caterpillar hunting

After we saw our friend Jonah’s collection of 6 or so monarch caterpillars he found in Valley Forge Park, we had to head over there ourselves to hunt for some. The kids loved the idea of catching them and watching them make coccoons and hatch, etc. Since Jonah’s family made it sound simple to find them, we headed over there, each manned with a bug box. We stopped at one section of the park, found one unknown spiky looking caterpillar, some daddy long legs, a couple roly polys, as well as mosquitoes and some poison ivy. The kids were not happy with that. So, we called Jonah’s family and got more instructions–oh, keep driving. Go find the milk weed in the meadows, they are all over them. So, we did that, found the milkweed, and looked and looked and found nothing except a random strange rodent skull (which we had to bring home and have yet to identify–the mystery makes it more appealing at this point). Eventually, the scene was Mark and me in a field of grass and weeds over our knees looking under every milk weed leaf while all three kids sat in the car and asked when we could go home. So much for the caterpillar hunt. At least we found one. It will probably hatch into some hideously ugly moth. Oh well. We did get this cute picture of Ashlyn though (and, yes, I realize that most of the pics I post are of Ashlyn rather than the boys. But, she enjoys getting her picture taken unlike the other two).