That's an enticing title, isn't it? :-)Well, Anna's science teacher at school is apparently a little bug-happy. She does this 'bug project' every year where the kids have to collect 40 different kinds of insects, kill them in such a way as to leave their little bodies in-tact, and then identify them and pin them to a board and label them all. Oh, yay... you can imagine my excitement at getting to help with THIS project! Please keep in mind that I don't like to kill things... if you have any doubt about this, scroll back to the very first post I ever put on here about a cricket and you will believe me. ;-) Well, apparently my daughter has this same tendency - we're both either too tender-hearted, or possibly it's just too squemish... ha.
Anyway, I was pretty excited a few days ago when I happened upon an already dead, but still in-tact wasp on our back porch. And not long after that, I found a nice dead beetle of some sort to go with that. Both are still sitting on a paper towel on my kitchen table awaiting pinning. (This might also clue you in to the fact that we're never all home at dinner time any more these days, so the kitchen table is now being used for science projects!) We hit a bit of a snag when Anna spent a considerable amount of time catching a fly in a mason jar - only to set it free the next morning when she saw it still had not died overnight and was really wanting out. (poor fly) I knew right then that we might be having to talk to the teacher about another way to accomplish this project! ;-) ....umm... can we take pictures of bugs? please?
Well, this weekend we spent a couple of days at the lake with Jack's family and lo and behold, who knew that a bunch of kids (and adults!) could have so much fun finding different kinds of insects to capture and freeze to death. (this became our preferred 'humane' way of euthanizing our bugs) We all ran around with plastic sandwich baggies just waiting to spot the next 'cool bug.' I think the prize for the best bug has to go to the capture of a bumblebee. Jack caught it once, but it managed to get away from him. Then it made the mistake of coming back, where it was whacked and stunned with a paddle by my nephew, Carter - it fell into the water just off the dock where it was scooped up in a cup by my sister-in-law, Deb. Jack poured it, water and
all, into a sandwich bag that he had bit a small whole into, and then managed to drain out the water without losing the bee this time! And after all that, it was still alive! (ick!) So all Anna had to do was take it up to the freezer, but when she picked up the bag, it started buzzing and moving around so she quickly handed it over to her cousin Taylor, who managed to get it in the freezer for her. (whew!) In all, I think we came home from the lake with 29 bugs - and thank goodness, because now at least that part of the project is almost done! :-)
So, now I have a paper towel with a dead wasp, beetle, and a large horse fly (forgot about that one until I passed them a little while ago), along with a garbage bag full of a variety of dead insects sitting on my kitchen table. I can hardly wait until we start getting them all out and learning how to pin them to the foam board. (woohoo!) I'm sure there'll be pictures to come from all of this... and I'm also sure that was more than anyone wanted to know about catching bugs! :-)
Well, this weekend we spent a couple of days at the lake with Jack's family and lo and behold, who knew that a bunch of kids (and adults!) could have so much fun finding different kinds of insects to capture and freeze to death. (this became our preferred 'humane' way of euthanizing our bugs) We all ran around with plastic sandwich baggies just waiting to spot the next 'cool bug.' I think the prize for the best bug has to go to the capture of a bumblebee. Jack caught it once, but it managed to get away from him. Then it made the mistake of coming back, where it was whacked and stunned with a paddle by my nephew, Carter - it fell into the water just off the dock where it was scooped up in a cup by my sister-in-law, Deb. Jack poured it, water and
all, into a sandwich bag that he had bit a small whole into, and then managed to drain out the water without losing the bee this time! And after all that, it was still alive! (ick!) So all Anna had to do was take it up to the freezer, but when she picked up the bag, it started buzzing and moving around so she quickly handed it over to her cousin Taylor, who managed to get it in the freezer for her. (whew!) In all, I think we came home from the lake with 29 bugs - and thank goodness, because now at least that part of the project is almost done! :-)So, now I have a paper towel with a dead wasp, beetle, and a large horse fly (forgot about that one until I passed them a little while ago), along with a garbage bag full of a variety of dead insects sitting on my kitchen table. I can hardly wait until we start getting them all out and learning how to pin them to the foam board. (woohoo!) I'm sure there'll be pictures to come from all of this... and I'm also sure that was more than anyone wanted to know about catching bugs! :-)
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