The kids were out this evening prowling around the backyard of our neighbor Bill. The yard is more like a nature preserve; he’s never put in a lawn or anything, and for the third summer in a row it looks like we’re going to have a few thousand square feet of four-foot-high weeds to enjoy.
Aesthetics aside, the kids love bushwhacking around the weeds (they practically need a machete) and today they were catching bugs and sticking them into a pickle jar. Of course they threw a bunch of grass in there as well– the grasshoppers needed something to eat. They were really excited to show me and Laralee their catch: at least twenty grasshoppers and a few roly-polies, all squirming and leaping around inside the jar.
We let them all go before bedtime, with my assurances that they could catch them all over again tomorrow.
Kyra informed me that at her upcoming birthday party (two months away) she’s going to have a “bug catching party” where everyone goes out into Bill’s weeds with their own jar to catch bugs. Whee! I’ll bet all the little girls at the party will get a kick out of that!
