Lessons Learned

I was making scones for church last night and while the first batch was baking, I was getting the second batter going. I picked up the first egg, and before I knew it, I had GREY EGG GUTS spatter on me and the floor!  I was in total shock. I'd heard the phrase 'rotten egg' before, but not realizing what that meant or implied I didnt know what to do. A few seconds passed and then the smell set in. Oh the smell. Dirk is my go-to guy to help in any major/scary/smelly clean up, so he helped me figure out what to do next. Things were stripped, sterilized, and thrown out. Ugh, it was so nasty. Now I KNOW why chefs on cooking shows will crack eggs into a seperate bowl before combining into what they are cooking. Its not just because they can't crack an egg without dropping some the shell into the bowl. Its because rotten eggs are the WORST.

Lesson learned: Open eggs in a seperate bowl, and dont think that rotten eggs are a myth. They are real, and they stink.

I've mentioned that we have a herd of catterpillars that are in their cuccoons right now. Well, the deal is  you buy the collapsable cage that looks like a small springy laundry basket (My kids like to wear it on their heads and pretend to be robots. Why? Because they are 4 and 2 years old.), and you send off for the catterpillars. When they finally arrived they were little guys all scurrying around the little cup they came in. The cup has all the food they need, so they stay in there until they spin their cuccoons. They grew a lot and slowed down their movements over the next week or so, and then one day they were all mysteriously in their coccoons.

As owners of the butterflies(Can one really 'own' a butterfly? HA. I kid. Of course one can.)our only job is to move them into the aforementioned butterfly cage while they are coccooning* and affix the small piece of gauze that they are hanging from to the wall of the cage with a safety pin. We have been meaning to do this for a while. 6 days to be exact. I knew we needed to do it, but it kind of intimidates me so I was hoping Dirk would do it. I wasnt too worried since I knew we had 'about 2 weeks' like the information sheet said. But, I think the neophyte butterflies knew it was Easter and came out today to celebrate--or at least one did. When we came home today, one little baby butterfly was hanging from the gauze still inside the original cup. It was exciting and annoying. Two weeks my foot.

I'm sure she** was a little annoyed too, wonderously emerging from her little coccoon only to find out that she was still in the same container that she started from. There wasn't even room to open her wings without hitting the other coccoons. What a letdown. The others will be opening soon, and we watched one vibrate pretty fiercely for a while so I know that one will probably be next.

The lesson here is: Its not always cool to be the first butterfly to emerge. The next ones will have the whole cage to fly around in instead of the tiny cup.

I should mention that the kids are very excited about these butterflies. Its really fun to see their faces light up. Titus doesnt really know what he's looking at, but its still exciting. Naomi squeals with delight when she slowly opens and closes her wings. Josiah talks to her telling her to eat the food we've put in the cage for her. So far she's opted for the catterpillar food still in the cup. Maybe she's still annoyed at us for forgetting to move her out before her big reveal.

*made up word.
**I have no idea what gender 'she' is, and I dont care to wikipedia it.