Critter Heaven

Ever since it warmed up we've been enjoying the outdoors and Henry and Bea have had so much fun outside finding all sorts of bugs and animals.  The other day a toad hopped past me so I caught it to show Henry.  He was so excited about it that he played with it too much which caused something inside of it to hemorrhage and it eventually died.  It's still in our tomato garden, totally shriveled and Henry still insists that he's just sleeping and shows all his friends.  Poor little thing.  Henry also discovered a tiny wasps nest inside our deck umbrella when he observed a wasp going up into the cover.  We opened it up and found the nest with ten or so little larvae inside.  We kept it for days and those gross little maggots were still moving in there with their little alien mouths begging for food.  It was pretty gross and entertaining.  Then, one morning I noticed that the ants that have invaded our kitchen were piled massively over the little hive, which I left on top of the microwave, and I guess they had finally died and the ants were desperately trying to get what they could from them.  (shudder).  We're working on the ant problem but I don't want to do anything toxic! Any suggestions? 

Just yesterday we caught the most beautiful moth.  It's a Giant Leopard Moth and I think he's on his way out because he put up no struggle when we caught him.  He's the most beautiful moth I've ever seen and he just hangs out on my finger, hanging on for dear life.  He's still alive, but shows no signs of vitality.  One of the most fun things Henry likes to do is take his tennis racket outside and swat the wood boars.  They have such crazy personalities! They love to come right up to your face and hover, checking you out and egging you on like an annoying sibling.  They when you try to swat them away, they skillfully avoid you and then fly right back into your personal space as if to say, "haha, you missed me." Henry's oversize tennis racket, however, is tough to avoid and he hits them quite often.  I always see little wood snowflakes falling down on me as I'm gardening by the deck as they dig their way through the only pieces of real wood on it.  A real bumble bee landed in our pitcher of water the other night as well and after we flicked him out and sent him on his way with a fork, Henry and the other kids were excited to drink the "honey water". 

So far it's all been fun and games but when the Japanese Beetles come to eat my raspberries, the war begins and now I have an organic defense option! I can't wait to use it.  Muah ha ha!