Devin was working his bootie off in the ER today so the kids and I did more yard work and ate a million popsicles. In fact I made 2 trips to the store to buy some:-)
Summer officially starts for us today, although school will be in session until Journee finishes up Algebra and Quinn finishes Biology. The young kids will be reading each day as well. Seriously, it's too hot to be out until dusk so why not stay busy?
This evening I was walking around picking up toys (and popsicle wrappers) when I found this hanging on the side of the house.
Yes, there are "helpful" spiders. I remember when I was young (guessing 12) my grandpa and I spotted a HUGE spider on the side of my parents' house and I told him to squash it. He refused, telling me what type of spider it was and that it ate poisonous spiders. I bet my grandpa would know what that ugly one there is.....ya'll let me know if you do! Right now it just looks like a carniverous spider.
I also went to feed my honey bees, the ones I took from a friends house. They are queenless and I put them in a 5 frame nuc with a frame of eggs and capped brood from the neighboring hive. They should raise a queen within a month. I decided to feed them some. Well, lookie what I found out there on a hive.
So.....anyone know what this is? I will try and look it up later. I have never seen one, but it was good practice to photograph with my macro lens.
Finally........
I am considering locking him in his room until he's 18 and in the meantime taking up a career in entomology.
ok i saw that twiggy caterpillar whilst walking my dog in the countryside of western australia!
ReplyDeletelooks the same except the twigs were going round the caterpiller like a hexagon shaped cocoon....but the little face is the same!
my boyfriend dont know what is is and your the only thing i found on google that resembles what i found - how strange!!!
Bekah...
rebekahsheppard@hotmail.co.uk
ok me again!
ReplyDeletedid some more research and found out that it's a bagworm moth at a larvea stage!!! i copied and pasted the info below that i found for you..
The Bagworm (Thyridopteryx ephemeraeformis) is the larval stage of a moth that is reported to feed on over 100 different plants. The first stage larvae feed on the leaf surfaces leaving small areas where the epidermis has been removed. Older larvae consume entire leaves. Late in the Summer, when caterpillars are large and consuming a lot of plant material, branches can begin to appear defoliated. Their distinctive 1.5 to 2 inch long spindle-shaped bags are carefully interwoven using silk and bits of leaves and twigs from the host plant resulting in a well-disguised covering.
Very small caterpillars can spin strands of silk to be carried by the wind, an activity called “ballooning”. Larger larvae may crawl to adjacent plants.
Awesome! Thank you so much for the information. I was never able to figure out what the little creature was and I have not seen another one at all! Do you see many of them there where you live?
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