Back for the Summer- and Caterpillars!

My apologies to the two people who read this blog, I'm sure you've been in such suspense for the past post-less months. It's the beginning of summer, I have a new computer, and I'm ready to blog!

Two days ago I went outside to water my "garden." It's a collection of 5 plants and a dozen or so miniature cacti on my balcony, but I'm pretty sure it qualifies as a garden. I hadn't watered the previous evening and since it's 175 degrees here now and the plants are up high in the wind, they have to be watered every day or they just look sad. So I fill up my watering can (you get to use quaint items like this when your plants are on a balcony instead of in a yard), head out, and just look at what I found!

Adorable caterpillars casually visiting my garden

Wow! A few wonderful little creatures to brighten my morning! I looked closely at them, then noticed something more sinister. Over half the leaves of my dill plant were missing! Upon closer inspection there were also SEVERAL more of the insects- 17 total, in fact.  Regardless of how cute they may be, that is A LOT of caterpillars, and that many caterpillars certainly can decimate a plant. What happened to the caterpillar who spent and entire day eating through one apple, then two pears? That guy at least left something behind!

Evil insect using my well-watered herbs for his own selfish interests

Small, but a few more hours and he'll be twice this size

Sigh. As much as I'd like to disparage him, this fellow is beautiful.

 After counseling with my grandmother about what I should do with the caterpillars (with my grandfather in the background: "Pull them off and squash them") I decide to remove them from the plant, put them in a vase filled with leaves, and cover it with tulle (I KNEW I bought that tulle for a reason!). My long term plan is to find a bush they like and put them there to continue their life cycles, far away from my herbs. Being a pre-k teacher, I already knew that caterpillars' defense mechanism is a green, smelly liquid, but I was still surprised to actually see it! Turns out all those picture books were right! It also turns out that caterpillars do not take kindly to being forcibly removed from their chow-stations by a spoon and (carefully) dropped into a vase. There was some of their slime on the edges of the vase, some on the concrete outside, and yes, it was a bit smelly.

Directly after their traumatic removal

Since I was on my way to a class and really needed to leave, I ran downstairs and pulled some leaves from the nearest bush, stuck them in, and covered the vase. I put the vase outside on a table, just in case. They're cute and all, but I wasn't sure that I want them crawling all over my apartment.

When I get home, those picky little suckers are just sitting there in the middle of uneaten leaves! We'll see what happens. I'm not sure if the principle of "if they get hungry enough, they'll eat what they're offered" applies to caterpillars.