Let's see, eating, eating, pooping, eating and more pooping. That is basically what's been taking place since the baby Luna Moth's have been born. I started out using a vase to house them. I would just put some Sweetgum leaves in the vase, cover the top with screening (secured with a rubberband) and put them in it. I would have to clean it every other day.

First I used these for housing....

This picture is from 8/31/08.

Well, they are about 1" long now and the boys and I have come to the realization that we needed to construct for the future. Their future specifically. Luna Moth caterpillars get to be 3 1/8" long. Whew! We have 14 of them. Thank the Lord our friend took 5 of them! After reading about them, I found out that they will eat a person out of house and home. We need to make sure we have a readily available supply of Sweetgum which we do.

Anyway, back to the mothhouse that we constructed. We just got wood, screening and plastic. We sawed the wood to size, nailed them all together and stapled on the screen and plastic. That's about it. It is big enough for them to grow into and is easy to clean! Yeah! 

Now this is the life for the Lunas!

Welp, all we do now is watch, measure and observe! What an awesome experience this has been. Biology has truly never been so much fun.....well for me at least. It just fascinates me. God is incredible! Truly!

Fun Fact: Luna Moth adults do not have mouths. They mate, reproduce and die.

On 8/27/2008 @ 7:20 am, which is Day 9 for the eggs, I noticed what I thought to be a small green thing in our container. It was so small and I was half awake so I thought I was seeing things. Sure enough IT WAS A BABY!

When I looked over at the clusters on the screen, there was the same thing. Within a couple of hours, it seems most of them on the screens had hatched. The ones in the container did just as well yet a lot of eggs were still not hatched. The ones on the screen seemed to hatch quicker. Around 10 am I went outside to look and most of them on the screen had fledged. I looked up and they were all off to begin life just like the little spiders in Charlotte's Web. There was a Milkweed Assassin Bug that I had to scare off a couple of times but I could only do so much. I felt like a protective mother.

Aren't they so cute!

Adorable!

By the end of the day, all of the caterpillars in our container began eating voraciously. I put Sweetgum leaves in the container which is one of the leaf variations that they eat.

On 8/28/2008 (today) I have been watching them carefully and knew I was going to have to clean out their container. They grew overnight. In the next six months they will eat like crazy and grow quickly into transparent green and beautifully marked caterpillars. There was a lot of feces, pardon the expression. My goodness AND so much had been eaten!

How cute is this picture?

I love these pictures!! I am a happy surrogate mommy.

I will keep you all posted. Enjoy the pics. I wish I could name them!!

Happy Biology! Thank you Creator!

Josie

One evening I noticed a Luna Moth on the screen outside of our screened in porch. I knew what it was because I had seen them before. Of course, I excitedly told other members of my family but they weren't nearly as excited as I was. I just kept watching and observing when I just couldn't figure out why she wouldn't fly away or react to much of any prodding or such. I told my husband that I thought she might be sick from a pesticide or something. Again, I was obviously the only on completely enthralled in all this.

Well, all of a sudden I noticed that she was sort of like shivering. Just rapidly shaking back and forth. I just could not figure out what was going on.  Well, by that time it had gotten dark and I had to head in for a flashlight. When I went in, I called a friend whom I thought may be as excited as I was. She was pretty much. I went back outside and shined a light on the moth.

It was just then that I realized eggs were being laid. "Wow! I immediately decided to name her Lona the Luna Moth. I quickly went inside to surf the net and learn as much as I could about the Luna Moth and how the eggs develop , etc. The female dies about 24 hours after laying eggs and the male dies after mating. Another ''Wow"! As well as an "Aw"!

I learned that in 10-12 days the eggs will hatch and many, many little green baby caterpillars will be born. Oh, another thing that I learned was that they could be raised successfully in captivity and released. Hmmm, you know what I was thinking. Well, the next morning I did scrape some eggs into a container and we decided that since we were doing biology this year we could use this as a lab. So the documenting began.

Lona finished laying the eggs at 9:30 pm 8/18 2008, so I thought.

Lona

Some of Lona's Eggs

Lona was found in the morning @ 9:00 am on 8/19/2008 in a different spot on the screen laying another cluster. Five clusters of eggs were visible and she barely moved at the last cluster. I petted her but she barely responded.

Lona's eggs the next day 

 Lona laying more eggs!

At 11:00 am on 8/19/2008,  I removed about 15-20 eggs and put them into a container. Lona looks near dead, stuck in the spot where she was laying the last cluster.

Notice: Lona has some marking abnormalities on her right wing.

  At 4:00 pm the boys and I viewed the eggs under the microscope. They looked like small coconuts. They had a lot of what appeared to be hair on them.

At 4:30 pm when I went to check on the eggs I noticed a lizard munching down some of the eggs. Aw! I scared him away. No one was getting our eggs, I tell ya! Again, Lona has not moved from her last spot. I took pictures.

At 10:10 pm I went out to see Lona and she was gone. No where to be found. No where!

On 8/23/2008 @ 2:40 pm no noticable changes in the eggs. In our container or on the screen.

On 8/26/2008 @ 8:20 am no changes in the eggs. No movement.

Yes, this time Sammie has the marker. Jake and I would always do Algebra 1 on the whiteboard together and Sammie would always, some how, steal a marker. Then he would sit there and show us that he had it. He never chewed on it, he just needed possession....not sure why...but he did. CUTE, huh?

Well, he would steal so often that we decided to give him his very OWN marker. We took it apart, took out the inner portion (ink and all) and treated him with it one math day. Never again was there a need to steal! 

So much has happened that blogging it all is surely impractical. So, let's just say that the Lord has so mightily worked in all areas of my life and my family's. We are at such a high point in our walks and getting here was not easy but the rewards are astounding and immeasurable. We never know what the Lord is up to but His plan ALWAYS ROCKS!

I am currently reading "The Bait of Satan", "Confronting Jezebel", my wonderful Bible, "Undercover" and "Blessing Your Spirit". ALL wonderful books but the latter is one of my favorite. Day 19 has spoken to my spirit in so, so many ways. A dear friend shared this book with me, this specific entry, recently and I had to get it. It encompasses the grandiose shaking that we have been prayerfully a part of. Never, have I , ever, prayed so much and been more obedient to the Lord than recently. His thoughts are not our thoughts and our ways are certainly not His ways. Had I not been totally committed to being obedient to Him, I surely would not have chosen the same path which has led to FREEDOM for me.

I have so much to share and write but have got to do my reports for SCAIHS! I am almost done but that surely doesn't count. Oh, I have been painting with a friend who is an incredible and humble artist. She has shared much with me and we have become better friends than the normal good aquaintances that we were. Art and the Lord, as well as our church, are our connections. Oh, our sons, too! What a great summer it will be.

I'll get back to everyone again....pictures next time! I have so many.

God is good ALL the time and ALL the time God is good! I cherish Him more and more every day. IT'S A NEW DAY.        

Blessings,

Josie

   While we were homeschooling one day, the boys and I decided to play Professor Noggin's Science card game, just to mix things up a bit. We sat at our school table and began playing. The boys have a habit of putting our new long-haried puppy Chihuahua, Sammy (Samson) who is 6 months old, on the table  at times. He sits on our books, looks cute and just melts our hearts. Well, this particular day he REALLY made my day and our moment of homeschooling a complete and total, " Thank you, Jesus" moment. We would roll the die and he would pick it up.

  That in itself was cute, however, now we realized he would DROP IT! We got the idea, now, to allow Sammy to roll for us. It was one of the best homeschooling days ever. We laughed, I had a tear well up (which for me is incredible) from laughter, and it was a moment to remember. I told the boys, this is a memory that will linger, for sure. The warmth was beautiful and that of a feeling that only the Lord's presence could be responsible for.

           Thank you, Lord, for those sweet and precious moments.