What random thoughts I have swirling in my mind. Today on my way home from a friend's, I got thinking in the car about all of the fun things I can do when I open my day-care.
Bug boxes came to mind.
I used to love collecting any little creatures from spiders to toads, ants and potato bugs and my favourite of all- salamanders! Mostly I would house them in baby jars or margarine containers. My attempt at keeping them in their natural habitat would be to yank out some strands of grass from the earth and viola! Home sweet home! I am sure it would have been more advantageous to feed them, water them and give them some breathing holes! I always forgot those details and would often wonder why they didn't live past a few hours. Poor little critters!
My biggest and most successful achievement was an old mandarin orange box that I transformed into a small landscape for my salamander collection. I put lots of dirt in there with a little pond of water. I couldn't determine their food source so I just gathered whatever I could think of that might appeal to them. Crushed up potato chips, ants, grass, beetles, etc. I looked after them for several weeks and they were thriving! I was amazed! I considered myself to be one great care-taker. It was the highlight of the summer for me. Waking up in the morning, I'd run out to greet my friends in the garage! After a few weeks, the novelty wore off and I became pre-occupied with something else. That happened a lot when I was a kid. I forgot about my friends in the orange box and God knows how long it was before I went back for them! They were all dried up and resembled the hard & stiff, plastic toy lizards I had inside. I felt so ashamed!
After remembering this story, I don't think I could ever encourage taking little creatures as hostages! I just couldn't stand it.
On to the next idea.....
2 comments:
My o my, you have triggered some incredible memories that have been long since locked away. My critters were crayfish from the local river - someplace we were not supposed to be. But we were hunters, big white hunters that no one could conquer. Thanks for the memories. J.
hey, you could always buy little plastic replicas at the dollar store and do a little show and tell. bugs,frogs,and other creepy crawlers are abundant there!
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