One Friday night, as my helper went out to throw the garbage, we heard her scream! It wasn't the kind of "Help me, I am being attacked" scream but something else. So hubby hurried out first followed by the kids, and then moi (not because I was afraid, but I was upstairs getting ready to go out).
I saw the four of them huddled around my flower plant (don't ask me for the name of the plant, because I don't know) and then my helper pointed out the bald parts! My goodness, I got a shocked as I saw the many stems without the leaves and flowers. The plant, quite a big sized matured one, was being attacked by tens of caterpillars!
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| Fat and juice caterpillars found. This is as long as one's third finger! Just look at the evil eyes! |
I dare not say hundreds, but we easily caught more than 20 that night and threw them 1km away near the bushes so they can continue their buffet (but with a different spread). When we got back after cell meeting, we continued our midnight rendezvous to pick out more caterpillars. We used the light from our smartphones and a big torchlight (my Christmas present from father-in-law which always comes in handy, haha) to help in our search.
We found easily 10-20 more, then decided to call it a night after locking them up in a container (with holes for ventilation).
For the next few days AND weeks, my helper continued to find and pick out more caterpillars, all of different sizes. We tried garlic spray on them but it didn't work, and another time I decided to make my own concoction of neem oil spray on the plant, but that burned many parts of my plant. The plant looked miserable, so finally I decided to chop it off and leave the roots in, hoping that it will grow again. Alas, it didn't!
In between all these, we kept the caterpillars that we caught in two containers and some eventually turned into cocoon-like, but later died. It looked really scary and geli too. A pair of wooden disposable chopsticks were our only tool to "touch" them.
One day, Gong Gong came to visit and left a word of wisdom to my helper, that the containers should be left open for more ventilation. So she obediently did. The rest of us, by then, lost most interest and enthusiasm over these worms.
When one turned brown and into cocoon-like again, we thought nothing much about it, as many previously died after a while. My helper kept checking on it by jabbing it with the chopstick to check if it was alive!
One night, we discovered the cocoon has opened! Everyone got so excited to see the new butterfly. I was very curious to see it's glorious colors, but alas... it looks like this...
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| One day old! |
William had the honor to pray for it before we released it in our humble garden that night. I think he prayed something like God to take care of it, and may the butterfly come back to visit us again....
The next day, the kids checked our flowers and happily discovered Ms Butterfly (or is it a moth?) hanging around...
Well, that's the end of the story... after nearly 1.5 months, two plants and many dead predecessors... this one made it!
Then came the tadpoles...
One evening the kids were cycling at the park near our house and there was a puddle of water. As we needed to slow down and get around or jump over it, we noticed there were many many tadpoles swimming in the puddle. The kids said they wanted to rear them and daddy... aah, good ol' daddy will always try to oblige them. As for mummy, the thoughts of caterpillars and tadpoles that will grow into frogs (and no prince charmings) is too yucky for me, so I played no part in this.
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| After dinner the next day, daddy and Victoria dugged up the tadpoles from the park |
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| There were so many of them! |
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| And some grew into this big in no matter of time, with a little leg growing. We fed them small fish food |
Since they were growing fast, daddy said they have to be released back into the "wild" so they can feed on other insects and mosquitoes. With that, one evening we took a drive in Daddy's car to a designated spot where there's always water (thanks to Syabas laziness to fix a burst underground pipe) and released them there.
Guess who had to sit behind with the tadpoles?? That's the only role I played I think... besides holding the torchlight here - from the comfort of the car!
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| Bye bye taddies... |
