We took the kids on a hike in South Mountain yesterday. Because it's cooled all the way down to 100 degrees. Without humidity, it's actually bearable! It's time to go outside again!
It turned out that our family hike yesterday coincided exactly with the Annual Juicy Yellow Caterpillars' Migration Across the Trail Convention. We hadn't gone 10 feet into our hike when Lizzie screamed. She'd almost stepped on a bright yellow, 4 inch larvae wriggling across her path. We studied it for a while, and then moved on, bragging to passersby that we'd found wildlife. It wasn't long till we saw another caterpillar, same color, almost as juicy. This time we looked in the brush on either side of the trail and realized that the whole mountainside was crawling with these things, and they all seemed to need to travel directly across our path to get to the southern side of the trail.
So we spent the rest of the time dodging wrigglers, counting the "spwished" ones (Ivy), and threatening whining children that complainers must slurp down the next live caterpillar we found.
Also spied on our hike: an eagle, a large lizard, an inch worm, a couple huge dragonflies, crickets and grasshoppers.
It's good to be outside again.
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3 comments:
It is so funny to me that just as you start venturing out of doors again, we start boarding things up and staying in for the next 8 months. Hmm... even with all that heat, I think I'd take Arizona.
Where are the spwished caterpillar photos?
Wow - Brooke wouldhave LOVED to be on that hike! All we do at the bus stop is pick up roley poleys ...EVERY morning! The girl is obsessed with bugs!
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