Early this spring my 8 year old was working on an impromptu leaf collection. As she was busily gluing her leaves to paper, she came across one that had several small eggs on it. At first I told her to go put it back outside, but then I thought “Well, now isn’t this a perfect ‘homeschool’ moment?” So instead, we stuck the leaf into a mason jar, hoping to hatch some caterpillars that would grow into lovely butterflies. It did occur to me that perhaps something undesirable would hatch, so instead of the traditional “stab holes in the lid” (you know…holes big enough for icky bugs to crawl out of…) I cut up an old sock and put over the top and then secured it with the lid band. Breathable, yet enclosed!
We stuck our jar up on a shelf in the kitchen and waited. We checked every couple days for awhile, then kind of forgot about. One day I realized it had been nearly a week since we checked, so we got it down.
Well, it certainly wasn’t butterfly eggs. I’m still not entirely sure what the heck hatched out, but I think that they might have been ticks. We didn’t keep the creepy crawlies around long enough to find out. I freaked out and had dh wrap the jar up in bags and put it in the trash at the end of the driveway. Thankfully I had thought to secure the lid so that whatever hatched couldn’t get out, because they were definitely small enough to get through holes, and boy, a tick infestation in the house doesn’t sound like fun, now does it?
Next time, we’re identifying eggs before we hatch them!
Do you have any stories of “homeschooling gone wrong” to share?
Katie lives in Indiana with her three daughters and her husband, and blogs at Just Another Catholic Mom.
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We had one of those moments last year when we hatched chicks. One of them looked "maimed" from the beginning. After describing it over the phone to our chicken-expert-friend she said it was probably just a harmless "such-and-such" and not worry about it. But a couple of days later, the chick died. It was very traumatic for all of us. I was ready to get rid of the chicks at that instant. My husband, of course had great fun with the whole situation. (I blogged about it in this post: http://dearabbi.blogspot.com/2008/05/living-and-theumnon-living.html ) It was definitely one of those "what in the world am I doing this for?" homeschooling moments. :)
Glad you didn't end up with the a tick infestation!
Oh no!
I will never forget the time my husband and I went hiking and I looked down to see that my white shoes were now covered in something black. Upon closer inspection, I found they were baby ticks! I ran out of those woods so fast! My husband and I then took off our socks and shoes and tried to get them off. It didn't work. We actually left them at the park! LOL!
Luckily, none of the ticks got past our mid calf area.
That was the last time I went hiking!
LOL I would probably have done the same thing.