http://picasaweb.google.com/jared.riddle/ParsleyCaterpillars
Parsley caterpillars turn into really pretty butterflies. I wasn't that excited about the notion of keeping the caterpillars, but as you can see the boys went absolutely bonkers. Watching little boys completely fascinated by things that I'd lost interest in re-kindled that fascination in me. Also, it really was cool to see the third cocoon wiggling.
Let me back up. About a week or so ago, we found some bugs chomping our parsley. At first I was annoyed because we already have bunches of little white flies eating our tomato plants and I can't tell if the weeds or watermelon are winning the "battle of neighbor's hill". But on looking at them, all fat and squishy, it made me think of baby cheeks and you can't harm baby cheeks. When the wife saw them, and googled their images she suggested getting a mason jar to keep them in with 'a stick and a leaf to recreate what they're used to' the boys were jazzed.
The boys were very conscientious in providing new parsley daily per the instructions. It only took a day or two for the first one to form a chrysalis and another 2 days for the other two.
Finally this morning when I was getting ready for work, I got to see one of them was already a butterfly and the other was struggling to get out of his cocoon.
Here's the first vid with Sean commentary.
I'd like to put all of the pictures of this morning on this blog, and there are some really good ones but instead I've just uploaded them to picasa for your viewing pleasure.
http://picasaweb.google.com/jared.riddle/ParsleyCaterpillars
You might not be able to tell unless you look at the two photos side by side, but the garden actually has grown. The watermelon is growing up the hill and onto the 'patio' area. The corn is much higher now, almost as high as the fence. In the photo below, you can see the tops are ready to drop pollen to the silk to produce the actual vegetable.
This is the stuff that falls onto the silk shown in the picture below. The corn is going to grow right where that silk is showing. Awesomeness.
Dad told us a story about my little niece that was really cute. She calls a piano a plano so now that's what it will be known as from here on, and we have one now. Hooray! It's not nice or anything, but it was free and I need to find out how much it is to get the thing tuned since we just moved it. I'm hoping we cn have it restored to the point that it's nice to play. Making it nice to look at will be more work than it's worth, so nuts to that.
My oldest son (age 8) is excited to learn how to play, and I'm excited to get him lessons. In fact I've just gotten off the phone with him and made him a deal that if he promises to practice 15-30 min. a day, that I'll buy the books to teach him. I've always felt that having a piano makes a house more of a home. I used to love when my little sister and older brother used to play on Sundays as I was growing up. Ahh nostalgia. My sister had offered to give him free lessons a year or so ago and I expect she'd still be willing.
It was also nice to be able to have that quiet room in the house where it was just the piano, fireplace and couches. We called it the living room although was really more of a sitting room and was always more sedate than the 'family room' or kitchen/dining room which were the other two common areas of the house. Of course with ten kids the sharing of bedrooms was unavoidable as well, so having one quiet room in the house was very welcomed.
I took lessons when I was 5 and 14, but never really got to the point that I could read a piece of music and play it right off. Even hymns are still a struggle for me unless I only play one hand or one note at a time. Still, the few songs that I've learned by heart still give me some pleasure when I sit down. I really should learn to play for real. I think the wife would like it too.
We got some and they're going to turn into beautiful butterflies. Did I already write about this? Well I'm gonna again if I haven't already.
On the parsley in our garden, which by the way we haven't eaten any of, we found some caterpillars. They're green with black and orange spots and super fat like caterpillars are. They looked a lot like the one on "Bug's Life" actually. Meg looked them up online and found out that they are called parsley caterpillars. Go figure.
The boys got really excited about seeing them turn into butterflies so Meg found a mason jar and put them in it with a stick and some parsley then covered it with some nylons. One has already made a cocoon and the other two (did I mention there are three of them?) are starting on cocoons as well. Meg's taken pictures. I'll see if she'll add them to the post here.
We had another ultra-sound today to make sure the baby had all his parts and learned the gender of the baby. It appears that I only produce Y chromosomes becuase 4 for 4 we're having boys. Meg and I are both a little disappointed that we won't get the little dark haired Meg clone that we were hoping for. She took it pretty hard and couldn't be around the other boys for an hour or so. As much as I love my boys, I was really looking forward to experiencing being the daddy in the "Daddy's little princess" equation.
We're grateful that we're going to have a healthy little guy though. This opens up the discussion for a fifth child.
I too enjoyed reading these questions and answers. Alice, can I do them too? Before you say 'no', look below.
What where you doing 10 years ago?
Ten years ago I had just met the girl that became the woman I'm married to. I was in the Army, as were all my best friends. I had just won a "Talent Show" and was feeling like pretty hot stuff. I owned a Blue Toyota truck that was handed down to me by my older brother Ben, and would eventually be handed down to my younger brother Aaron (via my Dad) and from him to my nephew Jack. Still runs.
5 snacks I enjoy:
1. Oreo cookies
2. Mother's Iced Raisin cookies
3. Chocolate No-Bake Cookies
4. My own Chocolate Chip cookies
5. Flan
5 things on my To-Do list:
1. Find out the gender of our baby to be
2. Sell my motorcycle
3. Ride my bicycle to work (on a day I work)
4. Weed the garden, trim back the areas that are inhibiting the growth or our watermelons, seed the front lawn, and plant a flower bed off our back deck. That's all one thing. Really!
5. Check in to a methadone clinic and get clean from the monkey on my back. (Sorry I couldn't think of a 5th thing)
If I suddenly became a Billionaire, I would:
Pay off my parent's mortgage and buy my dad a Cadilac. Take that Ben! I beat you to it ;) . Buy a ranch/farm/compound/commune or island that all the Riddles could live on and that select other family members would be allowed to visit, effectively seceding from the union. We would have a landing strip and a couple of planes for family vacations.
I'd start a Web show chronicling getting fired from different jobs in creative and humorous ways. ie Get a job as a bus driver and drive somewhere completely off the route and eat lunch with passengers still on the bus. Or get a job as the cotton candy guy and label the candies "strawberry navel lint" and "actual cotton, not candy", or just replace one of the candies with real cotton that has powdered sugar poured all over it.
5 jobs that I have had:
1. Family Fun Center (Arcade/Batting Cages/miniature golf)
2. Cell phone dealer
3. KFC Delivery Driver
4. Arrowhead water delivery man.
5. Cutco Salesman
5 things that you may not know about me:
1. I used to write decent poetry
2. Sometimes at night I get so afraid of dying that I actually feel cold.
3. I wanted to be homeless before I went on my mission, or at least I wanted to live in my camper and travel the country with no particular destination in mind.
4. I wish I was a hippy.
5. After a year and 9 months working where I work, I'm still not totally sure what my current job is.
All in all it was a good party. Good cake, soda, hamburgers and hotdogs plenty of swimming and only a few tears.
All the boy wanted for his birthday was a pool party and grandma's house with all his cousins. Easy enough. He also got an AirHog plane, Pool toys, an "Omnitrix" from his favorite show "Ben 10", some Transformers and some tennis balls.
I've been meaning for a long time to try to ride a bicycle to work. Since I didn't know how long it would take so I wanted to do it once on the weekend first. Long story short, I just did. In fact I arrived at work about 10 min. ago. It took me 1:15 aproximately to ride the 11 miles to get here. I had to walk up all the hills, but there were really only 4 total, and only 2 of them were killers.
I'm sure when I get more in shape I'll be able to make it in right around an hour maybe less. But I'm pretty proud that I was able to do what I just did. Meg's here to pick me up but the proof is in the pudding. Here's the picture.
See, that's me, that's my bosses lab bench and that's my bike. Notice how completely drained I look.
And below is the path that I took. It was 11.1 miles. and it was Haaaard. *aside (that's what she said). Sorry I couldn't resist. (that's what she said). I'll stop now. (that's what she said). Ok seriously that was the last time.
View Larger Map
That's what she said.
This is my Garden in completion. Notice the little American flag? It's a very patriotic garden. USA! USA! I'm very excited about this garden particularly because it's the second one I've tried. The first was a miserable failure. The second one I took the advice of people smarter than I am and things actually grew. Go figure.
This part shows the sad little tomato plant, and right next to it, the squash and zucchini that are mocking it with their might. And behind them is the corn which though I know I shouldn't have favorites, the corn is.
My watermelon is doing well too. I have other pictures on my web album that show how each of these plants are already producing small fruit. The fruit is not yet ready for consumption of course, except for some of the tomatoes.
