Spring has zipped right into summer and the boys are outdoor explorers once again.
I bought little notebooks at the Dollar Tree last week. I thought they could use them as their Nature Journals. They’re small and easy to pop in their pocket for their outdoor explorations.
As soon as they’d personalized their notebooks, they headed outside to hike the swales and search the property for something new to record.
Joe hopped on his scooter and hunt for milkweed.
Jake waded through the tall grass searching for carrots.
They both enjoyed showing me what they’d found and recorded in their journals.
Last night, while hunting for wild mulberries, we made quite the discovery.
“Mom! Come here and look at this! Hurry!”
Joe was by a large milkweed bouncing on his toes. “Look! A monarch butterfly caterpillar!”
Jake, who’d been hunting for carrots again, ran over to join us. He was just as excited as Joe and both boys recorded the find in their journals.
We contemplated putting it in our bug house, but ultimately decided to leave it in its natural habitat and observe it daily.
Joe added more detail to his milkweed drawing on the spot.
We continued on our trek through the swales, once again in search of wild mulberries.
Today, when my nieces came over, the boys could hardly wait to show them the caterpillar. As I finished making a fresh cup of coffee, Joe burst in the house with some sad news…the caterpillar had been killed.
“A spider is eating it right now!”
He was shocked. Angry. Absolutely heartbroken. This spider had destroyed his monarch butterfly caterpillar.
I followed the crew to the milkweed to see the carnage for myself.
It was a sad and gruesome sight. Joe wanted to get rid of all the spiders.
“This is how nature works buddy. Why don’t we find out more about this spider?”
He perked up a little bit at that, but I think he was more eager to find out its weaknesses so he could retaliate. Either way, the distraction worked.
We spent some time looking at pictures of spiders on the internet. One was too brown, another too small. We searched and searched, comparing our picture of the predator with the Google results until…we found it.
The Crab Spider had eaten the caterpillar.
“Now that we know what it is, we can research it. Find its weaknesses.”
“Ok Mom. But right now I’m going to go find frogs with the girls.”
Just like nature, a little boy’s moods can change in an instant. Something new pops into their mind…and they’re off on another adventure.
A world of danger
A world of discovery
A world of wonder
a pinch of homestead 
