Posted on

The Very Hungry Caterpillars

I thought I would be a good mom, you know, one that embraced her children’s interests and science and nature and said “yes” once and awhile, especially since this is my oldest’s last summer before kindergarten. But. Oh. My. God.

Three weeks ago, we spied butterfly eggs, helplessly lying on the leaf of my daughters sunflower plant. The plant my daughters raised from tiny sunflower seeds, given to them in a party bag, the seeds they lovingly shoved into a weird puck of hard packed dirt, the plants that had already survived the dutiful over-watering of a five and three year-old, their “gentle” hands, several drop and spills and an aphid infestation. They likely wouldn’t survive a hundred hungry caterpillars. Seriously, why this plant?

Unbeknownst to me, they built a caterpillar Tupperware terrarium and scraped the eggs from the leaf into the container. I warned them they were unlikely to live.

They placed the container on the counter and studied its contents each day. Nothing happened. Just as they were about to be written off completely, and the dirt deposited back into the earth, they popped out of the eggs and a very tiny caterpillar climbed up the side of the container.

I thought I knew what I was doing, I had read Eric Carle’s, The Very Hungry Caterpillar after all — a deceptively short book.

I cut off a couple of sunflower leaves and placed them gently into the container. With a piece of grass I carefully dropped each very tiny caterpillar onto the leaves, sprinkled on a few tiny water droplets. The three of us, mesmerized, peered into the container. I warned them again, it was still very unlikely they would survive.

When they began to nibble tiny holes in the leaf, I thought to myself maybe, just maybe they would be OK.

The next day, my five-year-old daughter asked, “Do wood bugs eat baby caterpillars?”

“Why?” I asked, as my daughter led me to the container and pointed at a very large, very grey, wood bug.

“Take it out,” I said.

“Why?” she asked. I raised my eyebrows and she carefully picked up the wood bug and carried it outside.

Google confirmed wood bugs do, in fact, eat baby caterpillars — which might explain why there were less caterpillars than there were yesterday. How did parents even parent pre-Google?

“There’s two,” she informed me, “There’s another wood bug somewhere under the dirt.” So again I warned them, the caterpillars were unlikely to survive.

The following day, I took a head count: One missing wood bug resurfaced, three wilted leaves, nine tiny caterpillars, a plethora of caterpillar poo and one clump of quinoa — they like to watch them while they eat.

A few days later, none of the caterpillars were moving and I was certain they were all dead. They weren’t. The quinoa had sprouted some mold and a tiny little weed curled out from the dirt. They needed a container change — as if I didn’t have anything better to do (but I don’t, I really don’t, because these little guys make her heart happy, so my heart is happy) — I instructed my children on how this should happen, because unlike Eric Carle’s hungry caterpillar, these little guys are highly particular about the food they choose to eat and defaecate on. I encouraged the caterpillars from very wilted leaves and the girls replaced them with fresh ones.

Google assured me my their beloved caterpillars look very much like cabbage worms. Which made me feel slightly less guilty about this unintentional science exploration as all of the websites listed ways to eradicate the pest, rather than care for it.

Two weeks later, there were ten. I don’t know where the tenth came from, it’s much smaller than the others. They poo a lot, by a lot I mean A LOT. They eat a lot. Also they’ve turned orange and black, are very furry, and are most definitely adorable little Woolly Bear caterpillars. Google says they will molt — which makes their heads falling off feel less alarming now — six times before forming a chrysalis. Six. Eric Carle told this story in twelve pages.

The five-year-old says she does not want to set them free at the park, not even just a couple. Instead she gathers a variety of leaves, flowers and sticks from every place we visit — a self-proclaimed caterpillar mom.

With any luck, in a couple months she will be releasing her moths into the wilderness. Around the same time I will be dropping my oldest off at kindergarten — marking the end of a monumental summer of transformation. I imagine it will feel like a combination of “I’m so sad this time is over” and “I’ve waited so long for this” for both of us mothers.

Stay tuned.

Posted on

We Can Do Better. We Have To Do Better.

It’s the end of spring cleaning week, the week our city purges their unwanted items and piles them onto the curb, in hopes that someone will claim our household trash for their treasure. Although it is a mostly green initiative, giving our unwanted items a second chance at life, it’s an impressive display of our wastefulness. The unclaimed items, making up the vast majority, will be conveniently removed and disposed of — never thought of again.

It used to feel like a welcome decluttering, cleansing even, this year feels different. Climate change news stories are circulating through my mind. My step mother pointed at the salal that grows wild on their property, indicating its colour. Salal, a bush native to western North America, is green year round, but now its thick leaves are dark brown and crunchy. Google confirms the browning is not limited to this area. I wonder what that means for the birds and bears that eat the berries, for the creatures that find refuge in their branches and for the mushrooms that grow in their shade. Small ponds are drying up faster than usual, disrupting frogs and salamanders from completing their transformation, dying before they can search for a new place to live. These are just two circumstances I can document with my own eyes. Mother Earth is warning us. While causing the extinction of other species, we are dangerously close to causing our own. My daughters are five, three and five months, I need to do better for them, before Earth becomes completely inhospitable towards us all.

We are not living sustainably, we haven’t for generations. We love our stuff — especially cheap stuff. We were all raised to be good to the Earth. In primary school we all pledged to recycle, reduce and reuse, it all felt so promising and yet it all rings so hollow now. Why didn’t they grab us by the ankles, hoist us into the air and make us watch as they dumped our “disposable” things into the Earth — piles upon piles of it — until our beings filled with dread and we promised to forgo our cheap plastic junk? Why didn’t some Christmas Carol-esque angel guide show us what catastrophe awaited us after decades of careless waste? Maybe they tried and we were too distracted by our things or we just didn’t care. 

We need to add “do without” to the ol’ recycle, reduce, reuse adage. I don’t want to buy anything new, like ever. Although I wish I had made this decision after my hair dryer started smoking in an exhausted defiance of years of overuse, I’m sticking to it. Like everything else, I’ll simply toss it in the garbage, but this time there will be no google search, no amazon order — I’m trying to be better.

We are enslaved to consumerism. We work hard and we earn enough extra money to purchase new things — we “deserve” it. And then we need more, because styles have changed and our cheap broken items have been discarded or our fully functional items have become obsolete so we dispose and shop again, creating a need for more work and fuelling the market for cheap stuff. We have willingly jumped on this giant hamster wheel, specifically designed for us (smart ads) and we run, all while destroying the Earth and simultaneously giving ourselves anxiety, simply because we have too much stuff. Apathy and ignorance are killing us. We have to do better.

What do you think they will say about us, millions of years after our passing — the self induced extinction of humankind? What will they make of us when evolution has breathed life into another self aware species capable of exploring Earth’s history? What will they learn from our mistakes? What will they make of our homes packed with things, right beside other homes packed with the exact same things? What will they make of the fences that separated us, loudly marking what belongs to us, as if this Earth and her kindnesses were ever ours to divide? What will they make of our vast garbage heaps, buried not so discreetly just below her surface? What will they make of our willingness to pollute our Earth for a few dollars or a few moments of enjoyment? 

Humankind, victims of vanity, independent to a detriment and consumed by convenience. 

I can’t make up for years of impulsive purchases, and irresponsible wastefulness, but I can do better right now — so I will. 

Posted on

Another Day at the Pond

Photo by Mélanie Martin

We trudged up the hill, the trees, usually generous, offered no relief from the sun, high in the sky. Rubber boots against black pavement amplified the heat and chafed our bare legs. When did this hill become so steep? It was important that we hurried.

They sighed in loud opposition, as they often do. They didn’t want to be here in the heat of the day, still I urged them forward. It was important that we make it.

Days earlier we had studied the shrinking pool of water. It was much smaller than a few days before that. As the water surrendered to the warming days the pool became more obviously alive. We stirred up the water with a stick and watched as creatures emerged from the murky bottom. I’d always been fascinated by pond life. 

My grandparents owned a beautiful five acre property we loved to explore. My grandfather carefully tended each area, tamed blackberry bushes and proudly toured us around, feeding us the things he found while noting seasonal changes and improvements he’d made. There was a barn that housed a horse and chickens, large gardens and a dilapidated caboose, all the things childhood adventures were made of. But the most fascinating part was the pond. Each Spring, we bore witness to life itself, while observing eggs turn to tadpoles and tadpoles to frogs.

My grandfather cared greatly for his pond and the life within it. He took it upon himself to give it a concrete bottom on one half, I’m sure to ensure that the pond would not dry out before the tadpoles had completed their transformation. It was important to him for these tadpoles to join the loud chorus of adult frogs in the neighbourhood. 

We would venture into the pond, stirring the ground with our boots plunging ice cream pails into the water, excitedly studying each scoop, until our boots filled up with water. We returned to the pond week after week, spring after spring making note of changes.

It’s no wonder I love ponds, this oddity is likely a part of my DNA. Naturally, I was thrilled when we bought an acreage with a pond on it, my kids would love this, they’d have to. If it wasn’t already a part of them, it would be soon.

Routinely we walk our property, appreciatively breathing the fresh air. The walks always move slowly, as we stop for each puddle and collect all of the treasures that catch the eye of my daughters, until their pockets and hands grow heavy, until their legs grow weary.

We religiously study the water levels as cool spring days become warmer. Each year we watch as puddles become captivating ecosystems, wriggling with life. As the days grow longer so does my concern for the well-being of the puddle dwelling creatures that have entertained me so. I cannot bear to let them succumb to the heat of the day. And so we hurry.

They are moments from death. Near victims of the perilous sun, they lay still. Helplessly packed together, their delicate skin is only kept damp by the body pressed against theirs. Survival had sent them to various deeper pockets of the puddle. The ground around them cracked, baking in the heat of the day. With both my hands I carefully scoop them into the bucket. There’s no way to know for sure but they it looked as though they were celebrating this necessary change. 

My four year old daughter drags a net through another puddle, carefully tapping the net on the bucket to release its squirming contents. Tadpoles, salamander efts and dragonfly nymphs cascade out. All natural predators of each other, I pondered if I ought to leave one type behind. Having already interfered with Darwinian survival principles, I decided against throwing off the balance of predator and prey. That and I couldn’t possibly. It was too rewarding rescuing them, imagining all of the creatures happily re-homed in a much larger pond, one able to withstand the summer sun. 

Our two-year-old quickly lost interest and found herself tangled in  a long black berry vine. Even after rescuing, she cried to return to the comfort of our house, dramatically indicating her freshly scratched legs. It was time. We had rescued hundreds. The next large puddle over had several days still before they too would be in dire condition. I made a mental plan to return. 

We headed back down the hill. The bucket sloshed against my leg as I tightly gripped it and our crying two-year-old daughter’s hand. Both loudly complaining now, they were prepared to collapse right there on the road, just minutes from our home. Desperate promises of popsicles in the shade, coaxed them along. 

I carefully let more water into the bucket and left it in the pond, acclimating, under the watch of the weeping willow. After some time my daughters and I went back to the pond to bid farewell to our friends. I slowly tipped the bucket into the pond, some eagerly swam away, some hesitant, clung to the bucket, waiting for more help. They were free. I watched as they began to migrate further into the pond. They had made it. Relieved, I continued to watch as a large salamander crept out of the depths and snatched up an unsuspecting tadpole in its mouth, before disappearing again. And the circle of life marches on, just another day in the pond.

Posted on

Mother Earth

Photo by Adam Edgerton

Our generous host
She offered everything
But we wanted more 
We reached deep down into her being and pulled from within her
Drained her aquifers 
Extracted oil
Mined metals and stone
We sold her soul for wealth
Sold our own by taking far more than we need
Without thanks
Who could blame her when she demonstrates her majestic rage
Still we refuse to listen
She’s fighting us 
The same way our bodies fight an infection 
With fever and chills

-What have we done?

Posted on

Waste Not

I dropped the salt.  I know, I know, it’s bad luck to spill a little salt.  Maybe the bad luck ends when the shaker breaks in half, pouring out its contents onto the counter and the floor, a million crystals mocking my clumsiness, one can hope anyway.  Normally something broken would have been thrown into the trash without a second thought, but not today.  

The night before the shaker broke, a few of us had casually discussed the end of the world, over supper.  Climate change is worsening, but I had somehow remained unaware of just how quickly and just how giant an impact this will have on humanity.  Ignorance turned into a feeling of impending doom as we discussed the worsening fires and lack of rainfall.  Ten years “they” say til we feel the harsh wrath of the earth, thirty years before we are likely fighting for existence.  No one knows the exact timeline, but the idea that there is one that expires at all and quite possibly in our life time is terrifying.  It feels irresponsible not to fix the shaker.  

Not fixing it may have imminent consequences.

As a country we are giving up plastic straws.  I too watched the video of the sea turtle with the straw painfully lodged in its nose, poor guy, but there’s no way sea turtles are constantly doing this and yet for that little guy and maybe a handful of his friends, we are doing it.  There are far more environmentally hazardous and unnecessary things.  Maybe we are just being eased into it, if we survive surrendering our plastic single-use straws, surely we can give more without altering our lives too greatly.  Single-use hangers for example, you only need one set of hangers.  After shopping, you take the clothing off the hanger and put it on a better hanger or into a drawer, where does the single use hanger go?  Certainly not the recycling, they don’t get recycled, believe me, we tried.  

Apparently recycling is just a feel-good activity anyway, to make us feel better about our copious amounts of waste products, as most of it is put into landfills.  

But imagine for a minute that “repaired” became the new trendy.  Our items would gather scars and character from their time with us, creating charming conversation pieces.  For instance:

“Please pass the salt”

“Here you are”

“Oh wow, what a charming salt shaker, what’s her story?”

My in-laws very generously lend us their camper trailer each year for my sibling camp out.  It’s perfect, fully stocked with all the necessities it makes packing easier, sleeping comfortable and undesirable weather bearable.  We made a meal, slapped the food onto the plates and the plates literally fell to pieces, right there on the tiny counter.  Just gave out from the weight of the toddler sized portion of food.  I thought this was next-level thriftiness, which is admirable in itself, but now I’m aware that saving free collectible dishes from Shreddies, circa 1985, is very environmentally friendly.  That dish far exceeded its life expectancy and the in-laws can feel good about having not wasted.  I guess this ought to be the trend.  

Waste not, want not, has long been forgotten, and certainly not well practiced here in the western world, not by my generation anyway.  In an age where things are cheaply mass produced and so easily replaced, that’s exactly what’s happening, replacing and not repairing, often replacing before it’s even required.  I’m guilty, so guilty.  I want to change and it begins today.   

We need to evolve or there may be catastrophic consequences. And I hope that all of our little efforts add up.

So I glued that big old piece of plastic back together.  I might even add some cute tape.  And if you’re ever at my house for supper and see that glued-up, taped-up piece of unwasted plastic, I will tell you about the day I feared for the end of humanity.  At the very least it will remind me to be more environmentally conscientious, to take better care of the Earth that cares for us.  

What’s the greenest thing you’ve done this week?