We are a sad family today

Last night we lost one of our chickens, Lillian.

She'd been acting off for a few days so we brought her inside to comfort her.

It happened so fast, the boys were there, not really understanding what was happening.

Not until we buried her.

Its been a long time since I've dealt with the loss of a pet.  Guiding my boys through this is a completely new experience.  Aiden is completely unfazed and wants a new one.  Evan is sad and confused, he seems to be understanding what death means.

For Lilly, one of our most loved girls, we'll miss you...

The Big Green Caterpillar

My husband walks in the other day and says "There's a huge grub worm out in the front yard.  Its as big as my hand!"

This I gotta see.

I walk out, camera in hand, and we find this under the big tree in the front yard.

A big, fat, green, caterpillar.  I haven't seen one of these since I was a little kid.

The boys thoroughly inspected it... they were fascinated by its suction cup like back feet.

We took it inside with some leaves and sticks. After doing a little research online and realizing it would be 9 months before this guy turned in to a butterfly we decided not to keep it.

Dad's suggestion of feeding it to the chickens was met with a round of horrified "NO"s.

We did attempt to cast it in our next lego Star Wars movie.  A seemingly perfect Jabba the Hutt.

 

Despite being fed a full dinner of leaves his performance was less than spectacular so we said our goodbyes and returned him to the tree we found him under.

 They named him Sparkle Wormy before releasing him.  My kids are soooo creative at naming things.

We watched him inch his way slowly up the tree (a good 15 minute trek).  I'm sure when the boys see a butterfly next they will be convinced it is their caterpillar.

They will probably change its name to Sparkle Butterfly.