Garden adventures

After gathering the eggs... We (our eldest girl and I) found 2 enormous caterpillers chomping away at our maters this morning!!! AHHGGAAHHH! GGRRRRRR! So what did we do? We got an comtainer with a magnifying lid, and pulled them off of our plants, of course! You can't just let these things go! And you certainly cannot KILL them! At least not with such an audience.

So into the "cage" they go, with the ruined mater and a few leaves. They seem happy in their prison, as they are currently chomping away again. Each one is as long as my middle finger, wider, and definitely squishier! The yucky things!

We now have a new science project. To see if we can keep them alive. To see what they do in their current state. And to see what on earth they turn in to.

That said, We also found 3 ripe maters, and 4 green ones we pulled off of the vine so they don't split. It looks like the corn is NOT coming up. The sweet potatoes seem to be doing well, though the only real way to tell is to fdig them up, so we'll see come harvest. Our one strawberry plant is over run with weeds, but still hanging on. My peach tree died. My lilac is barely hanging on... something keeps munching on it!

All the children were eager to see the new pets. Even the baby... who when given the container decidedly sniffed it like it was a bouquet of flowers. Then said, Yick. But she sniffed some more anyway. Maybe they are a little like lemons. Worthy of at least a second try?