Very interesting. I grabbed the handy-dandy science magnifying glass.
"Wow Mom, I can see it's black eyes, and the fangs. Cool. Do you think it is a jumping spider?"
"No, look, it is trailing a web, jumping spiders don't do that." I think I know everything.
"Look, it is moving its teeth!"
"I'm not sure those are fangs, they look almost blue to me. And those little arms in front are the pedipalps, not the fangs. See, look closer."
The little spider is moving back and forth. A couple times, the front legs lift and moves those little leg-like pedipalps at us. "Oh, its waving at us," I say in delight.
Jonathan moves in closer to see. We both almost have our noses against the round lens of the magnifying glass.
PHOMP! The spider jumps on to the glass! I screech. Jonathan yells. The spider slips over my hand and down on to the ground.
I hand Jonathan the science tool. "Here, I'm going inside. I have to change."
"Change what?" He wants to know.
"My---" I don't tell him. It rhymes with underwear though, in case your guessing.
And I bet you saw that coming.
Oh, and aparently, someone dared tag me. So I will have to do that too.
Youngest Daughter (we can call her Elianah,) is becoming quite the bug psychopath. Frightened neighbors are starting to call her Worm Killer. I passed by a newspaper in the local sportsmen store listing my sweet cherub on the Fisherman's Most Wanted for being a heartless bait killer who smothers her helpless victims by gathering them together in dump trucks and making beds of rags and towels for them. It is being labeled as the Night Crawler Massacre. The newspaper wondered if it would ever end.
I have no answer for them.
Along with the surfacing of worm kind, the spiders are out too. Now, I don't mind saying spiders don't bug me very much. A writhing mass if wiggling anything bugs me, use your imagination here because I am too frail to contemplate the insect world beyond actually writing "writhing mass." That is just gross. But spiders benefit the world by eating things spawned by the mass, and that is a lovely thing. So when I see an arachnid in the house I gently move it outside, and if I can't reach it, I ignore it. Really. Oldest Son (sometimes known as Jonathon or Homeschool boy) and I saw a fingernail sized specimen on the window just yesterday. We went over to examine it. The hunting spider was small and fuzzy, with white markings. Very interesting. I grabbed the handy-dandy science magnifying glass.
"Wow Mom, I can see it's black eyes, and the fangs. Cool. Do you think it is a jumping spider?"
"No, look, it is trailing a web, jumping spiders don't do that." I think I know everything.
"Look, it is moving its teeth!"
"I'm not sure those are fangs, they look almost blue to me. And those little arms in front are the pedipalps, not the fangs. See, look closer."
The little spider is moving back and forth. A couple times, the front legs lift and moves those little leg-like pedipalps at us. "Oh, its waving at us," I say in delight.
Jonathan moves in closer to see. We both almost have our noses against the round lens of the magnifying glass.
PHOMP! The spider jumps on to the glass! I screech. Jonathan yells. The spider slips over my hand and down on to the ground.
I hand Jonathan the science tool. "Here, I'm going inside. I have to change."
"Change what?" He wants to know.
"My---" I don't tell him. It rhymes with underwear though, in case your guessing.
And I bet you saw that coming.
Oh, and aparently, someone dared tag me. So I will have to do that too.
