New Baby in the House

I didn't think the moth/caterpillar eggs survived - until yesterday morning, when look what surprised me!


So teensy tinesy. Again, the penny for size comparison. It already has little horns!

Here's the first video I've ever put on youtube (which, for some reason, every time I type, I type "yourube" first. Must be my white trash background. Wouldn't that be a fun site? YouRube.) My apologies for the quality - it was taken with my digital not-video camera.



I was SO worried the little guy (girl?) would starve! I looked up what they like: sumac, walnut, pecan, sweet gum. We have a black walnut tree just down the block from us, so I ran and got some leaves. But how clever! They eat their egg first. Now that's planning. (Or completely random and meaningless, depending on your belief system. Or random and meaningful. I lean toward planning and meaningful and random. I'm open-minded like that.)

Now I need to decide whether to keep feeding it walnut leaves (which is does eat, by the way) or put it out on the walnut tree. I actually walked it to the tree yesterday, then had visions of it becoming bird food, so took it back home after about half an hour hemming and hawing under this tree in a field. I want it to live! Maybe when it gets bigger...? Am I doing it a disservice keeping it 'til it's larger? And more intimidating?

These are things I think about and worry over.