Cloudy With A Chance Of Worms

The children are having a royal Charlotte Mason day. Throughout the morning and afternoon, their excitement has been building upon itself. First it was the discovery of one black and orange caterpillar. Shortly later, they came back with a bug box of three more. And then, with ever increasing fanfare they were announcing that they had eleven, and that they were everywhere.


Upon this announcement, it was time to look up just what exactly was taking over our front yard. The answer - worms. To be more specific, the Oakworm. They really look like a full blown caterpillar, but a beautiful butterfly body is not in their future. Instead, after feeding on our White Oak tree in the front yard they are dropping off by the tens and crawling all over the driveway and ground to look for a cozy spot to burrow over the winter. It literally looks like and sounds like the sky is falling as they Kamakazie off the tree down to the ground.

I'm in a bit of a pickle myself. Rather than a lovely caterpillar fest, I've got a worm fest eating my tree and burrowing in the ground to do it again next year. But you can't get more in the field! We found a beautiful patch of eggs on a leaf, a worm in the process of shedding it's skin, and of course the migration from host to burrow. Pretty cool...except the whole eating my tree and squishing under my toes part.