Chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp...
One afternoon a few weeks ago my yard was generously populated with little girls when I saw a grasshopper jump up and fly a few feet in front of me. Seeing an opportunity to help my daughters not be squeamish about bugs, I caught the hopper and called them over to see it.
After a couple minutes talking about it and showing it to them I encouraged DW to hold it. She tentatively stretched out her hand to relieve me of the grasshopper, and I still haven't gotten it back.
It took very few seconds for her to go from being a little afraid of the bug to being completely comfortable holding it. Minutes later she announced that she wanted to keep it and had arranged for a jar to hold it. Only hours later she'd found - with siblings help - both a name and companions (a cricket and a second grasshopper) for her first victim.
The next day, after a trip to the library to obtain literature on the proper care and feeding of crickets and grasshoppers, she exhuberantly set to the task of providing for her wards. Our formerly unused 20 gallon fish tank now has 8 or 10 grasshoppers in it, along with sufficient food for them and all their potential descendents to the 3rd or 4th generation. However, lately they've received less attention than they did originally.
They're neglected because the crickets stole the show. The crickets live in an old mayonnaise jar. The Jar has been decorated with paper and markers. Decorations include:
- A prominent declaration of ownership
- A warning to leave them alone
- A declaration of love for them
- 4 (!) bouquet holders, for dandylion bouquets
The attention the crickets get I think it partly due to the fact that their container is portable, and that the grasshopper tank is in the garage. But the crickets night-time chirping probably also helps. Crickets are viewed as desirable roommates.
At this point none of the girls have any fear of these insects. When DW was playing with a cricket yesterday and I got my camera out to photograph it, there was a near riot - all of the girls wanted to have a chance to let the cricket crawl on them while I took pictures.
(No, she's not eating it!)
After a couple minutes talking about it and showing it to them I encouraged DW to hold it. She tentatively stretched out her hand to relieve me of the grasshopper, and I still haven't gotten it back.
It took very few seconds for her to go from being a little afraid of the bug to being completely comfortable holding it. Minutes later she announced that she wanted to keep it and had arranged for a jar to hold it. Only hours later she'd found - with siblings help - both a name and companions (a cricket and a second grasshopper) for her first victim.
The next day, after a trip to the library to obtain literature on the proper care and feeding of crickets and grasshoppers, she exhuberantly set to the task of providing for her wards. Our formerly unused 20 gallon fish tank now has 8 or 10 grasshoppers in it, along with sufficient food for them and all their potential descendents to the 3rd or 4th generation. However, lately they've received less attention than they did originally.
They're neglected because the crickets stole the show. The crickets live in an old mayonnaise jar. The Jar has been decorated with paper and markers. Decorations include:
- A prominent declaration of ownership
- A warning to leave them alone
- A declaration of love for them
- 4 (!) bouquet holders, for dandylion bouquets
The attention the crickets get I think it partly due to the fact that their container is portable, and that the grasshopper tank is in the garage. But the crickets night-time chirping probably also helps. Crickets are viewed as desirable roommates.
At this point none of the girls have any fear of these insects. When DW was playing with a cricket yesterday and I got my camera out to photograph it, there was a near riot - all of the girls wanted to have a chance to let the cricket crawl on them while I took pictures.
(No, she's not eating it!)
posted by Harvey at 11:26 PM
6 Comments:
One entomologist even carrys a baby bottle! Daddy-A
Harvey, I thought you got bitten by crickets in Glen Burnie when you were gathering a collection of your own some years ago. Was that something else? Mom
I don't recall having been bitten by a cricket. I do remember the quarter sized spiders (wolf spiders?) that lived in our basement biting someone's hand - I think it was the hand of 10.3.
I'm glad the entomologists (or the entomologists' keepers) had the foresight to separate the grasshoppers and the crickets. Once I mistakenly included a grasshopper in with the crickets I gave our pet chameleons (Curly and Karma). The grasshopper beat Curly and Karma to the table. And then tried to wash its cricket dinner down with chameleon.
Apparently, of four crickets originally placed into the love bottle, only two survived. Pieces of others we're found when the bottle was cleaned out - so crickets will eat each other as well.
Lately, the crickets lplace as the favorite pet has been lost to the most loveable of all garden pests, the slug.
Saturday I asked three girls I saw standin around doing nothing to go clean their room, and was told they were busy with a science experiment - tracing out the paths their slugs made on a piece of paper.
(Apparently its a fast moving endeavor that requires attention every second.)
Slug scientists! That's hilarious! I remember thinking slugs were really great. And then I remember realizing I was wrong.
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